Do we live in a corporate police state?
By that, I mean are we seeing the privatization of public authority (police, courts) and the privileging of property and capital in the prosecution of the law? So much suggests lately that our representative government doesn't represent the 99 percent. We vote. We pay taxes. We sacrifice. But to what end?
By camping in a park near Wall Street, a band of intrepid Americans challenged the status quo and demanded change. They sparked an international movement and would have continued if New York cops -- in riot gear and with batons and rifles -- hadn't torn down the encampment and arrested dozens.
A judge ruled the same day that protesters could return. They did so by the hundreds. The ruling also posed a challenge to Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg, a billionaire, admitted his order came after Brookfield Properties, the park's owner, asked the mayor to end the protests. If the police were not executing state power in the name of the people, in whose name were they doing it?
Bloomberg's order followed a series of police actions. Newspapers in Portland, Oakland, Salt Lake City, Chapel Hill and elsewhere ran photographs in recent days of non-violent protesters squaring off against military-like police forces. In fact, New York followed 18 other cities in a coordinated effort to push Occupationists out of public parks around the country.
Yet the clearing of Zuccotti Park is different, because Zuccotti Park is different. While most parks are public, this one is privately owned. Its owner is one of America's largest commercial real estate firms. Brookfield Properties owns lots of property in lower Manhattan -- and its status among corporate "citizens" is enviable.
When taxes subsidize public properties like parks, the burden is shared. So are the rewards. In some cases, though, taxes subsidize private properties. The burden is shared but the rewards are monopolized. Such is the case with Brookfield and its tenants. In recent years, they have taken more than $174.5 million in public subsidies, according to a think tank that analyzes economic development.
Called Good Jobs First, the nonprofit organization released a report last month about Brookfield's subsidies and much more: "The subsidy figures don't tell the whole story," wrote analyst Bettina Damiani. "There are other economic development programs that Lower Manhattan firms benefit from, but how much is earmarked for a particular firm isn't publicly known."
You don't hear this on conservative talk radio. Protesters cost taxpayers, they say while overlooking the part about the enormous cost of corporate welfare. The difference, of course, is clear to anyone paying attention: In the first, you effectively underwrite your own right to assemble and protest. You win. In the second, you underwrite a private firm's balance sheets. You lose.
What's the takeaway? We live in a country of principles like civil liberties and the rule of law. Power and authority aren't owned. They are shared. But the evacuation of Zuccotti Park and others around the country casts a sickening pall over such ideals. Worse are the media images of the past week, especially in New York where it all began, and what they might suggest.
Cops dressed like soldiers in body armor, face shields and helmets deploying excessive force against peaceful protesters. Such images call to mind dictatorships, not the land of the free.
Perhaps we are merely seeing a duality that has been there all along. On the one hand are the American dreamers hoping for a renewed promise of opportunity, equality and justice. On the other are the guardians of the corporate state accountable no one but the wealthy and powerful.
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This nation was literally founded upon mutual poli-corporate interest to avoid paying taxes. Ironically, their motto was, 'No Taxation Without Representation', i.e., the right of collective bargaining to leverage the lowest possible tax rate. This was not a grievance of people…it was an unconditional demand by the colonial Establishment.
A U.S. railroad wants the 'hostiles' out of their way, so an executive telephones the Governor and the Calvary is dispatched to slaughter some natives. Say workers have gone on strike at the automobile, oil, coal or textile company? the CEO phones the mayor who phones the chief of police who instructs the riot squad to break-it-up.
Since the Boston Tea Party, our State has been a colluding poli-corporate establishment pushing forward their intertwined interests in money and power while invoking the names of God, Patriotism and Security to enlist popular support. A mayor or governor needs company chiefs and executive directors to bring status, perks and taxes into his sphere of influence. Reciprocally, executives need the mayor or governor ensure tax-breaks, community status and police support.
Both entities require the people for consumerism, taxes and pure existence. Without our being, the favors, inside information and hedonistic gifts, shared between government and enterprise, would create them status over no one. Their money and power bear no value except in relation to the poor powerless masses.
The police are necessary to enforce that status quo.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/hoovervilles
Bloomberg needs to keep giving great deals at city expense to the Banksters and their interest groups. It means that Wall Street firms will continue to rent his Bloomberg News terminals at $18K a year each. But the other msm in the city, which has largely looked the other way on Bloomberg's deals, is being forced to do actual reportage on Bloomberg and his powerful friends. This will change the city's narrative on its underhanded chief executive.
Right?
the owners had entered into some shady deal to skirt building codes in one of their other properties and somehow the park became part of the deal.
Obama hasn't once suggested we end free trade with communist China or end NAFTA. Obama has not once suggested we end H-1b work visas. And be has never suggested we make E-verify mandatory.
So his sole focus on jobs is more police to keep unemployed and underemployed people off the streets and unorganized.
If you trace every single detail of my home mortgage I'm sure you can find that somewhere, somehow the public helped me finance, or get a loan, or something. so, does that mean I don't have the right to keep people off my property??
there has to be a line where we respect the right to private property despite what arrangements were made with the government> If you don't create that line than you really are walking down that road to the loss of all our civil liberties.
I have been on the side of democrats recently (I myself am an independent) and have been very annoyed at how easily the word s0cialism has been thrown around. but if you push for government involvement in the private sector AND use that involvement as a justification for eliminating the right to private property, you are going to a place I can no longer support.
So, who has the property rights? The property is technically in the ownership of Brookfield, but was given over to the public and has been maintained by the public money. The public has all the responsibility of the property without the actual deed in hand. Personally, I don't think this situation should have been allowed in the first place. Either you own the property & the responsibility, or you don't.
Basically, this is our corporate world in a nutshell. They have all the benefits of our community, but WE have all the responsibility AND bear the cost.
As for the rest of your post, yes, thats a better perspective and a better argument than the one in this article but my point still remains valid. ownership is ownership. And maybe in specific cases such as this one you can draw some good arguments on either side, but what I'm objecting to is more the line of logic this author is following... not specifically what happened in NY.
This author is following that logic that if there is any public money spent in anything then the laws protecting private ownership cease.
The problem is a contradiction in principle. on one hand you (democrats) want govn't involvement. they want gov subsidies and programs and bailout etc... but they defend this by saying its not socialism, thats its good economics to build a community rather than a bunch of islands. (and I agree) but this authors line of thinking is that as a result of all of that the public has a right to ownership of privately owned land, goods, etc... which IS s0cialism. I'm not just throwing that word around, but there is a point where it does become that.
so... you can't have it both ways. either you want a healthy, smart, responsible relationship between gov and business while maintaining our constitutional rights to private property. or you want everyone to own everything.
When we sell our national assets, we sell our freedom. We cannot protest in parks because the parks are privately owned. More and more of our security is contracted out to private companies who exist for profit. More and more parts of police departments are contracted out.
There have been similar horror stories about selling parking meters in towns, or state highways. Wall Street creates a crash, unemployment goes up, local governement have no money so they sell their assets to the same Wall Streeters who created the crash, then the Wall Streeters increase costs of services to citizens and the squeeze play goes on and on.
Our schools are next. Another reason to break the public unions is to make it easier to privatize all our schools and then we lose our say over what is taught; we lose access to the American Dream
This is not all an accident; we are in a battle for our country--will we be a republic ruled by the many or an oligarchy ruled by the few.
The plan is clear. Are we, the many, ready to stand up and fight for our republic for us and our future generations.
It is now or never
But now the focus of privatization is with K-12 so students can be enslaved at an even earlier age--it is called charter schools paid for with taxpayer dollars for now--parents will have to pay more sooner or later