Big Government or Big Business?

A friend of mine recently asked me a question that I had a difficult time answering until I thought about it some.

I now realize it was a trick question.

He asked me; “would I rather have to deal with big government or big corporations?”

That's like asking me if I would rather be shot with a .45 or stabbed with a bowie knife. Neither, thank you.

And then I got to thinking about what a trick question it really was. Because when you think about it, it isn't an either/or situation – because big business loves big government – as long as big business can control it.

1. Big business loves big government because they can get everyone else to pay their taxes. A number of corporations in this country pay hardly any or no taxes whatsoever. What's not to love.

2. Big business loves big government because they can get big subsidies. Between 2002 and 2008, the fossil fuel industry received over $70 billion in subsidies from the U.S. government (well, really the U.S. taxpayers). Now that's showing some love – for an industry that obviously doesn't deserve it because some of these corporations are making more money than any other in world history – destroying our environment – when there are better options.

3. Big business loves big government because they can get lots of regulations. Not for themselves, of course. For their competition. For example; returning veterans from the Gulf wars with post traumatic stress have many times claimed that marijuana works far better than Prozac, Zoloft, etc. But marijuana is illegal (essentially because it makes you happy). It's certain that the big drug corporations just love the fact that big government continues to keep a more effective (and in some ways less dangerous) competition illegal.

4. And of course, big business loves big government because this exempts them from the free market. If their business is too big to fail, they get a bailout. We need to face the obvious fact; you can't have socialism for the rich if you don't have big government.

Big business and big government go hand in hand. And if anyone on television tells you otherwise, they're lying. Why? Because they work for big business.

We've been living a lie. The whole “Government is the problem” speech was a lie. It was a lie to facilitate the takeover of big government by big business. There has been a coup d' etat. Our American peoples' democratic republic is practically gone. Yet, since the Republican (counter) revolutions, big government hasn't actually shrank. It has just morphed into a huge team of big business yes men. And face it, because of the expensive election process, we only get to vote for big business puppets.

...But big business pretends that isn't so.

Big government is the whipping boy for big business. Big business blames all our problems on big government. But wait a minute here; big business spends millions on controlling big government. (Of course, they make it back in billions.) Over the past few decades, we have all witnessed the lobbyists, the campaign contributions, and the revolving employment doors turn big government politicians and regulators into trained monkeys for big business.

It's time to ask yourself; since big business controls big government, why are they always preaching less government? Because “we the people” still have a tiny sliver of power left, and they want to take that too.

Big business, the corporate oligarchy, the “too big to fail” team wants to keep us in line. They want to keep us from taking back control over our own government. They've been keeping us like mushrooms (in the dark and feeding us BS). And they have framed this all as a liberal/conservative conflict. Because if they keep us fighting amongst ourselves we won't organize to challenge them.

Benito Mussolini, the fascist leader of Italy during WWII, once said: “Fascism is definitely and absolutely opposed to the doctrines of liberalism, both in the political and economic sphere.”

Now, I'm not claiming that everyone who is against liberalism is a fascist. And I'm not claiming that America is anywhere near Mussolini's version of fascism. However, we absolutely need to pay attention to the signs. Our beloved nation has become very militaristic, even outright aggressive. Our economy has become dominated by monopolies. Our government is practically controlled by the (economic) powers that be. And everyone but the super-rich are getting poorer.

Benito Mussolini is also claimed to have said; “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.”

Perhaps we should take a hint from Benito Mussolini. He believed that big government and big business went hand in hand.

Whatever you call it, what we have here in America is not a choice between big government and big business. I see it as a choice between a democratic republic with sensibly regulated open markets vs. big government with big business oligarchy control of “open markets” (which are, in actuality, anything but open).