American business at its best

 Robert Redford and James Caan were right on the money.

Back in 1975 my fiancé pushed me to see two movies. Little did I know at the time that these two theatrical releases boded very well for the future of our nations.

In Three Days Of The Condor, Robert Redford played a maverick CIA technician on the death list of the agency he serves. Cliff Robertson played the agent in charge of the CIA hit. The two argue by the New York Time Building about whether an American army would ever invade the Middle East for oil.

In the immediate post-Watergate and Vietnam era, it seemed unlikely that this scenario would ever arise in our lifetime. It was easy to dismiss the likelihood of that happening in the Tinsel Town fantasy.

And then we have the movie Rollerball starring James Caan.

Aside from its futuristic portrayal of a national sports frenzy that was a cross between the NFL, NHL, and WWF, the only thing significant about the B-rated movie was its depiction of how America was governed in this future setting.

In the film, the United States and the world economy are dominated and controlled by a few large global corporations. Corporate interests were the name of the game and all other social needs and wants were subjugated.

Three decades later, we find our nation in the Middle East with 135,000 soldiers and I don't think anyone will dispute the fact that large corporations dominate our lives like never before.

This is not to say that Hollywood producers are fortune tellers or swamis. If that was the case, don't watch the movie Soylent Green and two cheers for the American farmer.

But sometimes Hollywood has a way of taking the pulse of the nation, looking into the future and then trying to predict it and project it through the media.

In reference to Rollerball, that brings us to the whole concept of corporatism.

Corporatism, as defined by Websters, is the organization of a society into industrial and professional corporations that serve as organs of political representation and exercise control over persons and activities within their jurisdiction.

More recent and poignant examples of corporatism would be the use of public housing authorities to condemn private property for commercial use. The US Supreme Court recently upheld the notion that private developers, in conjunction with state and local government, can seize private homes to build commercial facilities.

The big credit card companies lobbied Congress hard to pass the new federal bankruptcy law that does nothing more than shift the burden of individual misfortune from the financial giants onto the citizen.

This was never meant to be. Historically, bankruptcy laws were designed to give individuals and families a second chance. Now one can lose their home due to credit card bills.

These recent changes in bankruptcy laws, an absence of anti-takeover activity within the Justice Department, the apparent rise of the financial services industry, political inaction regarding the dumping of Chinese goods in the US. , the benign response to illegal immigration, and allowing massive outsourcing of jobs are all stark examples of how ruining corporate domination, sanctioned by our government, is stealing American jobs and the lives of millions falling into the middle class.

The increase in the price of oil and gasoline has far exceeded the increase that would be expected under normal conditions of supply and demand.

This extortion has lined the pockets of the big oil companies at the expense of the average citizen.

And one wonders, why the decline in gasoline prices just before the congressional elections?

Corporatism has now given way to neo-corporatism.

Famed economists Philippe Schmitter and Gerhard Lehmbruch described modern neo-corporatism as extracting economic benefits from citizens at large and then dividing this spoils among those social and private institutions authorized by the government to engage in such activity.

The American public now feels that their own government has caved in to the economic interests of large corporations at their expense, as corporate power continues to be concentrated in fewer hands.

Even traditional allies within our own hemisphere are now rejecting modern American corporatism as an economic model and way of life where the welfare of citizens is subservient to the corporate state.

Castro and company have found new life