America Died Today, Her Citizens Barely Noticed

[Teresa]

June 1, 2009

America Died Today, Her Citizens Barely Noticed

By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers


In what future historians will mark as the exact date that the once great Nation of The United States was finally destroyed, June 1, 2009 will be the one penciled in due to the two most horrific events to have ever had occurred in their 223 year history, the bankruptcy and government acquirement of the once mighty General Motors Corporation, and America sealing its borders against the rest of the World.

The demise of the Global auto giant General Motors Corporation, by itself, is a catastrophic mark upon America, especially in light of its having armed and equipped the US Military through two World Wars, raised millions of citizens into the middle class and at its height employed nearly 350,000 workers in 150 assembly plants supporting over 2 million others in associated parts plants, dealerships and banking.

But, to the worst fate of the 101-year-old institution of American industrial might is that with its bankruptcy it has now fallen under the control of the US Government in an economic scheme based on a failed Marxist ideology that those few who are left that remember America in during her greatest hours know all too well spells the doom of their country.

Even worse, today also marks the day that the United States is slamming shut its borders against all outsiders in what one Canadian official stated was a "heightened militarization" of the US and will see its citizens for the first time in their history being forced to present government identification passports to reenter their own country from their North American neighbors Canada and Mexico.

As we have long tried to warn these people of the catastrophic dangers facing them, the events we have foretold to them for years are now being set to be poured upon these hapless Americans, who even while they cry in anguish at their demise, they can never say they weren't warned, only that they didn't listen.

And from our many reports over the years based on their own government's dire predictions on any Nations ability to survive this century, the one most ignored by these Americans is the chilling report from their own Pentagon that the London Observer published and says in part:

"A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.

The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents.

Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon analysis. "Once again, warfare would define human life."

Not surprisingly, the American people continue to ignore the facts that have led to the destruction of their Nation, and even to this day they continue believing the lies heaped upon them by their celebrity driven propaganda media, all the while never wondering what are the true reasons why over $25 Trillion of their personal savings and home values and all of the job gains for the past decade have been wiped out in less than six months.

This cannot be said, however, of their elite classes and government oligarchs, who even as they watch their own fellow citizens plunge into the abyss of mass starvation, homelessness, anarchy and Total Global War, they have set their Nation upon a course of confrontation with an entire World just as desperate as they are to survive what can only be described as an apocalyptic future where who lives and who dies will be determined by violence, not cooperation.

And, how far these American people have actually fallen is, perhaps, best summarized by the Russian writer Stanislav Mishin who recently wrote:

"First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their "right" to choke down a McDonalds burger or a Burger King burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our "democracy". Pride blind the foolish.

Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different "branches and denominations" were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the "winning" side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the "winning" side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America.

The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America's short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.

These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?"

It was once quipped on an American television show, "George Washington had a vision for this country. Was it three days of uninterrupted shopping?"; sadly this is what these once great people became, all the while living their lives never bothering to read what their great founding father had really envisioned for them and warned them about...

"Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."

And, to the fearful master that US government has become for these poor souls in destroying the Nation of its people for the benefit of an elite few, Washington left for his American children of this day these solemn words....

"Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the peoples' liberty's teeth."

Unfortunately for the entire World, these Americans have gone 'toothless' and lack even the slightest bit of courage their ancestors mustered to protect and preserve their Nation, and the once great United States has now slipped into the darkness of fascist rule and has become a place of slaves.

Today America Died, Her Citizens Barely Noticed

[Varmit]

Teresa, I think that the sad part is that Her citizens noticed, but most didn't/don't care.  They have forgotten what it means to be American.  There is no more pride in this country.  Its sad.

[Anmar]

You may have noticed that about half this article is plagarized from an article that warph published last week.

[Diane Amberg]

There is a little too much sensationalism in there for this humble moderate. People have been yelling "seal the borders" for years. It would have been done last year but they had to allow time for the passports to catch up with the back log of applications. So now the writer suddenly thinks it a bad thing? Horse feathers!   I hope GM will be able to restructure, sell off some of its line and come back stronger than ever. They were getting very top heavy in the CEO and legacy $$$ Delaware will no longer have any car manufacturing here, but those plants were so old they really were obsolete. Maybe someday the cars will be built nearer where the parts are made. Shipping the parts here on the trains must have been very expensive.

[dnalexander]

I got an anonymous e-mail today from America. Here is what it said:

The reports of my demise are greatly exaggerated.
Mark Twain.

[flintauqua]

Incorporate This!
By Michael Lind, New America Foundation
Salon | June 2, 2009


If the bankruptcy and restructuring of GM proceed according to the Obama administration's plan, then the U.S. government will end up owning about 60 percent of the ailing carmaker. The de facto nationalization of GM, added to the de facto nationalization of AIG and various banks and the renationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is a threat to the healthy distinction between the private sector and the public sector.

Or is it? The truth is that corporations in the U.S. and other countries have always been quasi-public entities chartered for public purposes. You would never know this from corporate propaganda that treats giant, multinational corporations as though they were simply giant versions of sole proprietorships or partnerships. But history and law alike make it clear that today's large corporations, like automobile manufacturers, are much more like spun-off government agencies than like large-scale lemonade stands.

Go back in time before the mid-19th century, and you don't find large private corporations of the modern kind. The only giant enterprises with private financial participation tended to be state-chartered monopolies, including trading companies like the British and Dutch East India Companies, and corporations chartered by government to provide public goods like toll roads or canals or banking. These quasi-public entities were less like modern corporations than like public utilities or modern contractors -- private, for-profit companies delegated the responsibility of carrying out certain public economic functions.

Up until the second half of the 19th century, in the U.S. as elsewhere, governments kept corporations on short leashes. Typically corporations had to be chartered by an act of a state legislature or the federal government (as, for example, in the case of the First and Second Banks of the United States). In many cases, the corporate charter was only temporary and had to be renewed periodically by new legislation. In addition, corporations generally were limited to a single purpose -- building a bridge or a canal, say -- and forbidden to engage in other commercial activities.

In the second half of the 19th century, the modern "general corporation" was invented in Britain and the U.S. Today general corporations can be formed by mere registration; no longer does a state legislature or Congress have to pass a separate bill chartering each individual corporation. Not only are corporations easily formed by registration, but they are also immortal, unlike the companies of the early modern era, which had to have their charters renewed by lawmakers (a practice that encouraged political corruption).

Another characteristic of the modern general corporation, limited liability, also became widespread. Whereas sole proprietors and partners in partnerships are liable for the debts their businesses incur, shareholders of a general corporation are liable only up to the amount of their investments in the business. If a company fails, the creditors cannot go after all of the personal property of the shareholders.

A final change involved the purposes of corporations. Unlike in the past, when a company chartered for a particular purpose could not engage in activities outside its line of business, today there are few limits under law preventing companies from moving into new lines of business or merging with corporations in other economic sectors.

The shift from legislatively chartered, temporary, single-purpose corporations to registered, immortal, multipurpose corporations has been beneficial for the economy in many ways. The most important result is that great numbers of individual and institutional investors, shielded from excessive risk by limited liability laws, have been willing to pool capital in the vast amounts needed to achieve economies of scale in many industrial corporations like the automobile companies.

However, the increasing flexibility of incorporation has come at the price of a clear link between the corporation and the public interest. That link was clear in the early days of the chartered corporation, when Illinois, say, would charter a temporary state turnpike corporation. Either the turnpike was built or it wasn't. It is far from clear that the people of Delaware benefit from the fact that roughly half of all Fortune 500 corporations register in that state to take advantage of its lenient incorporation laws. The social contract between the chartering government and the chartered corporation breaks down entirely when governments like those of Caribbean tax havens are mere flags of convenience for entities whose shareholders, managers, employees and customers are abroad.

Ever since incorporation laws were liberalized in the late 19th century, the federal and state governments have tried to modify corporate behavior by means of regulations and tax incentives. Having unleashed the large and useful but potentially dangerous animal, they sought to threaten it or coax it rather than to put the leash back on.

***
Now the partial nationalization of GM and other bailed-out enterprises by the U.S. has unexpectedly provided a third form of leverage over those entities, in addition to regulations and tax incentives -- namely, public ownership. If the U.S. is the controlling owner of a company, it can make the company do whatever it wants, from modifying executive compensation to honoring union contracts. But this kind of public leverage is limited to a few bailed-out companies and banks and will vanish as soon as they are reprivatized (there is no significant constituency for permanent public ownership of major industrial or financial concerns in the U.S., other than government-sponsored entities like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac).

Following the present emergency, it is likely that those who want to reform corporate America for a variety of purposes will once again be tempted to rely solely on the tools of regulations and incentives. But we should at least consider restoring an old tool to the toolkit: the chartering of specialized corporations for specialized purposes.

For example, if we want to have a domestic automobile industry, why not charter companies specifically for that purpose? Other goals like high wages for employees or reasonable executive compensation could be pursued by corporate charter reform, rather than tax breaks or regulations.

This idea is not unheard of. Back in 1996, Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) proposed creating a new kind of corporation, the "A Corporation," in addition to the present general or C corporation and the S corporation (in which individual shareholders are assessed taxes for corporate profits rather than the corporation as an entity). In return for favorable federal corporate income tax treatment and streamlined regulations, the A-Corp would promise to locate half of its new investments or jobs in the U.S., provide portable worker pensions and employee training, negotiate agreements with local communities, and undertake other obligations.

The Clinton administration ignored the proposal, sponsoring instead a "corporate citizenship" campaign that was merely a toothless exercise in PR. As it was, the original A-Corp proposal was so overloaded with complex requirements that it was probably doomed from the beginning.

Nevertheless, the idea of chartering particular kinds of private corporations for particular public purposes is a good one that deserves to be revived. Imagine a USA Corporation, which pays a lower corporate income tax, or perhaps no corporate income tax, in return for locating most of its value-added production in the United States (the economist Ralph Gomory has proposed a similar deal through the tax code). USA Corporations could be chartered only by the federal government, in order to prevent a race-to-the-bottom in standards among American states (yes, that means you, Delaware). The chartering could be done by simple registration with the federal government; separate bills before Congress would not be necessary. And if Goldman Sachs could convert itself into a bank holding company, then existing general corporations should be allowed to convert themselves into USA Corporations, if they were willing to fulfill the requirements.

Would the USA Corporation run afoul of international trade and investment liberalization? Not necessarily. Foreign-based multinationals like Toyota and BMW, provided that they located high-value-added production in the U.S., could own their own USA Corporations and repatriate their profits. And there would be no discrimination among foreign and domestic investors. Indeed, one of the goals of the USA Corporation would be to increase foreign direct investment in building up America's domestic productive capacity.

New kinds of corporations also could be chartered for other purposes, such as nursing or janitorial companies that receive tax and regulatory breaks in return for paying higher wages and permitting unionization. America's financial sector has always been characterized by a diversity of forms, from retail banks and investment banks to thrifts. There is no reason why our large-scale corporate landscape has to be limited so much to general corporations.

The power of ownership that the American people now wield in the case of GM and other corporations is both limited and passing. But the power to charter corporations for the purposes we choose and in the forms we prefer will always be a power we wield as a sovereign people. We the people should think about using our power.