Here Thar Be Monsters!

From the other side of the argument to the other side of the planet, read in over 149 countries and 17 languages. We bring you news and opinion with an IndoTex® flavor. Be sure to check out the Home Site. Send thoughts and comments to bernard atradiofarside.com, and tell all your friends. Note comments on this site are moderated to remove spam. Sampai jumpa, y'all.
Showing posts with label corporations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label corporations. Show all posts

19.6.17

Battle For The Planet Of The Dupes

The problem with Trump, at least from my point of view as expressed since the long-ago days of July last year, is that he is a walking corporation.  He is a creature of the State.  He has no existence nor worth outside the coddling arms of the State.  He exists by the pleasure of the State, and the State is his nanny and toy.

Now I know a lot of Trump supporters read this site.  That was clear long ago and far away in our Far Side Official Unscientific Survey, where more than 70% of respondents chose Trump over all other choices (Hillary and Johnson).  So I beg you indulgence to hear me out.

Yes, Trump was elected by a certified, all-genuine rebellion.  Not a revolution, mind you, because the State was left intact.  But enough people had had enough State shenanigans that they were willing to try out a complete new-comer in the presidency in the hopes that 1) Hillary would NOT get elected, and 2) something fundamental would change at the national level.

Sorry to say, and I've waited the obligatory six months of mourning to say this, but America got gypped.

Notice that all of Trump's major promises, and his actions after he broke them, serve only the corporate interests.  To whit: the border wall has all but disappeared to preserve the constant supply of fresh meat for the labor market - which keeps the unions at bay.  Notice that the tax reform (now defunct) was centered primarily on corporate relief.  Notice that healthcare reform (now defunct) was to make the whole Obamacare fiasco even more friendly for the corporations.  Notice that the Pentagon budget and global saber-rattling was continued, even ramped up from the Obama and Bush days, to feed the bottomless gullet of the corporations.  Need more?

Them notice that Freeport MacMoRan, a huge mining corporation that all but owns Indonesia, was in the grips of populist reform and stalemated at the negotiating table at the beginning of the year.  Further notice that Mike Pence (Vice Prez of USA, Inc.) made a quick little visit to these parts and within hours, Freeport had their concessions.

Or how about the much vaunted Trump Saudi trip, which ended with billions in arms sales, and even defense contractors with subsidiary agreements in the Middle East to save shipping costs.

Finally, notice that all the talk of reform for regulations and government oversight center solely on corporations.  Have you heard a single word promising less government sitting on the shoulders of real human beings, who theoretically are the government in any real republic.

If you STILL doubt where Trump's loyalties lie, then I implore you to read Peter Dale Scott's insightful piece on how Trump is a threat to Indonesia's (and many other countries') democracy.

I, for one, could care less if Trump is impeached, though what would follow would likely be far worse than anything those of us who remember the JFK coup remember.  As I have said repeatedly, the only way to fix the problem is to remove it.  No amount of "reform" will ever achieve freedom and liberty for us real folks.

Here's the deal.  We humans are natural, organic beings with priorities and interests that don't always, if ever, align with the State.  The State fears our privacy and rights.  It doesn't want chaotic creatures running loose mucking up its Grand Plans for itself and its creations.

And when it comes to creations, there is only one creature in the world that is completely and utterly beholden to the State, and that is the corporation.

Corporations are formed (born) by a union of law and enforcement.  The State literally creates these creatures and is fully responsible for their behavior.  When the State is fully in control of the corporations, you have Socialism.  When the corporations are fully in control of the State, you have Fascism.  Note well that real, organic human beings don't figure into this marriage from Hell in any way, except for the rare few who are granted big pay packets for being caretakers of both the State and corporations.

Out of loyalty to theirs parents, corporations protect and defend the State.  Out of motherly love, the State protects and defends the corporations.  It is a sick, twisted relationship that has none of our (us real people) interests at heart.

This is why there is a revolving door between corporate interests and State regulatory divisions.  This is why corporate officers never go to jail, just get their wrists slapped and a fine or two.  This is why governments are unresponsive to real people.  This is also why there is a long list of billionaires in government and on the visitors list, not just now, but ever since the late 1800s.

For the last eight years, the Socialists were in charge and corporations were kept on a leash, though a rather long one.  Now, the Fascists are in control, and not only is the leash longer, but the collar has been loosened to allow the corporations to slip their fat heads through and run wild in the neighborhood.

Trump is nothing more than a flim-flam man who understood show business well enough to basically steal the election from the heir apparent, who stole it herself from her own party.  Even the parties are corporations that run in the interest of corporations in order to be seated at the Board Room Table of the US Corporation.

Unfortunately, there is no reforming this mess.  It is far to gone and far to woven into the fabric of the modern world.  The only hope is for real people to once again asset their dominion over the creature they created, called government.

There's only one problem.  The corporations have so polluted our water and food with chemicals to keep us dumb and sick that I have little hope this will ever happen.

Trump was a fluke.  Enough people had enough sense left to try to "reform" the mess.  It will never happen again.  There are only two routes open to us now: the way of complete destruction of the State as it exists, or complete capitulation of real people to artificial corporations (legal fictions called "persons").

Honestly, I don't expect much effort in the right direction.

28.5.16

Crops And Robbers

READER NOTE: You know what, you're almost the last one to take the Reader Survey.  Just 30 seconds to help us improve for you. C'mon...just do it.

You may not know it, and you certainly won't want to admit it, but you are a crop.

See, crops are put in fields in nice neat rows.  They are coddled and watered until they mature to a certain point and produce something useful.  The useful part is then harvested and the rest tossed out - plowed under to fertilize the next year's crop.

Sound familiar?  It should.  That is most likely the life you lead right now.

Think of your school years as being in the greenhouse nursery.  You are in a carefully controlled environment where your growth and development can be directed in the direction that the Farmers want.

Once having obtained the qualities that the Farmers want, and having weeded out the bad seeds, you are planted in the corporate plantation where you are guided and directed until you bear fruit.  At that point, you are harvested by turning you into a consumer and taxpayer.  All the Farmers line up and pluck your fruit until you get to old to bear any more.

At that point, you are cast away and eventually plowed under to fertilize future crops.

The worst part of all this is that you are required to pay for all of it.  Your parents pay for your early schooling, which is part of their harvesting.  Taxes, fees, books, and tuition is carefully plucked from their pockets to ensure their fruit bears fruit.  The same is done to you for your seed.

During the majority of your adult life, you are expected to buy things and pay taxes.  This is the life-long process of harvesting you.  The bloodsucking Farmers stand around waiting for you to throw fruit.  As soon as you do, they run off to slurp it down in disgusting orgiastic feasts.  As soon as they finish, they are back at your branches ready to pluck more of your succulent fruit.

Eventually, your bearing years come to a close.  The quality and quantity of your fruit falls below the Farmers' standards and they uproot you and place you in the composting pile that we generally call the old folks' home.

At that point, everything you were and had is recycled back into the System to keep the process going the next season.

The Farmers do almost nothing.  They supply the field that the fruit of past generations paid for.  They plant the seeds that past generations provided.  They take the fruit that you work so hard to produce.  Then they cast your used and withered carcass away to focus on new fruit.  You and Nature do all the work, they get all the fruit.

Rules and regulations are the furrows in our fields.  If we grow a bit wild, we are trimmed and pruned back into shape.  Those who go wild and grow outside the bounds are sprayed with Round-Up to rid the field of their unwanted wildness.

If you are a Farmer, this System works beautifully.  You put forth a little effort then sit back on the porch sipping lemonade and watching the fruit roll in.  If you are the Crop, it pretty much sucks.  You do all the work, get none of the benefits and no one ever says thanks for all your efforts.

In fact, what us Crops are getting now is a bunch of Farmers frantically mechanizing the System so that they can get all the fruit with no effort.  I mean, gosh!  Right now they have to water and weed and prune.  Suppose they could make machines that bore fruit without any effort whatsoever on their parts?  It was only a matter of time before the Farmers figured out how to get the fruit without the Crops.

So what are us Crops going to do now?  It is quite obvious that the Farmers are looking to replace us.  Are we going to march willingly to the compost pile once they no longer need us?  We really have some deep questions to ponder.

Think of us as all working for the same corporation - which is not far from reality.  We've noticed the "efficiency experts" milling around and rumors are coming out of HR that pink slips will be going out.  Do we fight?  Do we start looking for new jobs?  Are we proactive?  Or do we wait, hoping that it won't be our head on the chopping block?

One thing is for sure - us Crops would be a whole lot better off if we kept all the fruit we produced.

3.9.11

Irishman On A Barstool

While the title of this column may seem redundant, it comes from the old saying: Put two Irishmen on barstools and they'll solve the world's problems in a night.


Being Irish AND Texan makes us imminently qualified to save the world.  Certainly, those two groups are the only being on the planet with a point of view big enough to even consider the task.  With that said, it falls once again on our shoulders to straighten out this mess we ironically call Western Civilization.


Like any farmer will tell you, you can't kill the weed unless you kill the root.  Many folks will tell you that money is the root of all evil.  We beg to differ, seeing more clearly than most.  Actually, the Root of All Evil is Matthew 18:20.  In case your New Testament is a bit rusty, this line says, "For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them."


We know what you're thinking: "How could one line in an ancient work of fiction be the cause of all problems in the world today?"  We hear you.  Took us a while to figure this out, as well.  It just doesn't seem possible, right?


Well, follow along here...


The Roman Church (the Eastern churches are a little more sane) read this line as saying, when people gather at church, it constitutes a Body in Christ, or Corpus Christi.  Remember that word "corpus," it will come back to haunt us.


As a Body, this group therefore acted in concert as one being for the greater glory of God, and could not be separated into its individual components, or human being.  As the theological reasoning goes, this Body became the spiritually purified Corpus Christi, fed by his Flesh and Blood.  It acted as a single Mind, ultimately uniting the katholikos, or Universe, under the single banner of God (which gets into Law of Flags pretty darned fast).


This concept was incorporated (see? there's that word again) into the Ecclesiastical and Canonical Law, which was basically Roman Administrative Law inherited from the Law of Hammurabi via the (Holy) Roman Empire.  The Law of Hammurabi is the first known codification of contract, which is the foundation for all that follows from it.


So, the Roman Church decided that any group of its members constituted a Body, and was therefore incorporated, or 'within the Body'.  


By applying the Law of Contract, the Church decided that each member of the corporation (embodiment) was essentially under contract with the Body as a whole.  Thus, they were required to perform certain duties to ensure the health of the Body, such as pay taxes (donate money, tithing), observe certain rules and rites, and so forth.  If one failed to do this, he or she could be ex communicare, or 'out of communication' with the rest of the Body.


Now, since the (Holy) Roman Empire pretty much dominated the Western Hemispere for 1,000 years, it stands to reason that the Ecclesiastical and Canonical Law would underpin pretty much all other law in the nations subject to it.


Almost every voyage of 'discovery', such as Columbus', were invasions of conquest to claim the world for the Body of Christ.  If you didn't 'volunteer' to convert to Catholicism, you were summarily slaughtered.  If the color of your skin was anything less than the pearly white color of Jay-zus, then you were a lesser Creation and needed extra purifying (by whatever means were most painful).


What's that?  You don't think Jay-zus was white?  Just look at a thousand years of art throughout Europe.  He looks pretty danged white to me.


Back to the topic at hand...


When you were baptized, and later just by being born and 'registered', you became a part of the Corpus.  The modern nation-state operates almost identically to the (Holy) Roman Empire and its official church.  As a means of control, you are made fealty to the State, which is turn pays fealty to Rome.  It's just a hierarchical structure ultimately leading to the ruling God-head.  In other words, it's a pyramid with God at the top and His Ambassador (the pope) His designated ruler until He gets back from wherever it is He goes in times like these.


Pyramid?  With an All-Seeing All-Knowing God at the top?  Hmmm...where have we seen that image before?


Thus, we come to the modern situation.  We have groups of people acting in unison to effect change in the world.  They are united in purpose and vision, and thus constitute a Body under the law.  Since they are corporate, they are called a person without distinction for individuals within that Body.  Therefore, they enjoy a 'corporate veil' that shields the individual 'cells' of the Body from personal liability for the actions of the Body, since the Body is groups of cells acting together in common cause.


Now, with all that lined up, we can clearly see that the mega-corporations that run our lives and have more rights than individual human beings are nothing more than an extension of one line in one gospel in one book written back in the 300s.  Since these corporations are probably 90% of the problem with current society, we have a clear and defined means to change the world.  It requires three steps:


1) Immediately stop the requirement to 'register' (tell the king) the details of every birth, and all the documents and IDs based on that registration.


2) Strip corporations of their veils and legal status as 'persons', and limit the term 'person' to mean a single, solitary, natural human being.


3) Strip the Roman Church of its sovereign legal status, and forbid all churches everywhere from owning property of any kind, and take away their tax-free status.  They may only hold property as individuals, and the individuals are liable for the actions of the organizations they run.


You could write the law on a single sheet of paper, double-spaced for clarity.  Once passed and signed into law, it would take all of about three months to bring the world to a New Age of Liberty and Freedom, the likes of which have seldom been seen throughout history.


So, true to our Irish-Texan heritage, we have solved pretty much all of the world's problems in 1,000 words or less.  We think that anyone who deeply ponders the broad implications of both the status quo, and the beauty of the world without artificial 'persons', will have to agree with us.  In fact, you have to agree with us just because we're Irish-Texan and infallible in our reasoning.  Heck, the world should band together as a single body and declare us pope!


Ugh!  What are we saying?  Letting our power run away with us again...


Oh, and one other little change.  How about making politicians joinly and severally liable for any damages caused by laws that they pass?  Maybe that would get them to actually read the dam nthings before they vote on them.  Or maybe not....

12.7.11

The Cause Of All Lies

EU emergency meeting over Italy!  Syrian protestors attack US embassy - probably pro-government (ya think?)!  Murdock empire in deep water!  Congress, Obama at odds over debt!  IMF orders US to raise debt ceiling!  Final shuttle flight underway!  One in five college graduates unemployed!  Obama wants trillion-dollar tax hike on low, middle classes!  Global stocks slide!  US sticks to guns on ousting Qaddafi!  Girl mob attacks mom and child!  China says US spending too much on military!  TSA agents pat down 6-year-old boy twice!  BP chairman kills Gulf of Mexico, walks away millionaire!


Believe it or not, all these problems have one common and deceptively simply cause, and the solution is just as easy.


person
n. 1) a human being. 2) a corporation treated as having the rights and obligations of a person. Counties and cities can be treated as a person in the same manner as a corporation. However, corporations, counties and cities cannot have the emotions of humans such as malice, and therefore are not liable for punitive damages unless there is a statute authorizing the award of punitive damages.


That is the legal definition of a 'person.'  They have rights and obligations, just like a 'real' person, but they have no emotions and if they do something wrong, there's no one to throw in jail.


In fact, if you win a major decision against a corporation, it simply declares bankruptcy, transfers all its assets to a new 'person', and all the people inside who made the bad choices go home counting their money.  What's worse is that most mega-corps have multiple shell entities, which hold the mother company's debts, but have little of value.  Therefore, on any given project, if something goes wrong and you try to sue for damages, you can't touch the mother company and there's little more than a dried husk in the entity that damaged you.


That is exactly why BP could walk away untouched from the Gulf of Mexico disaster.  The actual 'person' that was operating the well and platform was a Bahamas shell corporation, or something similar, and most of its liabilities were transferred contractually to sub-contracting shell corporations.  It's the same with Exxon's current and past disasters, any of the pharmaceutical giants, or any other 'person' you can think of.


It's all a game of three-card monty, in which you are the loser before you even begin, because they've already hidden the target card after showing it to you.


Read the definition again.  Corporations have all the rights and obligations of real people.  The trick is, they've taken and abused all the rights, and completely hidden all the obligations in a rat hole of unbelievable legal mumbo-jumbo and strawmen.


You can spend a lifetime jousting with shadows and never come close to the heart.  On top of that, notice the key component of the definition.  They are assumed to have no emotions.  In other words, they have no soul, no conscience and no concerns that even approach 'human.'


They are, in fact, the same as drone attack aircraft.  The machine is sent into battle, causing massive damage, and if you destroy it, there's another waiting behind it.  The pilot is thousands of miles away in a bunker swilling coffee and taking lives with no possibility of real consequences for his actions.  If something goes wrong, the corporation simply blames the machine and goes on with its business.


Cold, heartless and completely without any redeeming value that we attach to real 'persons.'  They are strawmen, or Golems.  They are Frankenstein's Monster.


Here's how it works: Megacorp, a Delaware corporation, wants to do business drilling for oil in, oh let's say Indonesia.  Megacorp finds a local shyster, I mean lawyer, pays him a stipend every month and sets up an Indonesian company called a "PT."  The lawyer is made the local head of the company and his office serves as the 'address of service.'  Megacorp capitalizes PT Megacorp Drilling with one million bux, as a loan to the local company.


So far, there's nothing of value in PT Megacorp Drilling.  It's a shell using someonelse's office space and the only operating capital it has is a paper loan from the parent.


PT Megacorp Drilling (the Company) obtains a drilling permit and gets down to work.  The key people are brought in from the parent to manage the operation, but full responsibility rests on the local 'faces' that front PT Megacorp Drilling.  Notice we substituted the 'term' Company, which being capitalized means that it is a special term now, and not the common word we all use daily.


The Company contracts with Megacorp Oil Singapore, Pte, Ltd., yet another shell corporation, to operate the project.  The Singapore corporation contracts with Megacorp Vessels (Bermuda), Inc., to lease the drilling platform and any other equipment needed to operate the project.


In all cases, the money is going around in circles, because they are all subsidiaries of Megacorp, but they operate independently when we look at the whole thing 'at arm's length.'  In every case, there is a 'corporate veil' that protects the key people at the top from any personal liability for, well, anything.


Now, the Board at Megacorp makes some bad decisions in the interest of cost-savings and time-savings.  This causes a chain of events that leads to a blow-out that causes a massive oil spill, which destroys hundreds of square miles of pristine marine habitat.


Natually, the Indonesians are a bit upset at this and want to sue for damages.  They file against the Company in local courts, but find the Company is little more than an empty shell with a big debt to Megacorp for one million bux and a rented office.  So, they go after Megacorp Singapore, Pte. Ltd.  But, the Singapore corporation just supplied personnel who did their jobs, got paid and went home.


So, Indonesia turns to Megacorp Vessels (Bermuda), Inc., but that company just supplied equipment, and according to the contract, it didn't have liability for the operations.


In their frustration, Indonesians turn back to the Company, but find there is nothing of value in it and no legal ties, other than a couple of names on the Board, to Megacorp mother, and the local lawyer just shrugs his shoulders and walks off.  Since the Company was an independent entity and only shared a couple of Board members with the mothership, the Indonesians are left holding the bag.


Oh sure, Megacorp gets some bad press.  Maybe they 'sacrifice' a key player, who gets a nice severance package and a juicy consulting contract, and the whole thing blows over in a year or two.  In fact, Megacorp went ahead, in the meantime, and set up a new PT, so when the smoke cleared they could get right back to drilling in sensitive environments again.


While this is vastly simplified, it's a pretty good example of how 'hide the sausage' works on a global corporate scale.  In fact, this leads to our second word of interest:
1400–50; late Middle English  < Late Latin corporātiōn-  (stem ofcorporātiō guild, Latin:  physical makeup, build. See corporate-ion
The whole thing goes back to Latin, corpus, or body.  In creating a corporation, you create a 'body,' much like the Golem mentioned earlier.

By allowing legal fictions called 'corporations' to exist, and to have rights like human beings, we have created a literal monster that now threatens our very existence.  But, it is also the key to the solution.

Actually, there are two solutions, but one is much more complicated and requires years of study.  The other requires that people retake their governments and simply...change the law.  By removing the law that shields corporations, creates 'corporate veils', and allows lifeless automatons to operate like real people.

Deceptively simple, right?  However, if it could be done, then the real people operating the corporations would become personally liable for the actions of the organization, as a whole.

Furthermore, if you take away the ability for a corporation to set up multiple shell corps all over the world, then they have no way to hide liability or shuffle assets and debts between entities and jurisdictions.

What's the alternative?

Well, for many years folks have been fighting what's known as the 'strawman.'  When you are born (in most countries, now), a 'birth certificate' is issued and filed with a government agency that creates an entity called "YOU."  In fact, you are incorporated at birth.

The secret to using this fact is first, noticing anytime a document uses your name in all-caps, like BERNARD GROVER.  When you see that, then the enclosed information is addressed to your 'strawman.'  

Second, you can never answer your name (especially in court) with something like "present," or "here," or "that's me."  You have just declared that you are the embodiment of your corporation, and you are now liable for anything attached to the strawman.  You must always say that you "represent" the strawman.  You are just the corporate officer in charge of speaking for the corporation.  You con't have any personal liability.  You have a 'corporate veil.'

A Golem
Does it work?  Yes, of course.  Will it get you in trouble?  Absolutely, especially if you are not 100% sure of what you are doing and watch every word you utter.

Here's an example.  You get a traffic ticket and go to court.  When you are talking to the judge, you answer to your name as if it is you.  Then, you start talking about your 'vehicle' and 'driving.'  What you've just done is tell the court that YOU are the corporation, in body.  YOU were 'driving' (engaged in commerce on the roads) a 'vehicle' (road machine used in commerce), therefore, YOU are guilty because YOU (a commercial enterprise) were engaged in commerce on the public roads, and so are liable for the actions of your strawman.

The trick is, you must get the court to acknowledge that you are a representative for your strawman, and that you are answering for YOU, since YOU is mute and unable to speak for itself.

Oh yes, they will give you a ration of shit and do everything they can to foul you up.  Trust me, I know.

So, which option seems more appetizing?  Spending years teaching yourself the intricacies of legal terms and the strawman?  Or putting massive public pressure and governments to change the laws and remove these things called 'corporations' from the definition of 'person?'

All companies must be associations of contract, in which the officers are jointly and severally liable for the actions of the company.  And, a company may only have one operating entity registered anywhere in the world.  Any and all subsidiaries are considered part of the whole for legal purposes.

See how easy that is?  We just solved the world's problems in two simple sentences.