Those Wily Words

     I use the word "business" or the words "big business" to mean the corporate monster businesses that go far beyond what anybody thinks of as "a business". For some reason capitalism seems to eventually funnel upward and you have something like two entities owning perhaps 95% of the media along with half the manufacturers of dog food.
     When the WTO meets and hammers out how they'll further their monopolization of the world's markets and resources, those aren't meetings to which the owners of small businesses such as print shops or Ma and Pa grocery stores are invited. But they do invite the business leaders who represent corporations that have gotten so huge that they think only of the bottom line (money) and will knowingly sacrifice workers' welfare, environmental health, and cover up product safety concerns in their pursuit of monetary achievement. And they'll press for military action that can benefit them when they do hold the reigns of a government. (Can you say "oil"?)
     An obvious example are the arms manufacturers. United States arms manufacturers export more weapons to other countries than the rest of the world combined. Troops in Iraq may be killed by weapons a U.S. company sold to Hussein in the '80s. They could suffer from biological or chemical weapons, the main seed ingredients for which were also sold to Hussein by U.S. companies in the '80s. Clearly there is something wrong with this picture.
     Our political system is controlled by money from the biggest businesses, and most of it is far from innocent. The whacked out rules eventually adopted by the SEC that allowed the bilking of shareholders we've seen recently were put in place at the bequest of money interests controlling our government. And a zillion other examples exist. Military, Oil, Arms Manufacturers, Big Tobacco, Telecommunications- these are the entities our government really represents. Legalized bribery is what it is, plain and simple. Vote for the campaign funds addict of your choice. All of our politicians play the game or they don't play at all.
     One more little word on words is that I finally did make a protest sign to take to the peace rallies. On one side it says, "Stop This War - This Will Support Our Troops - Peace Now" and on the other side it says "Sorry, Iraq... This Evil Is Not Being Done In My Name!" Amongst the thousands upon thousands of like-minded people out there protesting, clearly any of them understood immediately that when I said "Iraq" I meant the people of Iraq. But when we were not among the marchers and one guy got really really mad (and violent) about my sign, it became clear to me that some people could misinterpret my words to be that I am apologizing to Saddam Hussein and his government. That's not at all what I mean, so I'm definitely going to have to change that sign!

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