Democracy 2 Full Game' title='Democracy 2 Full Game' />How Big Corporations Game Our Democracy Into Their Plutocracy. A major chapter in American history rarely taught in our schools is how ever larger corporations have moved to game, neutralize and undermine the peoples continual efforts to protect our touted democratic society. It is a fascinating story of the relentless exercise of power conceived or seized by corporations, with the strategic guidance of corporate lawyers. Start with their birth certificate the state charters that bring these corporate entities into existence, with limited liability for their investors. In the early 1. 80. Massachusetts legislature chartered many of the textile manufacturing companies. These charters could be renewed on good behavior, because lawmakers then viewed charters as privileges contingent on meeting the broad interests of society. Fast forward to now. The charter can be granted online in a matter of hours there are no renewal periods and the job is often given over to a state commission. Over the decades, corporate lobbyists have had either the legislatures or the courts grant them more privileges, immunities and concentration of power in management, rendering shareholders their owners increasingly powerless. The same corporate fixers work for corporations and their subsidiaries abroad to help them avoid US laws, taxes and escape disclosures. Remarkably, the artificial creation called the corporation has now achieved almost all of the rights of real people under our We the People Constitution that never mentions the words corporation or company. Corporations cannot vote, at least not yet only people can. That was seen as a major lever of democratic power over corporations. So what has happened Commercial money to politicians started weakening the influence of voters because the politicians became increasingly dependent on the corporate interests that bankrolled their campaigns. The politicians use their ever increasing corporate cash to saturate voters with deceptive political ads, and intimidate any competitors who have far less money, but may be far better representative of the public good. To further shatter the principle of voter sovereignty, corporations have rewarded those politicians who construct restrictive political party rules, gerrymander electoral districts and obstruct third party candidate ballot access. By concentrating political power in fewer and fewer hands, corporate influence becomes more deeply entrenched in our democratic society. Politicians quickly learn that political favors will attract more corporate campaign cash and other goodies. Institutions that are supposed to represent democratic values, such as Congress and state legislatures are meticulously gamed with the daily presence of corporate lawyers and lobbyists to shape the granular performance of these bodies and make sure little is done to defend civic values. These pitchmen are in the daily know about the inner workings of legislative bodies long before the general public. They often know who is going to be nominated for judicial and executive branch positions that interpret and administer the law and whether the nominee will do the bidding of the corporate bosses. PBS KIDS You Choose is a kidfriendly website introducing children ages 68 to relevant, nonpartisan democracyrelated topics through interactive exploration and video. Then there is the press. Thomas Jefferson put great responsibility on the newspapers of his day to safeguard our democracy from excessive commercial power and their runaway political toadies. Certainly, our history has some great examples of the press fulfilling Jeffersons wish. For the most part, however, any media that is heavily reliant on advertisements will clip its own wings or decide to go with light hearted entertainment or fluff, rather than dig in the pits of corruption and wrongdoing. What of the educational institutions that purport to convey facts, the lessons of history and not be beholden to special interests The corporate state the autocratic joining of business and government exerts its influence all the way down to the state and local levels, not just in Washington. It works through boards of education and trustees of colleges and universities, drawing heavily from the business world and its professional servants in such disciplines as law, accounting and engineering. Moreover, the most influential alumni, in terms of donations, endowments and engagements, come from the business community. They know the kind of alma mater they want to preserve. The law and business schools are of particular interest, if only because they are the recruiting grounds for their companies and firms. Their subversion even extends to the sacrosanct notion of academic freedom that these institutions must be independent centers of knowledge. For example, Monsanto, General Motors, Exxon and Eli Lilly are only a few of the companies that have pushed corporate, commercial science over academic, independent science through lucrative consultantships and partnerships with professors. The unfortunate reality is that the wealthy and powerful are driven to spend the necessary time and energy to accomplish their raison detre, which are profits and the relentless pursuit of self interest. Citizens, on the other hand, have so much else on their minds, just to get through the day and raise their families. The path forward is to learn from history how citizens, when driven by injustice, organized, raised the banners of change and concentrated on the ways and means to victory. These initiatives require civic self respect and an understanding that the status quo is demeaning and intolerable. The requisite to such an awakening is the awareness that our two precious pillars of democracy freedom of contract and freedom to use the courts are being destroyed or seriously undermined by corporate influence. The contract servitude of fine print contracts, signed or clicked on, is the basis of so many of the abuses and rip offs that Americans are subjected to with such regularity. Add this modern peonage to the corporate campaign to obstruct the peoples full day in court and right of trial by jury guaranteed by our Constitution. The plutocrats have succeeded in gravely doing just that. Tight court budgets, the frequency of jury trials and the number of filed wrongful injury lawsuits keep going down to case levels well under five percent of what the needs for justice require. Some fundamental questions are Will we as citizens use our Constitutional authority to reclaim and redirect the power weve too broadly delegated to elected officialsProduction line is the new car factory managementsimulationtycoon game that pushes your organisational and entrepreneurship skills to the limit. Can you build the. Will we hold these officials accountable through a reformed campaign finance system that serves the people over the plutocrats Will we realize that a better society starts with just a few people in each electoral district and never requires more than one percent of the voters, organized and reflecting public opinion, to make the corporations our servants, not our masters See my recent paperback, Breaking Through Power Its Easier Than We Think. Zambia From Democracy to Dictatorship Our country is now all, except in designation, a dictatorship and if it is not yet, then we are not far from it. Download Buck Danny Comics Pdf. Our political leaders in the ruling party often issue intimidating statements that frighten people and make us fear for the immediate and future. This must be stopped and reversed henceforth. Zambia Conference of Catholic Bishops, April 2. This Africa. Focus Bulletin contains three short commentaries on the current political crisis in Zambia, by Simon Allison, Nic Cheeseman, and Tendai Biti. Another Africa. Focus, also to be sent out today, focuses on the wider African and global context of media repression 2. Zambia. The statement cited above from the Catholic Bishops of Zambia is available at http tinyurl. The Council of Churches in Zambia has also issued a strong statement condemning the arrest of opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema http tinyurl. For keeping up with recent news on Zambia, two key sources are http allafrica. The Mast https www. The Post, which was shut down by the government in 2. For previous Africa. Focus Bulletins on Zambia, visit http www. Editors note. Analysis Dark, dangerous days for Zambias democracy. After the attack on the home of Zambias opposition leader, and then his arrest on spurious charges, Zambias reputation as a beacon of democracy in Africa is under serious threat. Simon Allison. Daily Maverick, 2. April 2. 01. 7https www. URL http tinyurl. Hakainde Hichilema is famously suspicious. The Zambian opposition leader travels with a phalanx of bodyguards, and often brings his own food wherever he goes, just in case anyone wants to poison him. He claims to have received repeated death threats. He has a safe room installed in his house. Until Tuesday last week, it was easy to dismiss Hichilemas paranoia as exactly that paranoia. This is Zambia, after all, one of Africas most established and most successful democracies. No one bumps off opposition leaders in Zambia. Its not Russia, or Venezuela, or Tunisia. And then, in the early hours of that Tuesday morning, everything changed. For Hichilema, and for Zambia. Dozens of armed police descended onto Hichilemas property. They broke down the door. They threw tear gas into the house. Dazed and confused, and above all scared, the politician and his family retreated into the safe room. I spoke to him there, on the phone. He didnt raise his voice above a whisper, and it trembled as he talked. He said that his wife and children were injured from the tear gas, which was periodically pumped through the vents of the safe room in a bid to force them out, and that his servants had been tortured. He said he could hear their screams. This guy is trying to kill me, he said. This guy is a dictator, a full blown dictator. He was talking, of course, about President Edgar Lungu. The siege lasted until mid morning. By then, Hichilemas legal team had arrived, as had journalists. His lawyers eventually coaxed Hichilema out of the safe room. He was immediately arrested, and charged shortly afterwards with treason. No one is dismissing Hichilemas paranoia now and no one is quite sure what would have happened in the absence of that safe room into which he could retreat. What we do know is that Hichilemas arch rival, Lungu, has now abandoned all democratic niceties in a bid to consolidate his grip on power. It was the nature of Hichilemas arrest that was most concerning the midnight raid, the tear gas, the casual brutality meted out to the servants. It was all entirely unnecessary. Hichilema is a public figure, and could have been quietly arrested at any time. But the raid was designed to intimidate, to send an unmistakeable message to the presidents opponents that Lungus authority shall no longer be challenged. It wasnt just Hichilema, either. Chilufya Tayali, head of the Economic and Equity Party and a vocal critic of President Lungu, was arrested just two days later. His crime A Facebook post in which he criticised the inefficiency of Zambias police chief. He has subsequently been released on bail. If that sounds ridiculous well, it is. But not as ridiculous as the charges levelled against Hichilema, which are so far entirely unsubstantiated by evidence or detail. The only concrete allegation is that Hichilema endangered the presidents life when his vehicles did not give way to the presidents motorcade at a cultural festival. In Lungus Zambia, a traffic incident has somehow become treason. Its not Lungus Zambia quite yet, however, as embarrassed government prosecutors learned in court. In their submissions against Hichilema, prosecutors made a Freudian slip, referring to the opposition leaders alleged offences against the Government of President Edgar Lungu. They were forced to amend the charge sheet when the defence observed that such an institution does not exist there is still only a Government of the Republic of Zambia, as much as President Lungu might like it to be otherwise. But make no mistake these are dark, dangerous times for Zambia. And if Lungus end goal really is to dismantle the countrys hard won democracy, then its hard to see who or what will stop him. Domestically, the arrests of Hichilema and Tayali, along with a sustained assault on independent media, will have a chilling effect on civil society. It will take extraordinary courage and commitment to take on President Lungus administration now. Internationally too, Lungu faces remarkably little pressure. He has already brushed off statements of concern from the United States and the European Union, warning diplomats that they are wasting their time just as he brushed off concerns that his 2. South Africa, the regional superpower which does exert real influence in Lusaka, has been deafeningly silent as analyst Greg Mills observed on these pages, it cant be a coincidence that Lungu may well have been encouraged down this path by the example of the patronage regime emerging in South Africa. The less leadership South Africa displays at home, the less it can project abroad. Zambias in trouble. For so long a beacon of democracy in Africa, its enviable reputation has already been tarnished by President Lungus actions. The risk now is that Lungu undoes that democratic progress entirely. If this all sounds a little paranoid, just remember that Hakainde Hichilema was paranoid too. And on this, he is being proved right. Zambia President Lungu sacrifices credibility to repress oppositionby Nic Cheeseman. Democracy in Action, 2. April 2. 01. 7http democracyinafrica. URL http tinyurl. Nic. Di. As Nic Cheeseman looks at the political crisis in Zambia, where the opposition leader has been charged with treason, and analyses the prospects for democratic backsliding. Nic Cheeseman fromagehomme is the Professor of Democracy at the University of Birmingham. Zambian President Edgar Lungu finds himself caught between a rock and a hard place in both economic and political terms. As a result, he has begun to lash out, manipulating the law to intimidate the opposition, and in the process sacrificing what credibility he had left after deeply problematic general elections in 2. Let us start with the economy, where the president is stuck in something of a lose lose position. On the one hand, his populace is growing increasingly frustrated at the absence of economic job and opportunities, while a number of experts have pointed out that the country is on the verge of a fresh debt crisis.