Environmental Catastrophe and Democratic-Republican Party Government: the Global Warfare and Coporate Welfare State vs. the People of Earth

The environmental catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico perfectly demonstrates the abject failure of Democratic-Republican party government to represent and defend the interests of the people of the United States, and, indeed, the people of earth, over and against the interests of well-connected multinational corporations. This, of course, is not surprising, as the apparent moral, political and intellectual bankruptcy of the response to this catastrophe by the nation's ruling criminal-political class is, sadly, just one more piece of evidence documenting the moral, political and intellectual degeneracy of the Democratic-Republican global warfare and corporate welfare state. The rot begins at the very top. Naturally, the president is the single greatest recipient of campaign contributions from British Petroleum. Reuters reports:

BP and its employees have given more than $3.5 million to federal candidates over the past 20 years, with the largest chunk of their money going to Obama, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Donations come from a mix of employees and the company's political action committees - $2.89 million flowed to campaigns from BP-related PACs and about $638,000 came from individuals.

Sarah Palin recently attempted to score political points against Obama by suggesting his financial dependency on the oil giant has compromised his ability to confront the crisis, which is not an unreasonable suspicion. As the Wall Street Journal documents, however, Republicans are in no position to criticize Democrats on this matter:

Former Alaska Republican Gov. Sarah Palin stirred up more controversy over the oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico Sunday when she suggested that the administration’s response was linked to “the oil companies who have so supported President Obama in his campaign.” . . .

According to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, Republicans receive far more campaign money from the oil and gas industry than do Democrats. So far in 2010, the oil and gas industries have contributed $12.8 million to all candidates, with 71% of that money going to Republicans. During the 2008 election cycle, 77% of the industry’s $35.6 million in contributions went to Republicans, and in the 2008 presidential contest, Republican candidate Sen. John McCain received more than twice as much money from the oil and gas industries as Obama: McCain collected $2.4 million; Obama, $898,000. This is a decades-long trend, the center says.

The criminal collusion of big government and big business was unwittingly documented by a CBS News crew on site at the Gulf coast early last week. As reported by Raw Story:

As BP withholds information on impact of massive oil spill, Coast Guard says that 'embedded' media have been allowed to cover response effort. As oil from the massive BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico approached the US coastline, a CBS News crew was threatened by the US Coast Guard with arrest if they attempted to film a beach in South Pass, Louisiana.

"When we tried to reach the beach ... a boat of BP contractors with two Coast Guard officers on board told us to turn around under threat of arrest," CBS's Kelly Cobiella reported on Tuesday. "This is BP's rules, it's not ours," an officer can be seen calling from the other boat in the CBS video . . . Since this initial brief report, the CBS video clip has been widely re-posted, but there has apparently been no followup from either CBS or BP.

The true nature of the global warfare and corporate welfare state is perfectly revealed by this small incident, in which a news crew is threatened by military officials acting under orders of a multi-national corporation: "This is BP's rules, it's not ours." Unsurprisingly, CBS has apparently opted not to follow-up on this story. Even columnists in the New York Times have become cognizant of the crisis that is corporatist government. Bob Herbert writes:

This is the bitter reality of the American present, a period in which big business has cemented an unholy alliance with big government against the interests of ordinary Americans, who, of course, are the great majority of Americans. The great majority of Americans no longer matter.

It is long past time that we bring back the corporate death penalty.