What Happened to the Will of the People?
Earlier today, someone asked me to explain why corporations have so much more power than the American people. The easy answer is that now, in America, money is free speech and corporations can speak far louder. And while the sentiment is true, I thought a viable example of how it works was required to validate my statement. So I did a little research and discovered just how intertwined large corporations are and how much power they wield.
Citigroup
Citigroup, Inc. was formed in 2008 after Citicorp and Travelers Group merged into the largest financial services network in the world. Their current 13-member Board of Directors feature financial giants who also sit on the Board of Directors of 25 other corporations, including:
- Aetna
- Alcoa
- AMR
- AT&T
- Automatic Data
- Calpine
- Comcast
- Cummins
- DuPont
- Electronic Data
- Estee Lauder
- Ford Motors
- Haliburton
- HCA
- Johnson & Johnson
- Lucent
- Lyondell
- Pepsi
- Raytheon
- Schlumberger
- Target
- Time Warner
- United Technologies
- Xerox
- Yum Brands
This practice is called “Corporate Interlocking,” and it allows one “parent company” the ability to control Congress and dictate the direction of future state and federal legislation any time it chooses.
For example, let’s say that a state like Oregon has a public referendum, and the people vote overwhelmingly to ban GMOs (genetically modified organisms). Now, in a democracy, where representatives are sworn to uphold the will of the people, this would become a state law.
However, Pepsi uses GMO beets to make the sugar that goes in their product, which is sold globally in every Taco Bell and KFC (owned by Yum Brands), as well as all Target stores.
The members of the Board of Directors of Yum Brands, Pepsi, and Target go back to Citigroup and explain that they need the will of people ignored, because using non-GMO sugar would increase their unit price of Pepsi by 2 cents and shrink their shareholders’ quarterly earnings.
So Citigroup has the members of their Board of Directors, who also sit on the Board of Directors of Ford and Xerox contact their people in Washington, DC, who contact representatives in Oregon and explain that if they don’t squash the GMO bill, they will pull their manufacturing plants from the state and cost them 12,000 jobs.
What is the end result? The will of the people is ignored because Citigroup is more powerful than the people.
Why?
Because we are the United Corporations of America.
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