Monday, May 28, 2007

You can rely on the old man's money


Anyone remember Jerome Corsi?
. . . an American author and conservative activist. Corsi received national media exposure as credited co-author (with John O'Neill), of Unfit for Command, a book that topped the New York Times bestseller list. The book, written in cooperation with Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, criticized the conduct of John Kerry -- at the time the Democratic candidate for president -- as a naval officer during the Vietnam War and challenged the legitimacy of each of his combat medals. The book also criticized Kerry's later efforts organizing opposition to that war.

There's more, all equally distasteful.

But now he posts at WorldNutDaily that his boy GWBush might have exceeded his reach:
President Bush, without so much as issuing a press statement, on May 9 signed a directive that granted near dictatorial powers to the office of the president in the event of a national emergency declared by the president.

The "National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive," with the dual designation of NSPD-51, as a National Security Presidential Directive, and HSPD-20, as a Homeland Security Presidential Directive, establishes under the office of president a new National Continuity Coordinator.

That job, as the document describes, is to make plans for "National Essential Functions" of all federal, state, local, territorial, and tribal governments, as well as private sector organizations to continue functioning under the president's directives in the event of a national emergency.

So? Jerry...may I call you Jerry? Why are you worried. About this, perhaps:
The directive issued May 9 makes no attempt to reconcile the powers created there for the National Continuity Coordinator with the National Emergency Act. As specified by U.S. Code Title 50, Chapter 34, Subchapter II, Section 1621, the National Emergency Act allows that the president may declare a national emergency but requires that such proclamation "shall immediately be transmitted to the Congress and published in the Federal Register."

A Congressional Research Service study notes that under the National Emergency Act, the president "may seize property, organize and control the means of production, seize commodities, assign military forces abroad, institute martial law, seize and control all transportation and communication, regulate the operation of private enterprise, restrict travel, and, in a variety of ways, control the lives of United States citizens."
(highlight mine)

So, Jerry, you're worried about The Means Of Production now? You think GWBush might want to try and take over the country, and nationalize industry?

There are two subtle but important points to the Ownership of the Means of Production. The first being that owning the Means of Production is not the same thing as the owning physical property, nor is it equal to owning money. Rather OMP refers to a cultural practice in which a few individuals within a larger corporation (or company) control and decide what is done with the entire profit created by that corporation. If one were to define the word "Corporation" as a particular kind of "group of people" then to later say that a few select individuals "own the corporation" then, by substitution, one must be saying that those select individuals own the group of people. In any case, this apparent paradox only arises when one confuses the owning of property with the owning of a corporation. When keeping these two kinds of ownership separate, the paradox of "owning people" evaporates.

The conclusion ultimately reached is that while the "owners" of a corporation only contribute a tiny fraction of the total labor and time in creating profit, they have complete control over that profit and how it is used. The practice of OMP in human societies is then a type of game where some people are labeled owners (Marx used the term, Bourgeoisie) and other people are labeled workers (Marx used the term, Proletariat). The bourgeoisie have complete control over both how the proletariat are paid in wages and complete control over how the profit from production is used, thus giving rise to a class division.


Sorry, you sick freak. Too late to worry about your riches now. He's your guy, and you own his policies.

Deal with it.

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