War on Corporate Greed vs. War on Terror By: Mark W Adams

Memeorandum had a couple of links to Fox News Contributor Nina Easton's essay for Fortune on CNNMoney.com that demystifies the leading Democratic Presidential Candidates approach to corporate excess, singling out John Edwards as the only real threat to business as usual.

While there is some fine ammunition to counter the money-cons inevitable slurs that Obama or Clinton are some kind of socialists, the verbiage she uses to describe Edwards' populist economic message betrays either a deliberate misunderstanding of the issue or she's too wrapped up in her Wall Street mindset to appreciate what the world is like beyond her particular Village.

It was an easy-to-miss distinction between Clinton and her opponents. Because otherwise, all the candidates were in agreement: Corporate America, and its global reach, is bad for America. Listening to this 90-minute "debate" - it felt more like a sharing of familiar talking points, just like the Republican version Wednesday - you would think that Big Business posed a greater threat to American citizens than Al Qaeda (which, by the way, killed 34 people at the United Nations and government offices in Algeria this week.)

Search the debate transcript for the word "terrorist" and you'll come up empty-handed. Search for terms related to "corporate greed" and you'll hit a gold mine.

"We're having trouble growing and strengthening the middle class because corporate power and greed have literally taken over the government, and we need a president who's willing to take these powers on," declared former North Carolina Senator John Edwards.

With the exception of Edwards, it's unlikely that the leading Democratic candidates would govern with that level of frothing animosity toward business leaders.

Other than the fact that the debate questions did not concern any terrorist threats and was centered on economic issues and how to pay for the candidates' various policy proposals, it's clear that Easton has bought the faulty framing of the War on Terror hook line and sinker.

First, some perspective.

Census figures show more than one in seven Americans were uninsured in 2005. Studies show the uninsured are often unable to receive the primary and preventive care that they need. The Institute of Medicine estimates approximately 18,000 people die each year from diseases that would have been treatable or preventable if they had health coverage.

For those of you keeping score, that's six 9/11's per year, every year, directly attributable to greedy corporate interests who have done everything in their power to prevent universal health care.

Six 9/11's per year.

Preventable.

Treatable.

No guess-work, intelligence interpretation, or luck involved. And that's just one industry. Let's not even get into the industrial/military complex, or the environmental choking energy and transportation sectors. It's no real surprise that the Des Moines Register shied away from endorsing John Edwards, citing their "concern" that he wouldn't be able to work well with business interests. The Register is owned by Gannet Inc., the nation's largest newspaper publisher.

"Edwards was our pick for the 2004 nomination. But this is a different race, with different candidates. We too seldom saw the “positive, optimistic” campaign we found appealing in 2004. His harsh anti-corporate rhetoric would make it difficult to work with the business community to forge change."

Go figure. Corporate shills. To risk sounding like an our-way-or-the-highway conservative -- if you aren't working towards a solution, you're part of the problem; and consolidation of media ownership is indeed part of the problem. That's how a one-sided, superficial analysis like from a Fox News regular like Easton's can be spread by Fox's "competitor" CNN, without being challenged, let alone noted by anyone in the corporate media.

Standing up to unelected corporate lobbyists who run our government from K-Street, regulating those corporations in the public's interests instead of ensuring their easiest path to maximum profits is not "anti-business." It's pro-America.

Easton has fallen into the trap so many conservatives to, that either/or mentality that you are either with them or against them. Nationalizing entire industries is anti-business, a socialist coup like what we see going on in Venezuela. No Democrat, not even John Edwards is proposing such drastic measures.

But the cow-towing to Wall Street's whims can no longer be tolerated. Democratic Strategist cites a study showing corporate misconduct is at "pre-Enron levels." Kissing corporate ass allowed corporate mercenaries to run loose all over Iraq, literally raping and pillaging with no legal recourse.

If 18,000 Americans were blown up in terrorists bombings over the last year, we would mobilize the entire military might of this Superpower to utterly destroy those responsible. We would draft every able-bodied citizen and put a stop to such atrocities, right here, right now.

70% to 80% of Americans have wanted universal health care in this country for a generation. Tell me exactly how playing nice has approached this goal -- something We The People, as sovereign of this fine nation can simply legislate. It's time to demand our due.