10 Open Secrets of the Corporatocracy

By Juan Cole, Informed Comment

13 June 12

here are so many open secrets in our corporatocracy. But precisely because they are the open secrets of powerful multi-billion-dollar concerns with phalanxes of attorneys, which after all themselves own most “news” media, they are the secrets that dare not say their name.

But every once in a while, some evidence for these secrets is proffered to the public, perhaps because the corporation involved has been embroiled in a major (known) scandal and so is too weak to prevent it any more. So here are today’s “You always knew it, but…” revelations:

10. You always knew it, but yesterday former British prime minister John Major admitted that billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch came to his office and threatened him that if he did not change his foreign policy, Murdoch’s corporations “would not be able to support” him. Major confesses to having been overly frightened by the prospect of bad publicity. Murdoch’s Fox Cable News likewise works by intimidation and fear tactics.

9. Even though corporation profits as a percentage of our gross domestic product are at a high for the post-War II period, workers have seen little benefit, since CEO compensation is is now 350 times that of the the average worker, up from 50 times in the period from 1960-1985.

8. You always knew it, but now WHO has officially announced that diesel fumes cause lung cancer.

7. Romney wants to remake Obamacare so that millions of Americans with pre-existing conditions will be excluded from it.

6. The UN peace-keaping head has now pronounced whatever is going on in Syria to be ‘a civil war.’

5. Criminalizing ever more drugs is getting in the way of bio-medical research.

4. Stealth Republican-enacted state laws supposedly intended to prevent voter fraud don’t actually work.

3. Too much dependence on natural gas will cause carbon emissions to sky-rocket, according to the International Energy Agency

2. Even congressmen are having to use strong-arm tactics to find out how many Americans are being spied on by the government.

1. Economic inequality is leading the US to the brink, according to a Nobelist in economics.