Just a note before we start the love-fest that is the Steppinrazor Rant of The Week. In Ciudad Juarez, site of the most extensive serial murders of modern history, the authorities have arrested two men on charges of rape and murder. This might seem like a step forward from the previous lack of any suspects whatsoever except for the minor detail that these men have only been charged on eight counts. By my estimate, that leaves 562 victims unaccounted for. Still, I suppose it's lucky that anyone was charged at all. After all, we all know exactly how highly women are generally regarded in the world.

Beyond that vital piece of information, we have a book recommendation. I realize that, as you are viewing this site on a computer, a book may be a foreign object to some of our viewers, but this one is worth getting to understand the species of books in general. Captive State, by George Monbiot, is a book that should be read by anyone in pursuit of the Truth. It is focused on the corporate takeover of the public sector in Britain under the Labour government, but it is obvious, where Monbiot doesn't make it explicitly so, that the same thing has happened, or is happening in the United States.

Basically, for those of you living under rocks, the fact is that government is for sale to the highest bidder. There is nothing new about this - anyone who believes that important political positions are attained without selling every principle you may hold to corporations who will then sponsor your campaign and merely in exchange expect little favors like changes in patent law, or violation of international/other national law, is hereby struck from the voting register until they can prove that they understand that there is only one political party in the US and that party is Almighty Dollar.

The purpose of democracy, as set up in the United States, is to work for the people. The government guarantees the safety of its citizens in exchange for which those citizens promote the government. This process is achieved basically boils down to the economy.

The government - hereinafter referred to as the state, and I don't mean Idaho - guarantees public safety, which is why we all feel free to go to work on Monday morning - it is relatively unlikely that an armed gang of criminals will be shooting every employee that enters Bank Of America. Although this might be nice, the state needs an economy. Without one, it will lose its citizens and other countries, such as Canada and Guatemala, will feel free to make territorial claims on US soil. So the state guarantees that the streets will be free of crime during the time that its most productive workers are working, which is during the day, and the workers ensure that the state has a continuing economy by exchanging their labor for items that the government either directly or indirectly taxes, thereby gaining money for the government to continue to patrol the streets during the day. Imagine what would happen if we called a general strike to prevent the government from doing something. It worked in Seattle in the 20s or 30s - it would work again.

There are all sorts of nifty corollaries to this - the ability of the government to project force in the world as a direct result of its economy is but one. The point is that the state is constituted by the tacit agreement of its citizens that it exists. As Max Weber put it, the state exists because it has traditionally existed.

The other point, of somewhat greater primacy, is that the state requires an economic base more than a territorial one - in this day and age, the economy is what allows you to buy nifty weapons like nukes and bombers, which are essential if you wish to project force, to be a player on the global stage. (Although there are lots of countries with national airlines, and I think we've all seen that the nature of weaponry has changed since Sept. 11). So if the state is to get money, where does it come from?

Not from its citizens, none of whom want to pay higher taxes. Not from its existing budget because god forbid we actually balance a budget or save money - that would mean, principally, the reduction of government jobs and the reduction of the military budget, which would also eliminate jobs. People without jobs not only pay no taxes, they also take from the government. So the government is in a bind to get money.

Corporations, on the other hand, want to get their logos and their names out. And they are willing to pay ridiculous sums of money to do so. One example - Safeco Field in Seattle, funding for which was voted down by the voters. Slade Gorton cut a deal with the developers to fund the field with public money anyway. When the thing went into budget overruns, Safeco Insurance bought the rights to the name of the stadium for $40 million dollars, which went a ways to alleviating the budget overruns.

So it's a ready-made market. And when it's not that blatant, it's still happening. Otherwise why would the FDA have approved a bovine hormone that Monsanto developed to increase milk production, and one that there was plenty of evidence stating that it was and is not safe for human consumption? Because Monsanto was willing to buy the testimony of people to say that it was actually quite safe, and the FDA was prepared - largely due to their own budget cutbacks and the official policy of the Clinton Administration that the approval process be made easier for businesses - to listen to such biased opinions and was not in a position to actually test it themselves.

In other words, the agency that is supposed to keep us safe is now in bed with an agency that is perfectly willing to endanger and kill customers as long as they can continue to sell their products in monopolistic and terroristic situations.

Monsanto also created a strain of soy beans that was resistant to glyphosate-based herbicides. Specifically to Round-Up, also made by Monsanto. The only catch was that if you used the seed, you could not use any other herbicide on it. You could not save seeds from the harvest for the next planting. If you did either you could be subject to huge fines for violating Monsanto's patent rights (Yes. Patent rights. Organizations are now allowed to patent life, in the form of genes. How long before people are selecting their children's eyecolor from a palette of Nike Blue, McDonald's Green, or Monsanto Brown?) - fines on the legal statement on the soy beans says "Nothing herein shall be deemed to limit the amount of damages that Monsanto might recover for any violation of this Agreement". (Monbiot, 254) So this is what I would call a monopoly - if you buy the soy beans you are constrained to buy the herbicide. It is also what I would call domestic terrorism - if you don't do what we want, we can assess fines against you that will put you out of business.

It is also foreign terrorism. The US forced Britain to raise the levels of glyphosate - a chemical that, like the bovine hormone also produced by Monsanto - was known to be dangerous to humans, at least by people other than Monsanto's pet talking heads - that were acceptable in food specifically so Monsanto could extend their terrorism overseas.

And all because Monsanto has money. Or McDonalds has money. Or Channel One has money. Or HSBC has money. Or Bank of America, or Safeco Insurance, or Key Bank. Or any other multi-nat corporation. And all because the government doesn't. Because we, the citizens without which the state fails to exist, want the state to provide certain things, but we don't want to pay for them. Or better yet, the state should pay us. I'm thinking of GW's tax rebate here - the one that's going to fuck us all over in about 9.5 years when the things that were being funded with that money are gone.

It would be extremely wrong to say that I am a fan of the state. The older I get and the more aware of the bullshit I become, the more my libertarian/anarchistic tendencies assert themselves. But I don't think that the corporations are the right way to pay for the things we expect of the government, and I do think that we have the power to stop them.

Because I know that the minute a large corporation - whether one-nation or multi-nat - offers to do something, they are not doing it for me. I am an expendable unit to the corporation, and one that will be replaced by others less willing to see that there is a different way of doing things because "that's the way it's always been". I am a very dangerous enemy to the people who want us to be stupid. I would like not to be the only one.

So let's demand accountability from the government. Let's demand a realistic assessment of the government as an employer and as a military force. Let's demand that standards of protection - especially the FDA - not be cut. Remember what happened in the eighties when they put that great friend of the environment, James Watt into the Dept. of the Interior?

We let them do that every day, every time we refuse to speak up.

Hoping to be Public Enemy Number 1,

Channon