What part of
Steve Bannon's rhetoric is not something that should raise the hackles of
sedition and treason? How is it that one man and his handful of appointed
individuals have the authority and power to completely alter and reshape the
entire Federal government all without a vote in the US House and Senate?
By acting
the part of a despotic dictator, Donald Trump has been able to subvert a dozen
federal agencies, bureaus and administrations merely by appointing people to
head the organization who also have a pledged agenda to dismantle the self-same
organization by administrative decisions. Steve Bannon himself has stated his
personal goal of Deconstructing the Administrative State of the Federal
Government. While he appears to have the ear of the President and a number of
members of congress, he has zero mandate to make such sweeping changes.
There are
some parts of his agenda which possibly are beneficial to the US economy. The
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was widely panned as a treaty which would
subvert American Sovereignty to foreign and multi-national corporations who
could file claims in civil courts seeking monetary remedies for lost profits
when government regulations curtailed their plan or increased their costs.
However, on the other side of the coin, it did create a cadre of partners who
would work together to benefit the group at the expense of those on the
outside.
The United
States has excelled in its Administrative State to the benefit of the
middleclass. We have been able to limit the intrusion of profit-driven
interests into the essential services that humans need in order to be
comfortable. Such comfort and standard of living for the middleclass stands in
direct opposition to shareholders of the corporate culture here in the US and
around the world. Owners and Labor both vie for the same income dollar.
When allowed
a free hand, all corporations push the envelope further and further toward
their domination of the ubiquitous marketplace, of the labor which makes their
profits a reality, and of the
environment in which they exist. American Constitutional checks and balances among
the three branches of government has up to this Presidential Administration
kept the Equilibrium. Without rules, regulations, watchdogs, and consequences anarchy
is what develops and destroys any semblance of order.
Without a
national government we get such scenarios as Somalia and former Soviet Union.
Somalia has no rule of law and it is every man for himself. Violence and death
are the main tools of the business trade in that country.
Russia, the
main entity of the former-USSR dominates the region and now today does as it
pleases. Actually in is not what the country wants but that which its President
dictates will be done.
Deconstructing
the Administrative State will only benefit the investors of corporations which
seek to boost profitability by neglecting what corporations refer to as
"externalities." Examples of externalities are what becomes of the
coal ash after the coal is burned. The mining company is in the business of
extracting coal from the ground as their primary interests not of handling the
ash afterwards. They can price their product while neglecting the damage the
use of that product does.
The HFCS,
sugar, transfat, tobacco, alcohol, opioid producers all are happy to provide
their products just so long as they do not have to consider the toll on the
health care industry.
Coal mining
concerns, hydraulic frackers, oil well drillers, nuclear power plants all
produce their medium of energy while not considering carbon loading of the
environment, earthquakes, poisoning of aquifers, or what to do with millions of
tons or radioactive wastes.
All of these
industries need supervision and controls placed on them by the Administrative
State which Steve Bannon and Donald Trump want to dismantle. Without such
quality controls and the taxes to pay for essential services, America would be
no better than a Third-world Country. Taxes and controls built this nation. We
cannot allow a small cadre of men dispose of it.
