Man, that's what real free enterprise is all about. The corporate "for real" wars would be better than professionl wrestling.

Ah, but you forget that corporations ARE democratic. And dysfunctional. Ask any minority shareholder incensed at the outrageous levels of executive compensation. (And ask yourself: is "simply majority rules" really such a good way of doing things?)

As for overthrowing the U.S. government and putting in place a band of mercenaries under the control of large corporations: what makes you think that hasn't already happened? Why bother blowing things up when you can simply "lobby" your way to power? Blowing things up has a nasty side-effect of drawing attention to yourself.

Ah, but you forget that corporations ARE democratic

I'll have what the shareholders are smoking, please.

JZG, do you have any idea what common-stock holders mean to a board that owns 97% of the company? NOTHING. that's not democracy, that's egypt.

American soldiers have an unfortunate habit of losing heart once they get some perspective on what they have been sent to do:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13140.htm

So, Mr. Koppel presents an excellent idea. We were needing a better way to kill the people who are trying to regain their land, resources and sovereignty. Perhaps the hired guns could shout "Remember 9/11!" as they terrorize the countryside.

Bravo, Mr. Koppel, American thinking at its best.

It won't be necessary to "overthrow" the government, we can just "privatize it."
Let Southwest Airlines be the Dept. of Transportation.
Martin Lockheed is DoD.
The Carlyle Group transforms itself into State.
And so on.
Congress is dismissed. Its former members do the same # of years of community service they sat on the Hill.
The actual "government" becomes the Business Roundtable or a similar corporate front group.
Aahhhh. Finally, the business of America will truly be the business of America. No more "of the people, by the people..." bullshit.
In God We Trust, as long as his bottom line meets the Street's expectations.

"do you have any idea what common-stock holders mean to a board that owns 97% of the company? NOTHING. that's not democracy, that's egypt."

Yes, I do. I could have ten million dollars invested in a company (we are speaking theoretically, of course :-) ) and it wouldn't make a whit of difference in, say, a company with a market cap of a billion dollars. Yes, 1% is a big holding relative to "normal" people, but it's unlikely to be a decisive factor in any vote. More to the point, if the executives are awarded as much in stock options as my hypothetical investment, EVERY YEAR, then what little power I may have had is potentially diluted forever more.

But it *is* a democracy. Which is my point: rule by simple majority sucks. It may not suck as badly as some of the alternatives, but it still sucks.

It is indeed time to reinstate the DRAFT. One would hope for the DRAFT to be FAIR this time around. Perhaps we may all meet in person in Iran some sunny day.

Yeah, and maybe we'll be carrying kit through the desert with Bush's daughters. Right. "Fair draft."

Damnit. I hate when my pithy wit is unappreciated!

Look, JustZisGuy (and you too, almostinfamous): the fact that shareholders get a vote does not magically make corporations into democracies.

I'm about to get pithy again, so "don't you watch my size" (as Peter Tosh would have it): Have you ever heard of workers?

The tyranny of owners is not democracy, comma, duh!

Is it too late to trade Koppel to Canada for 'a player to be named later' like the McKenzie Brothers, maybe?

BRG:
That would be more fair a form of the DRAFT. A woman can fire a weapon as well as a man and no doubt we will need every soldier we can get before this Administration is done playing around. When you've turned the world against you, then it's you against the world.

I love it - it's so "Beyond Thunderdome".

This is exactly why Rangel urged to reinstate the draft during the build-up to the war in Iraq, it would have made the very idea of invading extremely unpopular which in turn is the real reason Rummy the bummy insisted on not sending enough troops, not that I ever thought we should send any to begin with.

I keep waiting for Ted Koppel to grow up and act like an adult, guess I should not hold my breath.

JZG, the point is not that democracy sucks, but that democracy-with-strings-attached sucks. to get a say in the goings on of even a publicly held company, you need beaucoup amounts of cash. to vote in a democratic society, all you need is a finger that can be turned purple.

erstwhile, while i do not claim to posess any wit, let alone the pithy kind, i do take offense to your implication that i consider shareholder votes to be democratic. hence the comparison with egypt, which is a democracy in name only and only when it is beneficial to propaganda purposes. i could have used many other countries but thanks to a just-read billmon piece, egypt is what popped up. i could have used iraq i guess , but i don't know that any co. is that seriously fucked up.

Carbon Dioxide: They Call It Pollution. We Call It Life.

Lol, thanks for that website hedgehog. It deserves a separate post, I think.

But...but, don't private contractors already peel potatoes and things for the military, as Koppel pointed out? Being oblivious to the modern world most of the time, I just found that out--really didn't know KP duty had been eliminated. So how does that work and who are the companies who supply the workers?

my 1st reaction was to say,

"how about we only draft the rich and well-connected for combat duties?"

then I realized that the only thing that would change is that instead of actually invading and occupying sundry foreign countries, we'd just have a lot of incredibly inefficient saturation-bombing campaigns launched from 50,000 or more feet.

And we'd probably lose a lot more aircraft to pilot error and friendly fire, and the pilots' families would tie up the courts for years, suing the military for making the planes so darn hard to fly.

(I'm going on the assumption that the companies that built them would be protected from litigation-- just a guess.)

then I realized that the only thing that would change is that instead of actually invading and occupying sundry foreign countries, we'd just have a lot of incredibly inefficient saturation-bombing campaigns launched from 50,000 or more feet
i think that a nice, tight bombing pattern pleases rumsfeld to no end.

as for the private army idea, someone ask blackwater about their recycled and import product discount.

"Let the discussion begin"??!

We've heard this "discussion" since Rome and the result is always the same. The mercenaries take over the first chance they get. Read your "Machiavelli for Dummies and TV Talking Heads."

Didn't they teach Koppell anything at the Stutts Institute of Government Studies?

A modest proposal:

WAR IS A RACKET
General Smedely Butler, 1935

full: http://lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

...

WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

...

WELL, it's a racket, all right.

A few profit -- and the many pay. But there is a way to stop it. You can't end it by disarmament conferences. You can't eliminate it by peace parleys at Geneva. Well-meaning but impractical groups can't wipe it out by resolutions. It can be smashed effectively only by taking the profit out of war.

The only way to smash this racket is to conscript capital and industry and labor before the nations manhood can be conscripted. One month before the Government can conscript the young men of the nation -- it must conscript capital and industry and labor. Let the officers and the directors and the high-powered executives of our armament factories and our munitions makers and our shipbuilders and our airplane builders and the manufacturers of all the other things that provide profit in war time as well as the bankers and the speculators, be conscripted -- to get $30 a month, the same wage as the lads in the trenches get.

Let the workers in these plants get the same wages -- all the workers, all presidents, all executives, all directors, all managers, all bankers --

yes, and all generals and all admirals and all officers and all politicians and all government office holders -- everyone in the nation be restricted to a total monthly income not to exceed that paid to the soldier in the trenches!

Let all these kings and tycoons and masters of business and all those workers in industry and all our senators and governors and majors pay half of their monthly $30 wage to their families and pay war risk insurance and buy Liberty Bonds.

Why shouldn't they?

They aren't running any risk of being killed or of having their bodies mangled or their minds shattered. They aren't sleeping in muddy trenches. They aren't hungry. The soldiers are!

Give capital and industry and labor thirty days to think it over and you will find, by that time, there will be no war. That will smash the war racket -- that and nothing else.

Maybe I am a little too optimistic. Capital still has some say. So capital won't permit the taking of the profit out of war until the people -- those who do the suffering and still pay the price -- make up their minds that those they elect to office shall do their bidding, and not that of the profiteers.

Another step necessary in this fight to smash the war racket is the limited plebiscite to determine whether a war should be declared. A plebiscite not of all the voters but merely of those who would be called upon to do the fighting and dying. There wouldn't be very much sense in having a 76-year-old president of a munitions factory or the flat-footed head of an international banking firm or the cross-eyed manager of a uniform manufacturing plant -- all of whom see visions of tremendous profits in the event of war -- voting on whether the nation should go to war or not. They never would be called upon to shoulder arms -- to sleep in a trench and to be shot. Only those who would be called upon to risk their lives for their country should have the privilege of voting to determine whether the nation should go to war.

There is ample precedent for restricting the voting to those affected. Many of our states have restrictions on those permitted to vote. In most, it is necessary to be able to read and write before you may vote. In some, you must own property. It would be a simple matter each year for the men coming of military age to register in their communities as they did in the draft during the World War and be examined physically. Those who could pass and who would therefore be called upon to bear arms in the event of war would be eligible to vote in a limited plebiscite. They should be the ones to have the power to decide -- and not a Congress few of whose members are within the age limit and fewer still of whom are in physical condition to bear arms. Only those who must suffer should have the right to vote.

A third step in this business of smashing the war racket is to make certain that our military forces are truly forces for defense only.

At each session of Congress the question of further naval appropriations comes up. The swivel-chair admirals of Washington (and there are always a lot of them) are very adroit lobbyists. And they are smart. They don't shout that "We need a lot of battleships to war on this nation or that nation." Oh no. First of all, they let it be known that America is menaced by a great naval power. Almost any day, these admirals will tell you, the great fleet of this supposed enemy will strike suddenly and annihilate 125,000,000 people. Just like that. Then they begin to cry for a larger navy. For what? To fight the enemy? Oh my, no. Oh, no. For defense purposes only.

Then, incidentally, they announce maneuvers in the Pacific. For defense. Uh, huh.

The Pacific is a great big ocean. We have a tremendous coastline on the Pacific. Will the maneuvers be off the coast, two or three hundred miles? Oh, no. The maneuvers will be two thousand, yes, perhaps even thirty-five hundred miles, off the coast.

The Japanese, a proud people, of course will be pleased beyond expression to see the united States fleet so close to Nippon's shores. Even as pleased as would be the residents of California were they to dimly discern through the morning mist, the Japanese fleet playing at war games off Los Angeles.

The ships of our navy, it can be seen, should be specifically limited, by law, to within 200 miles of our coastline. Had that been the law in 1898 the Maine would never have gone to Havana Harbor. She never would have been blown up. There would have been no war with Spain with its attendant loss of life. Two hundred miles is ample, in the opinion of experts, for defense purposes. Our nation cannot start an offensive war if its ships can't go further than 200 miles from the coastline. Planes might be permitted to go as far as 500 miles from the coast for purposes of reconnaissance. And the army should never leave the territorial limits of our nation.

To summarize: Three steps must be taken to smash the war racket.

We must take the profit out of war.

We must permit the youth of the land who would bear arms to decide whether or not there should be war.

We must limit our military forces to home defense purposes.

...

full: http://lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

Every day we hear promises of troop withdrawal in Iraq (never Afghanistan) but only if the situation on the ground improves. Every day we hear of more death in an ever downward spiral of civil war in Iraq. Every day this Administration works toward starting a new conflict with Iran or any one else they can find. Every day the same people pull duty and pay in BLOOD. Yes indeed it is BEYOND THUNDERDOME. Every day it's ALL going south because we've elected (appointed) an Administration that can start a war but doesn't know anything beyond that and yet THE AMERICAN PEOPLE still tolerate them. This is what we've bought and paid half (treasure) for. Time to pay the other half (BLOOD).

I did a post about that CEI thingy...

"to get a say in the goings on of even a publicly held company, you need beaucoup amounts of cash. to vote in a democratic society, all you need is a finger that can be turned purple."

Not true. I don't get to vote in Iraq, or in the United States, or in fact any country in which I am not a citizen. Every democratic group in the world has insiders and outsiders.

You do not, btw, need a lot of cash, you can buy one share in a publicly traded company and have the right to attend and speak at the annual meeting. Not that one vote in millions will make a difference, but... well, let's see, one vote in millions, what does that remind us of?

Look, the original post said

At long last we would be completely free of the awful "voting" and "democracy" that has created unpleasant controversies for centuries.

I am pointing out that that is simply not true. Further, I find it amusing that USians have such faith in democracy when they don't really have one. Try getting rid of the lobbyists and the corporate campaign contributions and all the conflict of interest inherent in your system, THEN you can start lecturing the rest of the world about the wonders of democracy.

Regarding: "what possible problems could arise?"

Well, obviously, the main problem is that the whole idea is contrary to most people's desire for law and order. You just don't go around shooting people because you disagree with them.

Except: that is EXACTLY what the United States military has been doing for decades. What possible problems could arise? Geez, how much time do you have to read the whole list?

You know, silly me, I always thought USians believed in the rule of law, so the correct response to the bombing of the USS Cole would have been the use of police forces and extradition treaties, not the bombing of a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan. The correct response to the World Trade Center attacks would have been an intense investigation leading to arrests and prosecution - you know, that "courts of law" thing - not the invasion of Afghanistan, leading to the muder of yet more innocent civilians.

Then, of course, we have the invasion of Iraq, which is completely off the scale - no justification, plenty of war crimes (e.g. Fallujah) continuing beyond the Really Big One of invading a country that had done nothing to provoke an attack.

The problem is the idea that those with the weapons can use them as they wish - "might makes right". Whether this power is exercised directly by corporations or indirectly through the U.S. military is a rather moot point in many ways, especially to those who end up injured or dead as a result.