By Bruce Walker

Government
ownership of business will cause – as history has shown so many times – gross
mismanagement and inefficiency.   We can expect that, of course, but
those are recoverable calamities.   What worries me more is what
happens when CBS goes bankrupt?  The network news audience is dropping
like a rock?  http://newsbusters.org/node/29019/hmtl.
 What happens when USA Today goes under?  The only major
newspaper which has not lost readership, according to the latest audit, is the
relatively conservative Wall Street Journal. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/US-newspaper-circulation-sees-apf-15039695.html. 
Will Obama sit by idly while the workers at these companies lose their
jobs?   Are these companies institutions which have to be kept from
dying a natural death?

It
is a bad idea, but not a ghastly idea, to have government take over a company
that is making widgets.  All that means to me is lower quality and more
expensive widgets for the next few decades.   If the nationalized
company is making cars, it means that I spend extra money to keep my old car in
good repair.  But what if the company is in the business of creating the
news, developing programs that affect ideological opinion, and defining what
matters in our public discourse?  What if government bureaucrats run the
companies responsible for critiquing their political bosses?

It
is bad enough today when criticism of Obama brings a swift kick in the pants
not only by your own bosses but by the bosses of their competitors.  But
at least this reflects no more than the predictable bigotry of the Left. 
What happens when criticizing Obama becomes some sort of violation of
government policy?  Does it seem unthinkable?  Forty years ago, who
would have thought that school teachers would be giving homework assignments to
praise Obama?  (And who would have thought that the Federal Government
would be dictating so much of what schools do?)   Who would have
thought ten years ago that the media would collude to hide evidence of
presidential malfeasance?  If there is any rule to how Leftists use power,
it is surely this:  the Left does not respect any rules.

As
Barry Obama’s pals run General Motors, is anyone going to check to see how much
money corporate executives contribute to Democrat candidates?  That is,
after all, how the Left rates the performance of UAW bosses.  If Chicago
bosses shake down money to fund the one-party Democrat rule in that ethically
challenged city, what makes us think that the new Chicago Gang will not do just
the same thing with national businesses? 

What
will keep political hacks from filling the management officers of major
corporations that our government buys?  What will keep these hacks from
pressuring smaller business partners from making “wise” decisions regarding
which candidates, parties, and causes to support?  If you are a
conservative Republican CEO who does business with General Motors right now,
are you rethinking how openly or generously you help those politicians who
truly support?  Are you balancing your career against your conscience?

What
about the advertising campaigns of big companies that Obama  - Oops! “The
Government” – owns?  Do they spread a general message of hope, especially
in the months before the 2010 midterm elections?  Do they mimic the myths
of global warming?  Do they use the word “Green” in every other
sentence?  Do the advertising departments and ad agencies of big
Obama-owned businesses begin to conform their message very closely to the
Boss’s message?

Once
the federal government begins to buy America, there is no clear place to
stop.  Once Obama’s purely political minions realize that they control a
huge amount of the corporate wealth of America, what will prevent them from
turning that wealth into “soft” campaign contributions or, at least,
ideologically bent ad campaigns which laud our Narcissist-in-Chief and explain,
just like Pravda years ago, how day by day in every way our new rulers are
making the world better.

Power
is a snowball.  When checks and balances end in government, we have seen
the muck that follows.  When state governments become lifeless appendages
of federal bureaucracies, we have seen much the same.  When education
becomes nationalized, censored, and uniform, then real education dies – as it
most certainly has in America.   

But
when the very livelihood of the people has now become the property of those who
run government, when the very tools to criticize politicians has been purchased
with tax dollars for the use of politicians, then the days of free democracy
are growing dim.  We are used to politicians using our money to buy our
votes for them.  Now we may be seeing them using our money to buy our
voices for them to fill with their words.  Then what will our voice be but
a tiny squeak?

                     © 2009 Bruce Walker — All Rights Reserved
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Bruce Walker is the author of two books:  Sinisterism:
Secular Religion of the Lie, and his recently published book, The
Swastika against the Cross: The Nazi War on Christianity.

http://outskirtspress.com/swastika_against_the_cross 

 http://outskirtspress.com/Sinisterism