BY EDWIN E. VINEYARD

Some of us have been a little slow to grasp fully the corporate-Republican strategy for taking over our country. We should have understood that something was amiss back during the early days of the Obama Administration, when the new president was trying to prop up an economy falling into shambles as it was passed to him. He was trying to hold the banking and finance system together with bailouts; he was trying to keep the Big Three American automakers from going under forever; and, he was trying a stimulus program to put money back into the hands of people by low cost credit, unemployment benefits, and jobs.

In the midst of this agility act of Mr. Obama, trying to put his fingers into multiple holes in multiple dikes, Republican leaders were asked their views. Their alarming reply was: “We hope he fails.”

Maybe such statements were so incredulous that we could not take them at face value. “Surely, he does not mean what he says,” we thought. But we should have received the message. That has been the constant message at that time and ever since. Whenever Republicans could block progressive response programs or weaken them, on behalf of their corporate masters, they have done so.

They have kept the nation in the midst of one crisis after another. It has been one path of “brinkmanship” after another, each threatening dire consequences for us and for the world.

This cadre of flag waving, patriotic-talking, con artists have done anything and everything they can to bring down the nation on Mr. Obama’s watch – always, always looking forward to the next election.

Having obtained a political majority on the Supreme Court, shown by the Bush-Gore decision to be politicians in court robes, they were ready to move again in clearing the way to “take the country back” from its people. This political court ruled that corporations were “persons,” and thus had their rights to all the paid free speech that they wanted or needed to buy our elections.

We know that corporations are not persons, of course, since they consistently demonstrate that they have no soul. But the Republican court said so anyway.

All Republican politicians now work for corporations. They don’t say so, but their campaign contributions speak louder than their self-serving rhetoric. Their votes say so. Of course, they like to flavor their rationale with false notion that “anything that is good for business [the corporations and the wealthy] is good for the country because they create jobs.”

Republicans flaunt this notion of “private sector jobs” as if these company beneficiaries of taxpayers’ largesse were anxious to spend their tax subsidies and even their profits on American jobs. Demonstravely not so.

For a year the S&P 500 corporations have been holding $1 trillion in cash on their ledgers. They have not spent it on jobs. They have not even passed it out into the system in stockholder dividends. They have just held it. One cannot but wonder if there is an unwritten corporate code to contribute absolutely nothing to help this nation out of its stress, lest that accomplishment be credited to this president.

The recent accounts of big corporate tax dodging with offices abroad – even those that now receive our tax subsidies – are appalling. Now comes the news that these tax dodgers are holding nearly a trillion dollars in cash accounts overseas, so that the companies will have to pay no taxes now on that income. This is another blatant instance of holding back capital from the American economy.

With their black, unholy record of poor economic patriotism long established by shipping facilities and American jobs overseas, these additions should make it clear that the corporate world of big business is in congruence, if not conspiracy, with the Republican strategists with a declared intent to prevent a successful economic recovery during Mr. Obama’s presidency.

Indeed, we are beginning to see how deep that relationship actually runs.

Mindful of the old adage, “follow the money,” one wonders what advantages may lie in the Republican effort to force default on the nation’s debt. Some point out side effects such as raising interest rates, raising bond prices, and lowering our currency value internationally. Maybe we should ask, “Who profits from such.” We should not be surprised by the answers.

– Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard lives in Enid, OK and is a regular contributor to The Oklahoma Observer