The Human Condition: Freedom Expropriated by Corporations Essay

Events of the new millennium irreversibly changed the direction of American foreign policy. During the 1990s, Anti-American sentiments burgeoned in the Middle East within growing radical Islamist groups that perceived America as empirical and expansionist after the prolonged US occupation of Muslim holy sites in Saudi Arabia after the end of the first gulf war. The September 11th attack on the Twin Towers, once representative of American military and economic hegemony, symbolized to many a political failure that would change the focus of American national interest for years to come.

On September 11th 2001, the United States was hit with a devastating blow when four commercial airplanes were hijacked by Al-Qaeda terrorist who deliberately crashed two of the planes into the World Trade Center complex, and a third plane into the Pentagon. The fourth plane, headed for Washington D.C., instead crashed in Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 lives were lost on this egregious day. In response, President George W. Bush waged the controversial “Global War on Terrorism” which turned out to be a self-inflicted wound for America, bleeding still today. Bush’s highly-criticized decision was inconsistent with the strategic principles of war.

An event such as 9/11 was bound to occur at some point and time, due to the United States’ strained relationship with the Middle East, with roots back to the year 1910. However, it wasn’t until the Gulf War in 1991, when tensions began to run high. The Gulf War began due to an Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, who ordered an invasion of Kuwait. Neighbouring countries were alarmed by the news and immediately asked for Western nations to intervene, fearing Hussein would continue to feed his power hunger and advance to other Arabian countries. Finally after forty two days at war, his troops surrendered. From this moment on, the events leading up to the attack on 9/11 snowballed. This is evidenced by, “After the Gulf War ended in 1991, the United

Vladeck (2002, para.14) addresses the issue of monetary power and its impact on universal health care coverage in the United States further pointing out that while politicians in the United States were able to succeed without huge electoral support, they couldn’t succeed without money behind them. As industry began to grow in the United States and contracts came up for large infrastructure projects such as the railroad, building canals or bridges and mining, the concept of political donations in return for lucrative contracts began to get established. Vladeck (2002, para16) also points out that wealthy groups and individuals have always been

It is unsensible to believe that even the upper crest of the US financially can keep up with a corporation. Therefore receiving donations from corporations is the candidate's main goal, while ignoring the many small donors that truly represent America’s views. While there is no solid proof of corporations influencing candidates decisions thee have been sketchy moment in which corporations money influencing candidates decisions have been suspected. In 2000 when Bush was running for president an energy company based in Houston, Enron donated a substantial amount of money to Bush. They donated 2.5 million making them the highest donating energy company and the 36th highest corporate donator. After Bush was elected he passed 6 bills extremely beneficial for Enron that multiplied their revenue by nearly three times. In all Corporations donating limitless to candidates forces a candidate to pass bills beneficial for their donors and not the majority of people. This needs to stop or the purity of America’s political system goes down the

With a great nation comes great political power and responsibility played in the upkeep of our states. After the events of 9/11 America’s political side was forever altered. Clearly upset with the Middle East and whom the U.S. believed was responsible foreign affairs had to be looked at. Our government had put a stop to all communication, trade, travel, and influence from some countries overseas. Our President and congress were immediately forced to stop all meetings with foreign leaders due to the security regulations of our Department of Defense. Not only was our government no longer involved with the majority of other countries our citizens also could not travel to these places nor buy from them and all who were believed to be involved in secret affiliation would be brought to court. Policy with other countries prior to the events was different when looking at the topic of involvement of the U.S. and others.

In this nation’s majority of experience, large corporations were not prevalent until the early 1900’s, and compared to present day their influence was not as huge as it is today. It is true, money has always been a large role in campaigning, but now it is a large deciding role, and quite possibly makes up most of the decision for

There are many challenges and issues that the United States has faced such as creating a health care plan and stimulating trade with Mexico and Canada by the North American Free Trade Act that caused Americans to lose jobs, but two of the most serious issues in terms of foreign affairs and domestic affairs is the formation of the al-Qaeda and the 9/11 attacks. Both of these issues were mainly caused by Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda, due to his hatred toward the globalization of Western influence. The United States was impacted by these conflicts and had long-term effects such as unification of American citizens after 9/11 and the president’s promise to eliminate the terrorism in the Middle East.

The purpose of the textbook, Who Rules America? by G. William Domhoff, is to explain his theory of Class Domination. My essay emphasises the relation of social class to power, the existence of a Corporate community, the relationship of the Corporate community to the upper class, and various methods used by the Corporate community to dominate the U.S Political System. Furthermore, my essay will discuss the potential limits to corporate power in America.

Now with that out of the way let’s dive in. Our conflict in the middle east started after 9/11, but it had been brewing for years. The military-industrial complex was definitely a key factor. The military-industrial complex is when a country’s is greatly invested in it's military. Not just the american people but the economy and industry. It is mainly corporations that has caused this to happen. they do this by spreading out the production of weapons and vehicles that are used in war. For example if they have a piece of weaponry produced in every state then the government officials of that state will want to keep the industry going. This means there has to be constant War. without War the industry would fail and people would lose their jobs and in turn the economy would collapse. to fix this problem the government adapted the idea of imperialism. Imperialism as stated by dictionary.com is “the policy of

By definition, Capitalism is an economic system controlled chiefly by individuals and private companies instead of by the government. In this system, individuals and companies own and direct most of the resources used to produce goods and services, including land and other natural resources labor, and “capital”. “Capital” includes factories and equipment and sometimes the money used in businesses (Friedman, 5).

The fact that free markets are based on a contractual agreement between the buyer and seller with very little government control makes it feasible to consider it to be compatible with individual freedom. (Free Market: 2014) Classical liberals may agree with the objectives of free markets, as they emphasise the importance of individual freedom with limited control of the state. (Hagopian)The counter argument is that when the free market economy is fuelled by profit motives, it sacrifices some ethical and economic issues which can cause severe consequences. (Gerald Hanks: 2014) Modern Liberals argue that although individual freedom is important, coercion can be used as a positive outlook of bettering individuals to the best of their ability.

Economic freedom is the ability for an individual to prosper with minimal intervention from government. In an economically free society, individuals are empowered to succeed or fail based on their own individual abilities. Higher levels of economic freedom lead to higher levels of economic growth and income. The level of economic freedom varies among different regions and countries across the globe. Thus, levels of prosperity and wealth also vary widely across the globe. The Heritage Foundation, in cooperation with The Wall Street Journal, researches several factors to measure economic freedom across the globe. The Foundation issues the results of their research in the Index of Economic Freedom. The Foundation

In our society there is knowledge created every second of every day. All day long there are new stories covered by CNN, FOX News, ABC News, The Young Turks, etc. and even more rapidly than these news stations can cover stories articles are published on Facebook, Twitter, Redit etc. This creates a nonstop flow of media and new stories right into our cells phones, laptops, televisions, and even now our watches. Some might argue this is a bad thing; some might argue that this is a good thing, but not many of us stop to think about many of these new stories were created. And even fewer of us stop to consider how the facts that were used to

The United States has been involved in the affairs of the Middle East for decades and they’ve had various reasons for being there, whether it was to wage war or to prevent outside influence that would undermine their own influence in the region, it always seemed to revolve around one thing: oil. As we all know, oil is a very profitable resource and it’s a huge part of many nations’ economies and because this is the case many wars are fought over this black liquid. The U.S. is no different in that they did just about anything to maintain their access to Middle East oil. As a result, United States actions in the Middle East today has been formed through the decades long desire for their oil.