Of all the things he told me, one item in particular stuck in my mind.
According to Mr. Texas, America is run by a government which is actually a
corporation - the United States of America, Inc. And "we the people" are
merely products, owned and controlled wholly by the company which leads
us. Sadly, he didn't get into any Orb-like rants about barcode tattoos, but it
was clear nevertheless that he had fallen off the turnip truck a few blocks
back. Still, as I get older and learn more about the way the world works, I
can't help but wonder if he realizes [1] just how close to the truth his
rambling diatribes really were. While I'm not quite ready to believe that the
US government is a giant, faceless corporation prepping its people to be
churned into Soylent Green [2], it's still no secret that the course of the
United States - both culturally and legistatively - is steered primarily by the
interests of giant corporations. From the Enron thing to Disney's infamous
(and successful) push to extend copyright protection from 75 to 90+ years,
the most powerful and pervasive entities in the US - and perhaps the world -
are corporations, creatures which exist to grow and become ever more
profitable. Governments ultimately reach a point of equilibrium due to their
finite interests, but corporations exist wholly through growth. The ultimate
evolution of a corporation is of course a single world-spanning interest that
owns everything and everyone (at which point they start marketing to
animals and compiling demographic data for extraterrestrials), though to date
market forces and the government's periodic infusion of Democrats have
stunted the growth of the most frightening companies and kept the free
market moderately vital.