Surprisingly, our laws dictate that corporations cannot serve the greater good and cannot act altruistically. This not only sets corporations apart from humans, it is contrary to the entire purpose of the United States of America. While many people may act selfishly, they can choose otherwise. Corporations have no such choice. They must serve their only lawful purpose, which is to generate profit for their their shareholders, even when that requires injuring or killing humans, or destroying Earth's climate. Such consequences are the rule, not the exception. Corporations lobby to continue marketing deliberately destructive addictions such as tobacco, video games, gambling, and junk food. They knowingly build and sell exploding cars, misfiring guns, and drugs for pregnant women that cause birth defects. To justify the continued extraction of climate-changing fossil fuels, they deny scientific evidence and facts, and they have virtually unlimited financial resources to influence legislators, consumers, and voters. They completely control one major political party in our country and wield too much influence over the other. Corporations are not people, my friends. They're Robots. They are Robots of our own design and creation, and they have taken our world captive. Speaker for the Powerless illustrates how corporations must, by law, act outside human moral constructs. Essentially, they are everything we ascribe to fictional Robots run amok. Corporations have spent four centuries gaining control of virtually every human enterprise. They manipulate our governments, our political parties, our purchasing decisions, even our religious beliefs and philosophies. In the past four decades they have concentrated most of our nation's wealth into the hands of a few thousand people, decimating the Middle Class. Today, the power Robots wield is positioned to explode wildly beyond any human capacity to contain it. Nearly every American is aware of the inequity, but we are lost in a wilderness of arguments about where to lay blame. Some point a finger at globalism and free trade. Others malign technology. Republicans blame Democrats, who blame Republicans. Some condemn the godless, who chide the God-fearing, while many accuse immigrants, legal or not, especially Muslims and Mexicans. Tens of millions of us reject the typical scapegoating. We post comments in response to online articles. We write letters to newspaper editors or legislators. Some attend town hall meetings -- when we can get our representatives to show up. Other people march, all in vain. Sure, we have a free press and the right to speak. We can peaceably assemble or petition our government, but unless we have the wealth of kings or corporations, no amount of shouting, writing, or marching ever gains meaningful attention from people in power. They only have ears for Robots. Until we rewrite the code that allows and actually requires corporations to spend virtually unlimited money on their free speech, their lobbying, and their petitions to our government, we will never regain control of our democracy. Nevertheless, Speaker for the Powerless attempts to encourage citizens to waken to the vital power they do still have. We can counter the all encompassing influence of corporations that are actually Robots among us. Libertarians, Republicans, and conservatives rightly seek freedom from government overreach, but we also need freedom from corporate manipulation and control. No human alone can stop this Robotic influence, but perhaps We the People of the Unites States can.
About the Author: Todd Lederman is an elementary school teacher and self-described political junkie living in Evergreen, Colorado with his wife. He is an author of children's novels and short stories. Though he was employed as a newspaper reporter and columnist in the 1990's, this is his first book-length work of nonfiction.