The subject of this post is censorship. Actually, it should be about the LLC designation that, for some time now, readers may have noticed as having supplanted the more familiar, "Inc.". Of course, given the character of the nation of which I am a citizen, I immediately concluded that we were being subjected to yet another of the machinations employed by corporate America to plunder and steal. Yet I have long resolved to eventually get to the bottom of this latest assault. Quarantined by force of the Corona virus, I now found myself with the time to finally do a little basic research and determine what this "LLC" was all about. As one does nowadays, I began my search with Google. I entered, "Why does LLC seem to have replaced Inc. as a corporate designation," (or something close to that), and found little if any useful information. I kept at it however (having long ago learned that Google, though an invaluable acquaintance, is not a friend; its loyalty is more to its corporate backers and will not always give up its fruits without a struggle). When, finally, I looked down one page at the list of references, I found a provocatively titled article that seemed to be just what I was looking for, "The Dark Side of Limited Liability Companies," written by one Lee A. Sheppard. To my frustration, attempts to find a copy of "The Dark Side" were in vain. There were "hits" on the title, but going to the actual sites containing the title had little else, certainly not the text of the article. The online book vendors were similarly of no use. I decided to attempt to contact Lee A. Sheppard, who it turns out is a woman who specializes in tax law and appears in a few Youtube videos discoursing on her subject. I am now reasonably sure that I will eventually be able to read "The Dark Side of Limited Liability Companies," but my quest so far has already provided adequate confirmation of the fact that one obvious aspect of that dark side is the care that is taken to keep the true nature of LLCs hidden. Corporate entities seem long ago to have learned that the best way to hide one's secrets is camouflage. The anagram, LLC, is now ubiquitous; its meaning, though, is buried in the web of corporate tax laws. One item uncovered while rummaging through the literature inspired me to carry on. It turns out that landlords and slumlords have found in the LLC a means of hiding their identities. Should you be so unfortunate as to live in one of their properties and have problems with heat, leaks, rodents, etc., you will find it impossible to determine, should the building's owner wish to conceal it, her identity. And I thought this was just about tax evasion.
While
preoccupied with LLCs, I recalled some years ago coming upon a book about the
Rockefellers' involvement in the Amazon, more particularly, the Rockefellers'
role in the conquest of the Amazon and its native peoples for exploitation by
the oil companies. The book was titled, Thy Will be Done: The Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and
Evangelism in the Age of Oil.* I had meandered into a Barnes & Noble bookstore
and found myself facing, located on a round table close to the entrance, a
pyramid of the volumes on the occasion of the title's just having been
released. I browsed through it, absorbed by both the text and the
pictures, and then put it down, deciding that, much as I would have liked to
put everything else in my life aside and spend what time it took reading the
book, I was too busy working on my dissertation. I put the book back into
the pyramid with a bit of a twinge and resolved that, as soon as time allowed,
I would purchase and read it.
I never did finish the dissertation, but freedom from its
demands eventually led me to return to the book. About a year had passed,
but I thought I might still find it at Barnes & Noble. It turned out
they didn't have a single copy. Nor was the book available on the B&N
website or on Amazon. In fact, I couldn't find it anywhere until I
resorted to Alibris, an online book vendor that specializes in rare and
out-of-print works. The satisfaction in finding a source was only
slightly diminished by having to lay out $40 for the pleasure.
Amazon now carries Thy Will be Done, in an edition revised in
2017, and made part of a series appropriately called "The Forbidden
Bookshelf," that up to now consists of 27 volumes, some well-known, others
which were apparently suppressed in the manner similar to that I had long ago
concluded was utilized by the Rockefeller family and/or its associates to
protect the family brand. For a while, at least, they had
"disappeared" the book, probably using the time-worn strategy of
buying up every volume in print and burying (or burning) them.
Stay tuned as I continue my quest to find Ms. Lee A. Sheppard, her article and the story behind yet another chapter in corporate America's victory over the nuisance of democratic institutions.
__________________________
*The book was originally published in 1996, (Thy Will be Done: The Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil, Colby, G. and Dennett, C., New York: Harper Collins, May 1, 1996, 1008 pp.). Amazon books is now selling a revised edition, done in 2017, with an additional chapter that one reviewer on the web site asserts, "accelerates the reader to the intensity of the moment, reflecting on the death of David Rockefeller, the strains of globalism, and the current oligarchic Titanomarchy on display in Washington."
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