If you listen to the scream sheets then the ISA recognises the partnership between business and government while encouraging community participation to create the best mix of corporations and democracy.
Which of course is a load of bullshit, resources distribution is far from far and democratic elements are reduced to media blitz campaigns and imagined counts of wire in votes.
The government is basically a streamlined version of the system since 2000 with the exception that the executive branch (the president and the CEP) have most of the control. all that remains of the legislative branch is the senate and 2 out of every 3 senators are corp sponsored all the way while some entire states belong to the corps as the bankrupt governments have been bought out and “incorporated”.
The Council of Economic Prosperity is an alliance of the Neo american corporations that once served as an advisory board but has expanded rapidly since its formation. It is now both a forum and a political power bloc, giving power and prestige to the corporations that they had never had before.
There are 26 primary members elected from the major corps including Militech, Petrochem, EBM America and Arasaka but there are dozens of subcommittees involved in various projects. While officially only an executive council it is THEsingle biggest power block in the ISA next to the President himself. and president whindam as yet to come into conflict with the CEP over anything and given his origins its fairly unlikely to ever happen. It has vetoed congress and issued its own executive mandates – laws to all intensive purposes and inserted its own organisations into government (e.g BuReloc and CorpSec).
This places the corps in a unique position. they have legal right to restrict the rights of their employees to the point of oppression, dictating their working hours, pay, living quarters, political affiliation, lifestyle and even leisure activities. They have engineered a closed system where they provide everything that America wants and more importantly, where they dictate exactly what it is that America wants.
Well compared to the chaos of the last 30 years it looks amazingly good. Corporate living areas stretch across cities turning them into the equivalent of giant conapt/shopping malls. older, rundown urban sectors are being bought up bulldozed and rebuilt with corporate and federal sponsorship.
boostergangs and nomad packs are being rounded up or eliminated. street violence plummets as the number of police increases 20 fold. new factories spring up and new jobs are created. Goods and technology seem to be flowing to the public in an unprecedented stream and the cycle of consumerism is once again established. Many sacrifices had to be made to allow the corps to restructure the nation, and with the help of the government the corps have seen to the needs of the people, providing housing and urban zones in which employees may enjoy all the fruits of the 21st century, safe from the violence that dominates the outer sectors. Soon these will be “revitalised” as well, swept clean of the anarchists and terrorists who continue to undermine the march to progress. Stability and prosperity for all seem just around the corner.
Or….
The new factories and malls are real enough, there are more jobs, and the average person actually IS safer from random violence than before, but none is as benevolent as it appears. The New America is split between the new corporate world (the CorpZones) and the tattered remnants of the free society that fell during the collapse.
The ISA and the Corpzones are straight from the manual written by Nazi Germany: Orderly, quiet, paranoid and oppressive living under the iron fist of CorpSec. All media, including the net is censored and subliminal propaganda has been made into an art form. CorpSec IS the law on all corporate property (40% of all the urban areas in the USA), turning in your neighbour for unpatriotic comments is encouraged.
The outside is like a high-tech urban Depression scene, full or desperation, black market squalor and potential violence. To the ISA propaganda machine its population has become the new Jews/immigrants/illegals/insert minority group to persecute of your choice, rounded up to be “re-educated” while the media portrays the collection with subliminal comparisons to rats, cockroaches and other vermin.
The combat zone is still here to. Its a lot smaller, a lot less “combat” but it is definitely more dangerous than the outside. The police still don’t patrol there. Mostly it is completely deserted, empty warehouses, apartment blocks, arcologies all falling apart. Here and there a booster or megaviolent gang runs wild and trashes things a little more. Its a place used when you don’t want to be seen.
Map Of Pre ISA America - what the US looked like before the ISA painted it over