I consider myself middle-of-the-road, not left or right or radical or a pacifist! I believe that human rights, gay rights, environmental and all social rights should be respected. I believe that religion should play no part in politics. I believe in law and order and think that one should pay for one’s crimes, regardless of their stature in society. I believe in freedom of expression, women’s rights to choose and have total autonomy over their bodies, and their rights as human beings. It is so sad that I have to say that, seeing how some men think that they own their women, totally! I believe in open and fair elections, that we should decide how and by whom we are governed, and not have government imposed upon us. I believe, and sometimes I’m lulled into believing, that all this is possible. But is it?
Brother Rufus X, a true revolutionary in every sense of the word, passionately reminded me that we are not masters of our fates—that how we think, what we eat and wear and how we live, is all decided by the unseen faces, the corporations that rule the world! I thought about that a lot over the weekend, and having a very curious and open mind, I have to mostly agree with him. Not totally, we still are allowed little freedoms, as in whom we love, mostly where we live and work, our choices of friends and sports and whom and where we worship! Not always, but most of the time.
Let’s just for a minute imagine that governments aren’t in charge anymore. Would that be a stretch of the imagination? That Facebook, Apple, Twitter, Google, Microsoft, Nike, and all the other brands, too numerous to mention, tell us what to think, how to act, how to live! Put us all in our separate bubbles, making it much easier to confuse and distract us from the alarming and unbelievable zombie land we are living in. Zombie land was Rufus’s description of our current state of being.
They, the corporations, make and break governments, and have done so for as long as I’ve been alive and for much longer than that. The United Fruit Company, way before my time, determined who governed most of Latin America! These days, they are kinder and gentler, but the aim is the same: profit and control over our individual freedom! It doesn’t matter now if it’s the United States, China or India, governments are the useful tools of Corporations, and corporate greed and corruption! Boy, all I need is a little nudge, and the mind starts to wander, and the blindfolds are lifted, and then what? I’ll tell you what: nothing! Nothing changes. The power they wield over us, all of us, is constant, unrelenting and here to stay!
Someone else has to come up with a solution to this problem, or maybe it’s not a problem, just the reality of life, that we have to accept, for our own personal comforts, our own little worlds. Somehow I suspect it will only get worse. There’s no country on this entire planet not beholden to corporations, not even Neverland! Robots? We don’t need no stinking robots; we are the robots!
Do your eyes blink? Do you lick your lips sometimes? Do you frown, or scratch your head, or wiggle your toes? We have a cure for all that! Corporations. Peace and love!
Glen