Having just finished watching “The Corporation,” I feel the need to note, in writing and in public, a sad and scary stratagem that could bring about the end of Democratic government, and provide obstacles insurmountable to basic truth.
Though I’ve heard it oft before, one corporate evangelist in the movie stated that “the left can go on and on, but all they really produce is hot air.” This blatant ad hominem attack, it occurs to me, is the quintessential rightist argument to almost everything I say and believe. And it’s dangerous. And here’s why:
If, in responding to expressed concerns considered valid by other human beings, those wielding power essentially defame the person, without addressing their concerns, then citizens are left no recourse but to air their grievances through radical collective effort. By focusing on the ideology of their accusers instead of their concerns, corporations have managed to recast the debate so that no solution can ever be reached. This allows power holders to entirely dismiss grievances. For example, when Bechtel privatized the water in Cochabamba, Bolivia, residents demanded change and eventually rioted. The corporation worked with their installed governmental leaders to deny civil liberties, thereby allowing hundreds to die of dehydration. The government officials, acting on behalf of the company, decried all activists to be leftists, and made it illegal to gather in groups larger than 4 people. It seems obvious, in this case, that the concerns are not leftist; they are human. Yet, time and again, and worldwide, this strategy is used by rightist leaders to “stay the course,” regardless of contrary facts and dissent. Unfortunately, in reframing the debate as such, any real concerns will necessarily be left unaddressed until people come together, riot in the streets, and DEMAND change. Or until enough of them die that the corporation/puppet government has a change of heart.
So there are two planes to this offensive argumentation stratagem. First, they’ve managed to allow for the continual depletion of resources, destruction of the environment, and subjugation of mankind in an unabashed rush for the most profitable bottom line. Second, they’ve managed to declare, in a quiet and indefensible way, that anyone who dissents is a leftist/socialist/communist/radical/other, and thus declare their opinion completely invalid. Effectively, anyone who challenges their business model or its tenets is wrong, and their opinion is invalid. Let me reframe that: anyone who disagrees with whatever they say is WRONG.
The democratic implications of this, played out over the past several centuries and accelerated in the very recent past, are obvious. If those wielding power are allowed to decide what complaints are legitimate, and no superordinate body accountable to the whole world exists to oversee them, then the system in place, whatever it is, is NOT a democracy. So what are we?
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I like to look for hope. I guess my approach boils down to the fact that I don’t mind dying trying, because it beats willful ignorance or compliance. But when approaching a situation so complex, so dire, and so status quo, where can one look for change or solutions?
The answer has to be anywhere and everywhere. I look to an open source movement that essentially flies in the face of the capitalist system: people work on their own time as a collective to create products that benefit users, then they undercut all competitors by releasing their product FREE. They provide them, unbound by any special interest, to anyone who wants a superior product at an unbeatable price.
I also look, hesitantly, to legal and sociopolitical forces for constraints that can be placed on the economic giants reigning over modern society. Laws abridging the raw power of money, the basic evil of imperialism, and the utter futility of destructive actions can be written and passed into law when our collective consciusness can be shifted (though, that said, this is no easy task). This may come in the form of campaign finance reform, increased voter turnout, capital punishment for white-collar crime, and/or any other of myriad methods. But this can’t come until oil barons are forced to testify under oath, and sentenced to the most violent of deaths for their willful efforts to harm our planet and its people. Not until the court of public opinion is given precedence over the Cayman island bank account holdings of monied interest. Until Martha Stewart is not only disallowed the opportunity to make money from behind bars, but until she is disallowed any opportunity to escape those bars. Until the bottom line refers not to money, but to the collective interests of Earth and its inhabitants. Until sustainability is not subject to negotiation. Until human rights are heralded. Until freedom is free.
Of course, the corporate evangelist would revel in this little leftist diatribe. Here I am, putting down a few hundred words and chunks of my time, to vent my frustration and lament to an invisible audience. He would take pride in knowing that I do not consider destruction and death as appropriate solutions to the problems I cite. He would chuckle with glee knowing that of the many people who watched that movie, each and every one of them reacted just as he proscribed they would: with inaction, with fear and lethargy.
But what he doesn’t realize is, for every 99 people who subscribe to his bullshit, 1 is awakened. One person is awakened. One person will take upon themself this battle, and will awaken others to the hazards of their surroundings. One person will become one community. One community will become a small but creative minority. And a creative minority will change the world.
“Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.”
~Martin Luther King, Jr.
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