Our Constitution really looks like crap, doesn't it? I can only hope our descendants will laugh their asses off reading it someday. We start with the statement "all men are created equal" and spend the next four hundred years having to write in, "that means black people too," "that means women, too," "that means native Americans, too..." And here we stand in the far off year of 2010 - where flying cars dot the sky - arguing over whether it should mean homosexuals too. Not to mention whether torture counts as cruel and unusual; whether water-boarding counts as torture; whether a citizen has a right to their citizenship; whether it's illegal to spy on people sans cause or warrant; whether an individual gets a say in their own proliferation; whether the opinion of the department of justice should be held as incontrovertible fiat; whether war-crimes are war-crimes; and what the definition of the word 'is' is.
The mutual lunacies of American politics, law, and the media organizations claiming to cover it in a "fair and balanced" way drove me to NPR at first. NPR provided the only news media I could entertain without being driven to fits of fury by the "common sense" stupidity being bandied about as wisdom. Eventually, NPR couldn't keep me sane either. I found that even -they- were guilty of filtering and censoring content and contributors based upon popular consensus, regardless of that body's irrationality. In fairness, I suppose no one can present the daily news in a tolerable way when the day's news itself is become utterly intolerable.
The Bush era of lies, ignorance, bigotry, lawlessness, murder, and conspiracy nearly drove me to what some have politely called 'direct action.' Thankfully I managed to pull myself away for a view from a longer perspective and concluded that the world, taken en masse, is really just some sort of sickness. That there's a reason all the great spiritual figures of the various religions teach abandonment of it and its concerns, and that I could only do myself and others harm by taking personal responsibility for the behavior and policies of nations.
As I say I started by switching to NPR, then even that had to go. As of today I don't watch television; I don't listen to the radio; I don't read the paper. To quote Joseph Heller, "I don't spend much time keeping track of the world and can't see that it would change much if I did. I mind my own business. What's important I hear about."
Despite my media blackout I still hear more than I want to about politics. How people can be angry about Obama's health plan, which is so paltry an act of legislation, such a band-aid on a hemorrhage... That some should deride it as being "socialist" when it's the most capital-centric, corporate-friendly thing that could have happened to the private insurers... That no one, for all the months of commentary and conjecture and idiots shouting into the wind, ever saw fit to propose the concept of simply collecting and allocating enough federal tax dollars to cover everyone's health needs, all the time; and especially in a country that claims to be eighty percent Christian, and is thereby obliged to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and care for the sick and imprisoned, lest their God should forsake them...
Well, it's all just as ridiculous and meaningless as ever and I'm happier to turn a blind eye and deaf ear and let the devil put on his little stage show. I figure, if you do what's right on an individual level, person to person, then all the lofty declarations of all the over-educated, under-literate, morons wearing suits, feigning global-ownership, don't amount to any effect anyway.
Showing posts with label corporations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label corporations. Show all posts
Judge the Tree by its Fruits
In response to A Prayer for Ronald.
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So just because Enron and Tyco and Worldcom and Haliburton and Blackwater are evil, doesn't mean I should assume they all are. And just because Ameritech, AT&T, Avon, B.F. Goodrich, Bank of America, Bank One, Bearsterns, Bellsouth, Citibank, Clorox, Coca-Cola, Cox Enterprises, Diebold, Dow Chemical, Eastman Kodak, Eaton, First Bank, GNC, Hershey Foods, J.P. Morgan, Marriott, National City, Nestle, PacifiCorp, Panera Bread, Proctor & Gamble, Sallie Mae, Sherwin-Williams, Southwest Bank, Southwestern Bell, Union Bank, Wachovia, Walgreens, Wal-Mart, Walt Disney, Wells Fargo, Winn Dixie, and Zale Corp...
...secretly took out life insurance policies on their employees for the express purpose of turning a profit on their deaths, subsequently bleeding insurance providers and their legitimate purchasers dry with these statistically guaranteed "dead peasant" policies...
...Just because a couple thousand of the apples are rotten to the core doesn't mean I should assume the last half-dozen in the barrel are? Okay, well, I disagree.
My government has, throughout the years, imprisoned it's own citizens in concentration camps, murdered church goers who sought only to escape the 'ways of the world,' poisoned its own soldiers on the battle field, illegally stripped citizens of their birthrights to citizenship, physically tortured captured soldiers and civilians alike in an effort to gather information known to be unreliable, secretly surveilled their own electorate's communications and then pardoned themselves of the crime, corrupted election results, redistricted voters for political gains, erected road blocks and denied people of certain colors and persuasions access to ballots, invented fictional international incidents to facilitate fiscally desirable wars, armed and sponsored terrorist forces to overthrow sovereign governments, entrapped and arrested civic leaders... COINTELPRO... Bay of Pigs... The Cuban Five... Yearning for Zion... Jose Padilla...
And these are just the documented, proven acts of my government. No conspiracy or conjecture in the list above. But I should withhold my cynicism?
The Summer of the Shark, Super Sunday, Shock and Awe, Howard Dean's red face, "Torture and the Ticking Time-Bomb" the lack of single-payer options in the healthcare "discussion," no footage of Bradley Tanks in the US, '60 Minutes' withholding video of ATF forces firing on the exits of a burning building, G.W. Bush pelted with eggs on inauguration day never shown on TV, Fox News refuses to show building 7's collapse, no images of death from Iraq and Afghanistan, "terrorists have weddings too," the term "religious extremists," Obama's peace prize...
Listen, you can deride the individual who shouts "there's poison in the well" without a reason to suspect it - go ahead - but we've all seen more than enough evidence of corporate evil and inhumane greed. We've all seen more than enough evidence of government plots to subjugate and/or outmaneuver the will of a populace. We've all seen more than enough evidence of media propagandizing, tabloidism, and self-censoring journalism. And the incidents have become steadier and more egregious than ever before in the passed ten years.
We have every reason, at this point in time, to approach any and every corporation, government, and media outlet warily and with suspicion of mal-intent, remitting trust only once these have overcome their own much deserved, and well-earned reputations of corruption, collusion, and outright evil.
Ronald McDonald may want you to like him and trust in his products, but no more than the crack dealer on the corner desires the same. Both will be your best friend right up until their mutually addictive and poisonous products eat your insides out and leave you for dead. Then it'll be your fault for buying it from them.
---
So just because Enron and Tyco and Worldcom and Haliburton and Blackwater are evil, doesn't mean I should assume they all are. And just because Ameritech, AT&T, Avon, B.F. Goodrich, Bank of America, Bank One, Bearsterns, Bellsouth, Citibank, Clorox, Coca-Cola, Cox Enterprises, Diebold, Dow Chemical, Eastman Kodak, Eaton, First Bank, GNC, Hershey Foods, J.P. Morgan, Marriott, National City, Nestle, PacifiCorp, Panera Bread, Proctor & Gamble, Sallie Mae, Sherwin-Williams, Southwest Bank, Southwestern Bell, Union Bank, Wachovia, Walgreens, Wal-Mart, Walt Disney, Wells Fargo, Winn Dixie, and Zale Corp...
...secretly took out life insurance policies on their employees for the express purpose of turning a profit on their deaths, subsequently bleeding insurance providers and their legitimate purchasers dry with these statistically guaranteed "dead peasant" policies...
...Just because a couple thousand of the apples are rotten to the core doesn't mean I should assume the last half-dozen in the barrel are? Okay, well, I disagree.
My government has, throughout the years, imprisoned it's own citizens in concentration camps, murdered church goers who sought only to escape the 'ways of the world,' poisoned its own soldiers on the battle field, illegally stripped citizens of their birthrights to citizenship, physically tortured captured soldiers and civilians alike in an effort to gather information known to be unreliable, secretly surveilled their own electorate's communications and then pardoned themselves of the crime, corrupted election results, redistricted voters for political gains, erected road blocks and denied people of certain colors and persuasions access to ballots, invented fictional international incidents to facilitate fiscally desirable wars, armed and sponsored terrorist forces to overthrow sovereign governments, entrapped and arrested civic leaders... COINTELPRO... Bay of Pigs... The Cuban Five... Yearning for Zion... Jose Padilla...
And these are just the documented, proven acts of my government. No conspiracy or conjecture in the list above. But I should withhold my cynicism?
The Summer of the Shark, Super Sunday, Shock and Awe, Howard Dean's red face, "Torture and the Ticking Time-Bomb" the lack of single-payer options in the healthcare "discussion," no footage of Bradley Tanks in the US, '60 Minutes' withholding video of ATF forces firing on the exits of a burning building, G.W. Bush pelted with eggs on inauguration day never shown on TV, Fox News refuses to show building 7's collapse, no images of death from Iraq and Afghanistan, "terrorists have weddings too," the term "religious extremists," Obama's peace prize...
Listen, you can deride the individual who shouts "there's poison in the well" without a reason to suspect it - go ahead - but we've all seen more than enough evidence of corporate evil and inhumane greed. We've all seen more than enough evidence of government plots to subjugate and/or outmaneuver the will of a populace. We've all seen more than enough evidence of media propagandizing, tabloidism, and self-censoring journalism. And the incidents have become steadier and more egregious than ever before in the passed ten years.
We have every reason, at this point in time, to approach any and every corporation, government, and media outlet warily and with suspicion of mal-intent, remitting trust only once these have overcome their own much deserved, and well-earned reputations of corruption, collusion, and outright evil.
Ronald McDonald may want you to like him and trust in his products, but no more than the crack dealer on the corner desires the same. Both will be your best friend right up until their mutually addictive and poisonous products eat your insides out and leave you for dead. Then it'll be your fault for buying it from them.
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