The Corporation

When I was at school, in English we had to read a short story, I can’t remember its name or anything about that story apart from a short piece of it. I remember that part as clear as day. The story was about a child of around eleven, and he had to perform a test at school and his mother was worried extremely worried. She told him to act stupid (at least I think she did I can’t remember fully), but he was a bright kid, she was full of fear I remember that, and he left to go to school to do the test, and never came back. He was deemed too intelligent, and so a likely subversive, only stupid, dumb, idiots were allowed to live in this society, and so I suppose he was disposed of by the authorities. We had to read it out loud in class and discuss, and it has always stuck with me that thought. I wish I knew the full story as I can’t remember anything more about it, but the idea of being intelligent and thinking for yourself, means being a threat, is rather disturbing.



Anyway changing the subject slightly, I have been watching yet another documentary called ‘The Corporation’; it tells the story of the largest legalised tyranny in the world, corporate business. It’s quite disturbing to watch if I’m honest, I always knew corporations were conglomerates of evil, Christ I worked for one for thirteen years, they are the devil incarnate. The doc describes a corporation as a psychopath, as it has most if not all of the traits of one. What I find fascinating is the deluded attitude of some of the CEO’s of these corporations, a bit like those one percenter’s I have mentioned before. They actually think they are doing some good for the world, and they think that more of what they do instead of less is also good for society and the world in general. One CEO idiot thinks it’s a good idea to privatise everything including air, rivers, the oceans you name it, he thinks this will be good for humanity, what a load of utter bullshit.

One thing that stares out glaringly is how do we stop these psychopathic corporations? How do we force the world’s leaders to stop this craziness? You know what, even though I do not believe man made CO2 is causing global warming, I am starting to realise that if it makes these heinous companies change, then I am all for supporting it, because the damage they are doing is so great and so destructive, if something isn’t done soon then it won’t matter one jot whether the world is warming naturally or not.

I’ve watched plenty of docs about these situations but I feel helpless, frustrated and unable to think of a feasible way to make these stupid idiots change their greedy, profit driven, exponential growth, lunacy. How do we do this? How do we get them to realise, because I fear that even the changes will come at a price, and that they will only change if they can make profit and see steady growth from it.

There was a part where they talked about this drug designed to increase milk production in cows, it was absolutely awful watching it. There is too much milk in the world, so some shitty corporation makes a drug to make more milk. But hey it doesn’t just make more milk, it makes the cows ill, and creates puss on their udders, which is collected in the milk, how f**king disgusting it that? Then, we the public drink the milk with the puss and the ‘whatever hideous drug’, which is now part of the milk. If I lived in the US, I doubt I’ll be drinking milk anytime soon. Mind it is likely that most Americans have never heard of this problem with their milk, because large media corporations refuse to report it as news and prefer to make up lies and deceit, since it is not against the law in the US, to make up lies on TV or pollute your milk. Making livestock suffer, and potentially passing on cancer to children is OK, yet reporting it is not, what a screwed up country America is these days.

Then there are the sweatshops, where people get paid miniscule amounts of money, to make far too many trainers, shirts, dresses, jackets, stereos, tables, chairs, kitchen sinks. Its exasperating to watch, and even worse when you think there is little we can do to stop it. Or worse still the fact that corporations can own a countries water supply, even the bloody rain water through precipitation, as is the case in Bolivia. You can lose your house if you fail to pay the exorbitant prices large corporations are charging for Bolivian water. What does it do, it causes riots, and causalities, and death, and misery, for all concerned, until finally the people win. As one demonstrator said, “The people united, will never be defeated”. But should it ever have to come to this.

The doc continues talking about how in the US you can patent life, everything apart from a human. I never knew this, but supposedly back in the early 80’s General Electric wanted to patent a microbe that ate oil. And the patent office refused, eventually though because a microbe does not have arms and legs, they said they could patent it, after being forced (probably because of the good old lobbying system. (How anything will ever change in America when Politian’s are bought by whatever means is beyond me)). Now in the US any new life form can be patented, they are even patenting DNA strands, so when they find the cure for cancer you can bet someone will own it. How disgraceful it that? Eventually every DNA strand will be owned by big corporations and the nightmarish sci-fi films may become a reality. Think 1984, V for Vendetta, Gattica, Rollerball or Alien only worse.

How do we stop it?

How do we all finally get together and say enough is enough?

It needs to change before the crisis hits, and I don’t mean the financial one, I mean the human one. When you have nothing and there is no chance of ever getting anything, then people take drastic measures, like a trapped animal they will fight back and hard. And when this happens, who knows what will happen. Like in Bolivia, or in Egypt and the Middle East and North Africa, it will happen more and more around the world, as people get sick to death of large corporations through whatever means ruining their lives.

They end the documentary on a positive note, that you can go out there and make a change. I’ll be honest; I don’t know how to do that from where I live in the UK. But I have written this and I will post it on my blog and I will say that if ever there is a local demonstration or if I find on the internet a way to help, I am now more inclined to do that.

I’ll end with this piece from Ray Anderson; he is a Chairman of a textile company in the US called Interface, he decided when he realised the waste his company produced to try and become a sustainable company. Here is what he said I think it some it up perfectly.

“The first industrial revolution is flawed, it is not working, it is unsustainable, it is a mistake and we must move on to another and better industrial revolution and get it right this time.”