We Persist

The corporate right to make money has always superseded our right to live.

I repeat. The corporate right to make money has always superseded our right to live. Do you need it again? The corporate right to make money has always superseded our right to live.

The coronavirus has revealed the deep level of unfairness built into a culture where corporations rule the day. COVID-19 has revealed the folks who are important to keep society intact. And we know it is not the barons of corporate America and their political lackeys who are taking an honest lead.

The lead is being taken by those of us who are making the effort to see COVID-19 and its effects as clearly as possible, to as best we can interpret the intentions of the elite who, as always, seek to leverage a disaster for profit  [see Naomi Klein’s Disaster Capitalism], and with these two recognitions determining how to create the future we want for ourselves.

 Any doubts about who’s work is important has been clarified by what we see today. It’s our front line medical personnel, drivers and sanitation workers, the scientists and virologists, our farmers, fire and police, grocery folks, etc. Nowhere in this litany of the needed are hedge fund managers, Wall Street barons, CEOs or other elites. They just run things in our corporate led, money driven culture. A money as power culture is now exposed for its corruption, cruelty and the scourge on our lives and our Earth.

Many point out the need for corporations so we can have commerce, but that is a false notion. There are individuals, partnerships, coops, collaborations and not yet defined entities that can be used as the grease for acquiring and selling goods and services. As we recognize the value of meeting as many of our needs locally as possible, we improve the quality of our lives in countless ways. Not the least being capable of tracking and mitigating viruses.

For those unfamiliar with the 1,000 year rise of ‘the corporation’, you can check online or in my book, World 5.0. It’s an ugly history, with dark deals among rulers and elites that caused European colonialism, concentrating power under the guise of government and religious objectives.

Again, corporations are not a required legal entity. They spend billions convincing you otherwise, but other forms of business ownership are perfectly useful. And they do not rip us off and rape our planet. There is a very simple measure for a business entity – does it engender greed or abundance. We’ve seen what the other leads to.

There are hosts of us already working to create a better culture in a myriad number of ways. Ending war, ending fossil fuels, ending globalism and worker abuses. Ending inequality. All worthwhile efforts. And yet we’re just playing ‘Whack a Mole’ if we don’t get to the heart of the problem.

Now our efforts are impacted tremendously by coronavirus. How do we protest when we can’t march? It’s true we are hampered. Yet we are not helpless. We can organize online, create alliances to strengthen our impact, work toward vibrant local cultures, and look forward to when we can again mingle without fear of dying.

COVID-19 is a clear scourge, like corporations themselves. Yet this reset is an opportune time for we progressives and awakened to push hard for universal health care, a green new world and a world without war. We will find our new world. The old world is crumbling and we persist.

If Ours Was a World

Sisters and brothers, we are separated and broken. Fearful for our lives and livelihood. For our families and friends. This is not an easy time. Epidemics are stressful, and our shit was already all broken. 

I could go on and on about the latter, but we already know. Glaringly, corporate greed and human health are incompatible. COVID-19 is providing the magnifying glass on the corporate behaviors that have been wrecking our lives and our planet for decades, corrupting our political process and encouraging endless war.

It was bad law in England 1,000 years ago that allowed for the establishment of ‘limited liability corporations’. These corporations were heavily involved in the conquest that became the British Empire. Our founders were well aware of corporate power and placed great limitations on their existence in the early US. 

Yet today we are completely at their mercy – and now when we have this cultural reset due to the coronavirus. I don’t need to do the litany of corporate crimes, but just now, when congress passes a 2.2 trillion survival bill, most of it goes to corporations. We get $1200 checks. And don’t forget that these same folks underwrote corporate malfeasance for 29 trillion, all told, for the Meltdown of 2008. And if we add those $1200 checks for every American up and figure out the percentage of that 2.2 trillion package? It’s less than .2% of the total. One fifth of one percent. Corporations need to die.

This reshaping of our culture is an opportunity for a new way forward that our species badly needs. We can end the Age of the Corporation. We need good law.

That will not happen with the current administration or one like it. We need a revolution. An uprising against The Corporation. 

Too often a corrupt monarch, dictator or government is overthrown, only to find the new one that replaces it is little or no better. In this crucial time, such is not an option for us.

We need to know where we want to go, how we want to live, and how we want to be with each other. Fortunately, we have a very good sense of where we want to go. Into a world of peace and love.

We are surely about restorative agriculture, green energy, and end to war, universal healthcare and other obvious needs, created with partnerships and co-ops to replace corporations. but I want to get back to a world of peace and love.

We can barely imagine such a world in these times. Where smiles and camaraderie are constant. Where hate is absent. Where people don’t try to hurt each other, and nation states are losing prominence as our main political unit. And yet such a world is possible. We  just won’t get there so long as corporations remain in charge. 

We can thank Occupy for beginning this revelation that corporations must end. We can thank COVID-19 for making it glaringly obvious. And we can thank ourselves if we leverage this moment to make this lovely and beleaguered planet truly our world.

No More Bombs

An ugly week, with the pipe bomber targeting Donald Trump critics with 13 bombs, a Louisville shooter who gunned down two black forks at a supermarket and the ugliness in Pittsburgh against Jews with 11 dead. Donald Trump only takes credit, never blame, though his influence is hardly deniable at this point.

Each of the three instigators of this week’s violence were angry white nationalists, killing people who are not from the same ‘tribe’ as they were. In truth there is only one viable ‘tribe’ these days. It’s called the human race.

We live in a culture of violence. From our wars in the Middle East and beyond, our police and family violence here in the states, movies, TV and video games. We live in a culture of violence. I could go on and on but we already know.

What troubles me the most about this fact is a secondary fact, that we feel powerless to do anything about it. We feel the world is what it is, and from our individual little perches, there’s nothing we can do. Not true.

Most importantly, we can train ourselves to ensure we don’t purvey violence in any form, unlike our current president. We can make sure we do not speak or act or even think with violence as a factor. Initiating violence is always an act of fear, or it’s more hardened condition, hate.

Indeed, we can learn to meditate and master our intent, making if difficult to move us from a place of peace and love. This allows us to navigate the chaos of these times with the greatest equanimity possible. More and more of us are recognizing the power of our intent and the value of integrity, peace and love.

Okay, here in World 5.0 we’re all peace and love but this shit is still all screwed up. Like, seriously screwed up. What steps can we take? 

For starters we can support the right stuff. Groups like World Beyond War and dozens of others are working on peace initiatives right now. Black Lives Matter, #metoo, March for Our Lives – these are just a few recent entries adding to the vision and energy of No More Bombs. 

We can engage in local efforts to stop violence. Rape support, police brutality watchdog groups, kids groups that support peace and education. There is a satisfaction to helping build our communities that you won’t hear about on the tv.

We can get political – pretty good time to consider such a thing when the dynamics are so ugly and brittle. From our local elected officials to groups like Indivisible and Our Revolution, we can work for change in this arena where corruption and undue corporate influence reign.

Finally, we can enable a new culture, a new Earth, where the World 5.0 mindset holds. Principles like peace, love, integrity, justice and balance can be keys to enabling a new way forward. Through the World5 Platform areas like renewable energy, organic food and learning can become priorities and areas of engagement.

And most of all we understand that we are all here together, and that we need a massive systemic overhaul to stop the madness so ingrained in our political system.

We will find no unity from President Trump and a corrupt congress. But we can find unity, and strength, among ourselves with the transformative power of creating a world with No More Bombs.

Oh yea, next Tuesday is a big deal. Be sure to vote.

Heart of the Chaos

For those of us who study where we are as a culture, a corrupt and dark place where we approach self-annihilation, a clarity is arising. Even with the disasters set forth by nation-states, religious zealots and worse, one entity has been at the heart of our chaos.

Let me tease further. Our wars, the misery of millions, dirty water, shitty food, environmental devastation, climate chaos, and people and planet failing even now, they all have a common cause, a single source of currently unmitigated power. Welcome, friends, to the now failing world of corporatism.

Corporations.

Yes, of course, it’s the corporations. Mindless legal entities that hoard vast trillions of dollars for their owners, who are the true offenders. 9th Century Danish and English monarchies, obviously for personal gain, enabled a few special corporations. Soon enough we had the East India Company and the Hudson Bay Company, and the British Empire became a thing.

Indeed, the US Founding Fathers were acutely aware of the nature of corporations and went out of their way to contain their power in the early United States. But as we know, those controls withered over time. It’s hard to stop money’s influence. Read Howard Zinns, ‘A People’s History of the United States’.

Today the picture is crystal clear. It is corporations, a small handful in each area of our lives, that rule. A small handful of banks, wreaking havoc on a daily basis to so many. Media, healthcare, food, retail, the list is sickening. 

When I was young, we had neighbors that were around for years. Small stores on nearly every corner. Shoe repair, hardware, ‘supermarkets’ and department store were all a part of my growing up culture. What was so different? Each one of the above was owned by someone, and the next by someone else, and this was happening all across America in the post World War II boom. 

And then we saw all the little unique characters of our towns disappear as corporations replaced the vast percentage of small shops with their crap. A McDonald’s at every exit. A Walmart in every town. Heart wrenching.

Let’s be clear. The folks running the show have family names like Rothschild and Rockefeller and Walton and Coch and Morgan and on and on. Their intent is clear from their actions. They thrive on war, consumption and fear. Which mean all three deserve our resistance.

From where we see today, there is no good reason for the existence of such a legal entity. Corporations need to be decommissioned or turned into coops. If you’re war profiteers, which means you’re killing hundreds of us daily, you need to go away. If you’re Exxon or another extractor you need to go away. If you’re GMO corporation you need to go away. 

For others, we create coops from corporations. We can have honest competition, each company employee owned and each as equally interested in your experience with them as with personal gain. 

We are in transition. The old ways and systems are not responding to our deep needs The age of corporatism is coming to an end, and not a moment too soon, considering our current peril. 

The administration of Donald Trump, with a massive transfer of wealth pending in the Republican congress, proves beyond doubt that this entity, for whatever values it may have incidentally held, is inherently mindless and manipulative. 

Which is why these assholes in congress must be replaced.  Such is our task. As we awaken and engage, we cannot be stopped. We create a new world where peace and love reign, and where our current reality becomes a dim, dark past.

Ending Corporate Rule

So it’s clear that corporations, since their ‘modern’ inception in 1600 where Queen Elizabeth first allowed the charter of East India Company, have sped the introduction of technology and fostered global trade. It’s equally clear that they’ve outlived their usefulness.

When the United States was initiated, there were clear restrictions put in place to avoid the worst of European corporate abuses. This because our founding fathers were well aware of the abuse of power already being exercised by European corporations. 

From ReclaimDemocracy.org…Corporate charters (licenses to exist) were granted for a limited time and could be revoked promptly for violating laws. Corporations could engage only in activities necessary to fulfill their chartered purpose. Corporations could not own stock in other corporations nor own any property that was not essential to fulfilling their chartered purpose. Corporations were often terminated if they exceeded their authority or caused public harm. Owners and managers were responsible for criminal acts committed on the job. Corporations could not make any political or charitable contributions nor spend money to influence law-making.

But those safeguards became unsafe over time, and the power of money and elitism have, well, I don’t have to tell you.

And yet the rabbit hole is deeper still. A handful of families has been at the helm of control for over 200 years, and they continue their long and unholy tradition of manipulating governments, currencies and precious metals. Names like Rothschild, Rockefeller, Morgan and Walton come to mind.

Even now ‘they’ are withholding information that would allow for breakthroughs in every area of our lives. They teach a false system of reality. They withhold or discredit the writings of Tesla and a host of others that could help us live more freely and help this Earth to heal. Not an interest of the controllers.

The privatizing of ideas through patents and intellectual property rights has caused irreparable harm to our species and culture. An attribute of Life, witnessed all around us, is sharing. An attribute of corporations is privacy.

How we replace this ungodly system of greed and corruption is our task. And understanding the methodologies that will bring down our corporate overloads is key.

On the macro level, we need to create and encourage governments of integrity at every level, where the role of money and elitist interests is subjugated to the needs of we, the people. Let’s be clear. Government’s role is to support the ‘life, liberty and happiness’ of its people -not false legal entities.

On the micro level, it’s about how we leverage our energy and money. By engaging with our communities to create local food and energy systems we disempower the global elite. Every dollar we spend is a vote for something. A greater awareness of whom we’re funding with our purchases is key.

Now in 2016 we may be witnessing the beginnings of a renaissance here in the US. As part of the above, we need to hold corporations accountable for what they do. They must be held accountable for the costs of their untold damage to people and planet. Examples are everywhere. The use of fossil fuels is killing our planet.The Monsantos of the world must be brought to heel, their manic lust for global domination is devastating our bodies, killing and maiming innumerable species, and contributing to the Earth’s most important asset of Life itself, our soil. The war machine. Big Pharma. The list is endless.

Yes, take a breath…

Another historically significant but neglected organizational type is the cooperative. In point of fact, cooperative living has been as essential of human existence since our beginning. Modern cooperatives are but worker-owned businesses. There are thousands of cooperatives active today, but most are no larger than the communities they operate within.

The beginnings of the modern coop came from the Basque region of Spain, where in the 1950s they began forming a cooperative to make kerosene stoves. They called it Mondragon, and as of the end of 2014, it employed 74,117 people in 257 companies and organizations in four areas of activity: finance, industry, retail and knowledge. There are a growing number of affiliates in countries and cities all over the world. The cooperative model works, and is essentially fair by its nature.

Something quite startling is happening these days. The veil is being lifted. The powers that hid for so long can no longer hide. The millions of us entrapped by their deceits and propaganda are learning to find the truth.

The despotic age of corporatism is coming to an end, though they will not go quietly. But we can enable this transition with as much peace, grace and agility as possible by removing the legal status of corporations. We must generate the will to throw down these tyrants and destroyers, while we leave them behind as much as possible in our daily lives.

Do not think this impossible because it’s never happened before. A host of things are happening today that haven’t happened before, especially in technology. Do not think this too audacious because it seems like a foreign idea. A mere five years ago the idea of taking on Wall Street seemed far fetched. Then came Occupy. The wind blows. We are finding our true selves, our connection and our power. 

This is a time of great transition. Transitioning from corporate control to cooperative living seems right on time.