Marianne Williamson Is Running For President
Marianne Williamson has officially launched her 2024 presidential campaign, HuffPost reports.
Per HuffPost, the New York Times bestselling author is the first Democratic candidate to announce a bid, which will likely place her in the primary against President Joe Biden, although he has not yet officially announced his bid for a second-term.
Williamson, who also ran for president in 2020, made the announcement in a video posted to her social media accounts, including Youtube and Twitter, along with the caption “Marianne Williamson is running for President.”
The video, which is just under two minutes long, begins with Williamson saying, “When I was growing up, America had a vibrant middle class,” before she lists luxuries “the average American worker” could afford decades ago, including a “home” and “a yearly vacation.
She continued, “over the last 50 years, there’s been a massive transfer of wealth to the tune of 50 trillion dollars.”
CNN reports:
In a statement last month teasing her announcement, Williamson said she was motivated by “a realization of the Democratic Party’s shift away from the party of President Franklin Roosevelt” and “the economic injustices endured by millions of Americans due to the influence of corporate money on our political system.”
The 70-year-old presidential hopeful recently said in an interview with “Good Morning New Hampshire,” according to HuffPost, “You can appreciate what the president has done, defeating the Republicans in 2020, and still feel that it is time to move on.”
Watch the video below or at this link.
Insane Ukraine
We have to unfuck our culture. Rephrase – We must get past corporations and nation states. Both are archaic and we and our planet are dying.
It is in our nature to go about our business and live our lives as best we can. And we all know that the decked is stacked against us. If we look clearly into history, we see the culprits. Nation states and corporations.
Many of our nation states today are but the result of the British Empire designating them because they had guns and ships and the interest. Much of Africa and South America in particular are composed of countries that The British Empire drew the lines for. What a shitty way to determine national boundaries.
The corporations stood right there with them, the East India Trading Company and The Hudson Bay Company are history book examples. A trio of government officials, missionaries and corporate toadies combined to spread a thick layer of bullshit over whomever they intended to colonize. Praise Jesus.
Today many of us understand that many of these nation-state boundaries are but the result of empire, and that regionalism and tribal ancestry make for much better governments.
Oh, I almost forgot I was writing about this fucked up piece of shit war in Ukraine. I watch, I rage, I weep and repeat the cycle. Insanity indeed.
All the governmental players have a role and responsibility in this ugly disaster. The US has poked the bear as they say, with numerous bases and an aggressive stance toward Russia. You throw in crazy-ass Putin, who cares for nothing but retaining and growing his power, and Zelenskyy, whose hero status is suspect and is friends with Ukrainian oligarch Igor Kolomoisky. Some argue he’s running a government no less corrupt than his predecessors.
Damn. There it is again. Not good vs evil, as our corporate media would have you believe, but bunch of bad actors that includes the Unites States.
Putin’s actions starting this conflict were reprehensible, as are his continuing decisions to keep bombing innocent people. So it’s an easy sell to make him the bad guy. Zelenskyy hasn’t shown that disgusting level of murder, but he’s no saint. The real kicker here is the United States, who has shown little interest in negotiations and great interest in blowing up stuff making millions and billions for the Lockheed Martins (42 billion last year) and Boeings (23 billion last year) and other members of their club. Our government serves up military grade weapons and these war corporations make the financial killing.
So the Permanent War Paradigm, which we were first warned about by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1960, is on full display and shows no sign of being diminished. Our corporate-controlled culture continues to make sure corporations always win. Not good for us citizens. Not good for this dear Earth.
Let’s start with priorities. The first is always ourselves, and the first response must be to hold peace in our hearts, despite this and other war tragedies. We do not help the citizens of Ukraine by offering them thoughts of fear or an anguished heart. We help by holding peace in our hearts and recognizing that they are in our hearts just as we are in theirs. It’s how Life works.
Healing requires letting go of our own fears. Fear is the mind-killer. Always the enemy of peace, and therefore never our friend. Whatever answers fear seems to offer are false. Love is the answer, Here in this Life we share. It is the first truth.
There are thousands of peace organizations and groups, but they seem to have little impact on our situation. We are no more peaceful as a planet than we’ve been since World War II, with the constant beat of war drums ever since by The War Machine.
So we must rise up. Getting into the streets is not an ideal answer, but it’s required if we intend to rebalance our lives and end this scourge. Of course voting is the minimal requirement, but that is a slow remedy, fraught with bullshit.
In rising up we force the issue, reminding legislators of our power and intent, reducing to some small degree the corporate influence.
Not a pretty or hopeful picture at this point, but we see great opportunities for change as the old system continues to crumble under the weight of its own corruption.
Let us do what we can and be who we are, and dream of brighter days, where Life is held in much higher regard, and our tolerance for war is zero.
Columbia Turns a Page
From Progressive International
Last Sunday, under the bright skies of Bogotá, thousands of Colombians gathered in Plaza Bolívar to inaugurate Francia Márquez and Gustavo Petro as the Vice President and President of the first progressive government in the history of Colombia.
“Today, the popular mandate for peace, for dignified life, for social and environmental justice has brought us to this square and to all the squares of Colombia,” said Roy Barreras, incoming President of the Colombian Senate, in the opening speech. “This is the rebirth of hope.”
Standing before the crowd, Afro-Colombian land defender Francia Márquez took her oath of office, swearing before God, the people of Colombia, and her ancestors to serve as Vice President “*hasta que la dignidad sea costumbre.*” Until dignity becomes custom.
Soldiers marched the sword of Simón Bolívar, a great liberator of the Patria Grande, onto the inauguration stage — the same sword that the M-19, the guerrilla movement to which Gustavo Petro once belonged, stole in 1974 in act of rebellion against Colombia’s corrupt regime.
As Gustavo Petro prepared to take the podium, the crowd in Plaza Bolívar roared in unison. “No más guerra! No más guerra!” No more war. Wearing the presidential sash bestowed to him by María José Pizarro — feminist, Senator, daughter of Carlos Pizarro, commander of the M-19 shot down on own his path to the presidency in 1990 — Gustavo Petro inaugurated the ‘Government of Life.’
“Many times in our history we Colombians have been condemned to the impossible, to the lack of opportunities, to a resounding ‘No’. I want to tell all Colombians who are listening to me in Plaza Bolivar, in the surrounding areas, throughout Colombia and abroad that our second chance begins today… We must end, once and for all, six decades of violence and armed conflict — in fact, I would say, two centuries of permanent war, of eternal war, of perpetual war in Colombia. It can be done.”
In a sweeping address, Petro called for a new internationalism in Latin America and around the world — not “discourse, mere rhetoric,” but robust institutions to bind together the sister nations of the South, from the Arab World to Africa. “Today, we must be more united than ever.”
Above all, Gustavo Petro called for peace. “I will work to achieve true and definitive peace: like no one else, like never before,” he said. “The Government of Life is the Government of Peace.”
The Progressive International is proud to accompany Council member Gustavo Petro on this journey toward a true and definitive peace — in Colombia, across Latin America, and around the world.
There Ain’t No Good Guys
Singer/songwriter Dave Mason sang this song written by Jim Krueger, which held the chorus…
There ain’t no good guys, there ain’t no bad guys, there’s just you and me and we just disagree.
For most of we nearly 8 billion humans, the saying seems true enough. We’re just trying to get along and get by, challenging enough in these times. On the geo-political scale however, only the first part is true. There ain’t no good guys.
In the world of corporations and their ownership, we have long-standing ruthless folks running Wall Street and our financial system. Historically Morgans and Rockefellers, more recently Waltons (Walmart), the Musks and Bezos and Gates. They do not serve us. They are lost in a world only known to the ultrarich. They spend money to buy and build crazy shit. Gates is lately on a mission to buy land and ensure the world’s agriculture never gets away from the agribiz model, in spite of its devastation.
Musk and Bezos, and their peers just want government off their back so they can continue to exploit people and planet. Like the US government has clipped their wings. Right. They ain’t good guys.
How about nation-state leaders from around the globe? Yeah, right again. With very few exceptions, mostly in South America in places like Chile, our rulers are in the throes of corporate control, which they gladly accept to grow their personal power through it ruins their citizens’ lives. They ain’t good guys either.
Our elected officials at every level, for the most part, care little about citizen rights or happiness. Their focused on corporate interests, not ours. They ignore their oaths and our priorities with reckless abandon, while performing fellatio at every turn for their illegal money grabbing. They ain’t good guys.
And with even a modicum of awareness about the state of things in these United States, we find about one-third of our populace willing to overthrow an elected president because they’re controlled by ideology and are cult followers of Donald Trump. They ain’t good guys either. Though, not as defense but as a recognition of reality in this culture, they’ve been beat down, abused and mis-educated for so long this sort of right-wing, hate spewing individuals should come as no surprise.
So what we find is ‘average’ Americans are content to be citizens and take care of their lives. It’s the sickos who seek power and position and influence over others. Which brings us to a bunch of knucklehead (to be kind) running our cities, counties, states and Federal Government. Not good.
Most troubling is how we’ve been so handily manipulated to keep allowing these demented folks to maintain power and control over us. Donald Trump is but one example.
The fix is clearly an educated electorate, who would not put up with this bullshit. Republican, Democrat or Independent, if we are ‘woke’ – to take back a term the manipulators now disparage, we won’t elect corporate owned politicians. We’ll elect folks who have our back and are interested in ‘the pursuit of Life, Liberty and Happiness instead of corporate profits.
It’s clearly this simple. Yet the forces against our education are vast and long-standing. Which means we require substantive change, even transformation, to repair this broken system. Which means we must rise up and thwart this corrupt system at every turn we can. It’s what citizens are required to do if we want to be citizens, and not slaves.
Corporate Boat Versus Life Boat
In the muddle of these times, progressives ’embrace’ the democratic party because they have no alternative. We in the US live in a duopoly, where our votes are limited by the two party system.Democrats feign policies efforts that would improve our lives, but damn, they’re stymied again, and again, and again. The Republicans are now well adrift from reality, with many aligned with traitor Donald Trump, and nearly all of them given to ideology that does not befit us, and a lust for power that makes corporate interests ever the priority. It’s all too damn ugly.
We may begin to see another option if ranked voting, such as Maine and Alaska have recently initiated, takes hold. But for this election and the near future, the dems are all we have. Sad.
The Republicans began their trajectory in the 1980s with Ronald Reagan, the democratic party took a turn toward neoliberlism with the Clinton presidency in the early 1990s, and it has only gotten far worse with more recent ‘leaders’.
With this context, it’s clear we must make our voices heard more loudly than they have been, as the data shows are elected leaders pay almost no attention to our needs and interests, and all the attention they want to Corporate Overlords. Super Elites. Ideological Controllers. See, they’ve been so successful in keeping us duped that we don’t even have an accepted term for these bastards.
I needn’t remind that these bastards are destroying our planet’s biological life at a horrific pace, we humans included. That precious resources are used for yachts and rockets and endless bullshit because these bastards have almost all the money. The yacht is a nice metaphor for the corporate boat, which has controlled our culture for hundreds of years.
Warned again and again, even by our founding fathers, that corporations inevitably corrupt other institutions, we see now how far we are under their thumb. The recent decisions by the utterly bogus Supreme Court to overturn a woman’s right to her body, the regulation of guns and the EPA’s power to regulate can all be easily linked to these bastards.
There is a way out of this morass for each of us. We transform ourselves, away from mindless noise on the screens and toward our true selves. We each have on. Even these bastards. Yet they are so far from knowing themselves that that fat guy can way more easily fit through a needle. A few things for starting…
Turn off the screen. So much useless, time sinking, distracting horseshit that whatever of value exists in that ream it’s not worth chasing. Far wiser to learn to sit with yourself, breathe, notice your body and what’s happening within the place you are in, knowing we are all here in Life together. So we not only move the goalposts, we change our entire life’s game.
Ending our fear is the requirement behind finding our authentic selves. Because our authentic self is Love, which is antithetical to fear. Love is the Energy side of our eternal Tao. Yang. Just as Eternal Awareness is our Yin. We have much to release and let go.
And we must start with ourselves so that we bring authenticity, and its attendant integrity, into our lives. We change the framing of our lives and how we spend this preciousness of Life we share. So this is the Life Boat. So THIS experience of living we are sharing Now, is, quite literally, the Life Boat. Or the First Truth as I call it.
We give our attention to personal healing, which is what I describe above, because healing our lives together and our planet requires that we are healing ourselves already. Then we can begin our efforts to transform this corrupt and broken culture. Indeed, we must rise up.
And as we become more and more authentic we understand and appreciate the messaging we give ourselves on how we best participate, best let our voices be heard, within this transformation process we are undertaking. Our nearly fearless selves understand our place in All This.
And this is what World 5.0 is about. It’s yet another name for our Life Boat. Embracing ourselves, embracing each other, embracing our Earth, and above all, embracing This Life We Share Forever.
Uprising in Sri Lanka
As our human plight continues, the latest outrage has turned the people of Sri Lanka into revolutionaries, storming the capital and forcing their president to flee the country.
Sri Lankans have taken to the street for months to demand their top leaders step down as the country spiraled into economic chaos that left its 22 million people struggling with shortages of essentials, including medicine, fuel and food. After demonstrators stormed the presidential palace and several other government buildings last week, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled and then resigned.
Much of the protesters’ ire is focused on Rajapaksa and his family’s political dynasty, which ruled Sri Lanka for most of the past two decades. But many also blame Wickremesinghe for protecting Rajapaksa. During demonstrations last week, crowds set his personal residence on fire and occupied his office.
All of this comes on the heels of neighboring India’s massive farm protests, where millions of farmers surrounded major cities, sometimes for months on end, as their shitty government attempted corporate takeovers of crops and practices.
Sadly, storming the capital doesn’t put food in your belly. So many of our sisters and brothers are suffering these days from the diabolical schemes of nation-state governments doing the bidding of ruthless corporations.
Just recently the Sri Lanka parlament voted for a new president, Ranil Wickremesinghe , yet the citizens are clearly unhappy about this newly minted leader. He is very much of the ilk of the former president, and a former prime minister.
“We are very sad, very disappointed with the 225 parliament members who we elected to speak for us, which they have not done,” said Visaka Jayawware, a performance artist in the crowd. “We will keep fighting for the people of Sri Lanka. We have to ask for a general election.”
Like so many other nation states controlled by our corporate world, Sri Lanka is in a horrendous debt situation with China and the International Monetary Fund. Sri Lanka is bankrupt; it is unable to pay for imports of essential goods, including food, medicine and fuel, in part because it is unable to service existing debts given its essentially empty coffers of foreign currency. Spiking inflation has a vast swath of the country’s 22 million people in need of food assistance. Schools and many businesses remain shut, while ordinary citizens wait days in mile-long lines for gas.
Change the time and name it might be Greece, or Poland, or any number of countries where corrupt politicians sell out their citizenry for personal wealth. Naomi Klein identified this process as “Disaster Capitalism”. I like to point out that capitalism isn’t inherently bad, yet it is indeed terrible as enlisted by corporate interests. Honest capitalism is a fine thing. We just don’t have that in our world.
As the ultra elites behind the corporations continue this pattern of destruction and ruined lives, the only hope is transformation. Which is why I remain so enchanted with World 5.0.
The Five Biggest Corporate Lies About Unions
Wealthy corporations and their enablers have spread 5 big lies about unions in order to stop workers from organizing and to protect their own bottom lines. Know the truth and spread the truth.
Lie #1: Labor unions are bad for workers. Wrong. Unions are good for all workers—even those who are not unionized. In the mid-1950s, when a third of all workers in the United States were unionized, wages grew in tandem with the economy. That’s because workers across America—even those who were not unionized—had significant power to demand and get better wages, hours, benefits, and working conditions. Since then, as union membership has declined, the middle class has shrunk as well.
Lie #2: Unions hurt the economy. Wrong again. When workers are unionized they can negotiate better wages, which in turn spreads the economic gains more evenly and strengthens the middle class. This creates a virtuous cycle: Wages increase, workers have more to spend in their communities, businesses thrive, and the economy grows. Since the 1970s, the decline in unionization accounts for one-third of the increase in income inequality. Without unions, wealth becomes concentrated at the top and the gains don’t trickle down to workers.
Lie #3: Labor unions are as powerful as big business. No way. Labor union membership in 2018 accounted for 10.5 percent of the American workforce, while large corporations account for almost three-quarters of the entire American economy. And when it comes to political power, it’s big business and small labor. In the 2018 midterms, labor unions contributed less than $70 million to parties and candidates, while big corporations and their political action committees contributed $1.6 billion. This enormous gulf between business and labor is a huge problem. It explains why most economic gains have been going to executives and shareholders rather than workers. But this doesn’t have to be the case.
Lie #4: Most unionized workers are in industries like steel and auto manufacturing. Untrue. Although industrial unions are still vitally important to workers, the largest part of the unionized workforce is workers in the professional and service sectors—retail, restaurant, hotel, hospital, teachers—which comprise 59 percent of all workers represented by a union. And these workers benefit from being in a union. In 2018, unionized service workers earned a median wage of $802 a week. Non-unionized service workers made, on average, $261 less. That’s almost a third less.
Lie #5: Most unionized workers are white, male, and middle-aged. Some unionized workers are, of course, but most newly unionized workers are not. They’re women, they’re young, and a growing portion are black and brown. In fact, it’s through the power of unions that people who had been historically marginalized in the American economy because of their race, ethnicity, or gender are now gaining economic ground. In 2018, women who were in unions earned 21 percent more than non-unionized women. And African Americans who were unionized earned nearly 20 percent more than African Americans who were non-unionized.
Don’t believe the corporate lies. Today’s unions are growing, expanding, and boosting the wages and economic prospects of those who need them most. They’re good for workers and good for America.
The Permanent War Paradigm
Now that we’re several months into our Ukraine Conflict, we begin to see things a bit more clearly. Putin remains an unstable threat, yet there are undertones and currents which suggest the US empire is exploiting this conflict, allowing Ukraine to be destroyed one bit at a time, when we could be using diplomacy and global pressure to bring an end to this conflict.
We won’t. We’ll continue to call out Russia as the bad guy and keep pretending we’re the good guy, as corporate media always does. In truth as NATO surrounds Russia tighter and tighter it’s kind of to be expected that Putin would react. Remember Cuba in the 1960s? We were having none of that.
“Terrorism” is the perfect term to highlight the permanent war paradigm at this time. After all “Communism” or the “The Cold War” don’t carry the weight they once did. And, once ‘Terrorism’ loses its convincing value, there will be other threats thrust in our face to ensure we allow a trillion dollars a year of our money to be used for U.S. Imperialism. And for those offended by such strong language I do not apologize. I ask that you open your eyes.
Who has military bases in 200 countries? Who has initiated the most military conflicts in the last 50 years? [it’s not even close!] Who has replaced the most democratically elected leaders with U.S. friendly dictators? Think Chile, poor Haiti, Iraq, Lybia and a good handful of others. Yeah, that’s us.
The terrorism bogeyman card can be played, if not forever, well into the foreseeable future. And it’s a trump card, as we’re seeing so clearly in the bloated budget earmarked for the Department of Defense. No wonder they feel obliged to cut social programs.
In the permanent war paradigm, there’s no new money for states and cities, or local renewal. There’s no new money for alternate energy, education,or a host of other issues we face, but there’s 400 billion for Iraq. (That money goes to energy research, we don’t need their fucking oil.)
So ‘our leaders’ are creating a United States of America with rising illiteracy and poverty, less healthcare, no retirement funding and crumbling infrastructure. But BY GOD, THOSE TERRORISTS ARE NOT GOING TO GET US!
Ongoing support for the permanent war paradigm remains ridiculously high in Washington politics. This is the sordid group that’s codifying the Permanent War Paradigm – and believes they’ll be able to control the game for the indefinite future.
They may well be right. Democracy is tough. Corruption is easy if you’re in power. The Permanent War Paradigm guarantees conflict for decades ahead, meaning continued profits for profiteers, and insulation for corrupt politicians.
And if I have not stressed enough the connections between our shitty politicians and the corporations they are beholding to, rest assured they’re incredibly deep and wide. As of 2022, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, General Dynamics, and Raytheon Technologies win the top five spots. They own our politicians and so the endless wars continue.
The eventual success or failure of these outlandish plans depends on many things. One sign of hope is that events tend to outrun even the greatest strategists. [Even this idea of World 5.0] Another positive is burnout. Many Americans are getting tired of the “terrorism trumps everything” modality our federal government champions. And a third cause for hope – we, the People of the Blog. There is an undeniable progressive movement, typified by new editorial sites like David Sirota’s The Lever, that is shaking the fundamental assumptions of capitalism and cronyism.
Sometimes things have to fall apart so they can be reconstructed. “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” – from the Declaration of Independence.
Yeah, what he said.
Donald Trump Is a Traitor
Even while the January 6th Committee continues its now public hearings, the conclusion is already quite clear. Donald Trump, and many of his enablers including Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife Jinni, are traitors. Before I go on I’m well aware that technically the word ‘traitor’ is attached to trying to overthrow the government via war and ‘sedition’ is the word for using other means to overthrow the government.
Yet that is framing the narrative in a less accurate way. Yes, Donald Trump and company are ‘seditionists’, but that narrative hardly compares to the raw truth – Donald Trump is a traitor. If we note the Constitution Article Three…
The difference between traitor and sedition is that traitor is one who violates his allegiance and betrays his/her country; one guilty of treason; one who, in breach of trust, delivers his country to an enemy, or yields up any fort or place intrusted to his defense, or surrenders an army or body of troops to the enemy, unless when vanquished; also, one who takes arms and levies war against his country; or one who aids an enemy in conquering his country while sedition is organized incitement of rebellion or civil disorder against authority or the state, usually by speech or writing. – from wiki
So, if you write about overthrowing the government it is sedition. If you refuse to defend ‘any fort or place intrusted to his defense, say like the capital building in Washington DC, it is a traitorous act. And Donald Trump is a traitor.
The only reason this isn’t abundantly clear is because our media is owned by corporations whose greed supersedes any devotion, or even interest, in truth. They prefer the ugly muck, confusion and abuse rendered out by our current political system. I have several family members and friends who voted for Trump in 2020. Most of them are now convinced of a false equivalency – that the crazies on the left and right are both crazy, and both must be stopped.
I’m not arguing that all the crazies are on the right, but I will point out the the Proud Boys and Oathkeepers, doing what they did on January 6th of last year at the behest of Trump, are on the right. The white nationalists who are shooting up our kids, church members, shoppers, gays, Asians and whomever else they feel threatened by or animosity towards, sorry about you luck. The lefties are crazy too…
And the crimes of the Lefties? The Portland Uprising seems to be the main contention, and it was peaceful, at least until infiltrated by haters and confronted by unmarked ‘police’. BLM protesters? Marked by their peacefulness. Hmmm. Not the same as killing 20 kids in Uvaldy Texas just recently or the folks of color shopping at a grocery in Buffalo. So try clearing your mind of false equivalencies peddled by Fox News and others and look as clearly as you can at our utterly corrupt culture.
The January 6th attempted takeover of our capitol with the designed intent to halt the validating process that would make Joe Biden president was not a coup attempt but ‘legitimate political discourse’. If that makes any sense to you suffer from some form of cognitive dissonance. You accept lies over truth because it better reflects your values. Tough shit. As Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously stated, “You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.” Words we must heed in there perilous times.
Of course that bizarre day doesn’t exist in isolation. From extremist cops to the take over of school boards and community groups by those with an agenda that is not the public good, we see this playing out every day. The coup is ongoing. It may even continue without Donald Trump. Others like Rick Desantis of Florida may be the new flag bearer. But be not confused. Treason is treason. Joe Biden won that election. Why else would congressmen beg for pardons from Trump even before the events of January 6th? They well knew their behavior was wrong. They were cronies of Donald Trump. They are traitors as well.
I could go on and on, but convincing the Deniers of Truth that they’re wrong is beyond what we can do. What we can do is acknowledge to ourselves and others should the conversation come up. Donald Trump is a traitor.
From Corporations to Cooperatives
There’s really no need to expound on the state of our lives and our Earth in this time. The evidence is abundant and clear. We live under the rule of the global corporate state. Nation states, especially empires like the U.S., still play a large role, but the controllers are obviously the people behind global corporations, especially financial ones. We are not helpless and we can no longer tolerate this.
While stats like the relative wealth of the 1/10th of 1% compared to the rest of us can be eye opening, they do little to aid us in finding a remedy to this unconscionable situation. And these same elitists and psychopaths have no interest in the remedy.
We do not change something so substantial in isolation. We change everything. Starting with ourselves and our context about living. This Great Turning encompasses an evolutionary leap, a new way forward with a vastness we were previously unaware and incapable of.
Contrary to the old adage that ‘money is the root of all evil’, money is but a tool. At issue is the way money is managed, which is very poorly in the corporate state. These soulless institutions were designed to limit liability, and allow those behind corporations to profit unduly. By rights they should be illegal, as their intent is not the common good. It is the corporation, not money itself, that needs to be banned.
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 whatever usefulness they may have had.
Western Europe’s centuries of colonialism were done at the behest of corporate interests, just as United States imperialism exists today to continue the dominant, controlling role corporations have in our world.
The obvious question becomes what about all the manufacturing, trade and services these corporations provide? Surely we can’t just disappear corporations!
No, we can’t. But we can, with political will, force their end by converting them to worker-owned cooperatives. How we muster such will when nation states and media are in lock step with these corporate behemoths is the real question.