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.
