Corporate capitalism is a train running full speed towards a
cliff. Whatever brakes the train once had have been stripped from it in order to
streamline its forward movement.
We are all passengers on this train, lured aboard by the
promise it would take us where we wanted to go. And it has delivered all it has
promised and more, at least for those of us not shoveling the coal. The only problem is, every time we arrive at the station we
believed was the promised land, the train just kept going. What would have been
viewed as technological miracles by our grandparents now clog our landfills
because they are last generation technology nobody wants. Thus far, all that we
are told would give us happiness ends up being discarded as worthless.
We got on this train not merely because of the material
goods corporate capitalism provided us but because we were led to believe such
products would bring us happiness. But the happiness achieved by our acquisitions
is transitory, leaving in its wake a greater emptiness that must be filled. Each
time we acquire a new possession, we are again made unhappy the moment the newest
model comes out. Our vehicles are more spacious than prior generations ever would
have imagined or even thought to ask for, our televisions sport larger screens
and higher definition than our parents would have thought tasteful for placing
in their living rooms. We possess so many toys and gadgets that we have to build
or rent storage units for them. Our electronic devices provide us with more
ways of amusing and distracting ourselves than ever before. And yet, although
such devices leave us no time to dwell upon how we feel, we are dimly aware of
a growing discontent in the same way we are dimly aware of the train wheels as
they move us further along the tracks towards humanity’s doom.
Doom IS the inevitable destination. It is obvious to anyone
willing to look out their windows and see what’s going on outside our comfortable
train compartments. We are using every last possible resource we can get our
hands on in order to increase the speed of this runaway train. Somewhere deep
within us we know real changes have to be made, but the seats upon which we sit
are just so damned comfortable, and reality so very frightening.
If corporate capitalism is a runaway train headed towards
the abyss, establishment media are the well-paid attendants who offer us fluffy
pillows for a slight fee. They offer to close our blinds for us should we
desire to take a nap, offer us unhealthy banquets that leave us lethargic, and
provide us with a thousand different escapist movies for us to watch. In all
ways, they try to make things pleasant for us, insisting only that we remain in
our seats for our own safety. And we must never question where it is we are going.
There is no destination, only progress.
Should we ever provide ourselves the quiet moments required
for honest reflection, we would be forced to admit some unpleasant but
necessary truths. We are depleting our natural resources at a fevered and
irrational pace. We destroy nature to create unneeded products we use to reward
ourselves with in order to numb our anxiety. We devastate our environment in waging
endless war against those whose ideologies might impede the advancement of the
train that is leading us to our own graves. We waste our energies and
creativity in the manufacture of drugs and penitentiaries in order to medicate and
imprison those who are unable or unwilling to sit quietly as the train’s speed
increases. Most of all, we lay waste to nature because it often provides free alternatives
to that which corporations wish to sell you.
Nature can provide food without cost. It can provide us with wisdom that even our most prestigious and expensive universities cannot. It gives
us opportunities for exercise superior to any treadmill or climbing wall. It can
give us an understanding of freedom that a Harley Davidson or maxi-pad never can. And it
is able to give us a sense of contentment superior to anything pharmaceuticals
provide. Sadly, what it cannot do is pay advertisers to advocate for it. Commercials
scream, nature whispers.
Corporate capitalism is the reason our climate is quickly
being converted to one unsuitable for human habitation. Under no circumstances
would a corporation want you to use less energy when corporations profit off
your energy use. They will never encourage you doing without what you do not
need to begin with because they profit from selling you that which does not make you
happy. And if what they have sold you does not make you happy, they have a
product that is sold as a cure for that. And so the living creatures in our
oceans are replaced with plastic particles and oil spills, the wild creatures
in our forests and prairies are replaced by caged animals on factory farms. All
that is holy, all that is natural, is being replaced by that which is
profitable. Corporate capitalism is at war with nature.
And as corporate capitalism is at war with nature, corporate
media is at war with reality. They call it marketing but it could just as well
be called corporate propaganda. There is no other message to be had from our
televisions, no other alternate way of viewing our situation. Turn on the
television and you will not hear one voice speaking out on behalf of nature.
Nature has no money to spend on air time. Neither do the poor, the elderly, or
the victims of war. All of the power of the media’s voice comes from
corporations paying to have their message spread.
The choice is becoming starker as the train builds up steam:
the planet or the corporations. The train which carries us forward is undoubtedly
a remarkable feat of engineering, but there is no longer any reasonable doubt
that the ride cannot continue much longer. We must do all that is in our
power to stop its hurtling towards its undeniable destination. The seating is
undeniably luxurious, but it will not comfort us once the crash occurs. And the
distraction the media supplies is assuredly pleasant, but on the day the
illusion is stripped away, it will not drown out the cries of those in agony from the train wreck. The terminus is far closer than anyone in the media will
have you believe.
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