The Ever Growing Global Tapeworm

"The corporate elites, which have seized control of ruling institutions including the government and destroyed labor unions, are re-establishing the inhumane  conditions that characterized the 19th and early 20th centuries." Chris Hedges, The Gig Economy is the New Term for Serfdom.

At first we celebrated social media thinking it was a means to express the views and values of the people, but now we know how this too has been corrupted by money. Confronting our own complicity we wonder if we should exit Facebook. Rebecca Solnit advises "Use them. Try not to let them use you. Remember to disable Platform, which is how they pimp your data, use Adblock and Ghostery, don't click on the ads, and say as many bad things about FB as you can on their platform (and cheer their stock crashing). The time may come when we can say goodbye to a destructive and amoral corporation without saying goodbye to each other."

"Many users are waking up to the fact that what they don’t know can hurt both them and the democracy they take for granted, and now want to limit the exposure of their data to Facebook." writes Irwin Oostindie in the Tyee. "People are increasingly recognizing that data gathered by third party apps was used to help prepare targeted fake news to help elect Donald Trump and promote Brexit."

I am reminded here that the cheapest "deal" is often something we shall pay for down the road, as the ever growing global tapeworm of capitalism grows bigger, crushing the life it exploits.

Where is all this heading? It depends on what we are willing to stand up for. If conversations on social justice bore us, then we shall soon be the new refugees.

Ultimately it will not be how much money we have to bolster our positions, it will be the values we honour and build.

Fear of Social Conscience

Have you noticed how some of your relatives and friends get irritated when you mention a social issue that is not directly related to them?

Perhaps you are enjoying a good cup of coffee and a donut as you share 'what's up', and you blurt something about the threat to wild salmon, Neo Nazis in Charlottesville, or some other issue. And suddenly everything goes quiet while someone around that table gives you the evil eye.

Have you noticed in groups how some hate those who are sensitized to issues of injustice? One or two members of a board or club will target an anti-racist, a feminist, or environmentalist, who speaks up? Or mobbing at a University - how often is the target a person who has expressed a desire for social justice?

At dinner parties have you noticed if anyone mentions equal pay, equal respect, violence toward a specific group - they are quickly interrupted and the subject changed?

Why is this? Is it because we want to feel safe, that the world is just, and our co-workers and friends are ethical and have a good conscience? Or is it that any issue of injustice in our society strikes a tone of moral superiority? Or that most of us don't want to be reminded of prejudice or systemic violence when we are having fun?

Is there a flaming red flag around the aura of a person who makes it clear they are aware of the larger society? A sub conscious understanding that this person does not base their worth on getting your approval?

Is there a time and place for difficult conversations other than social gatherings? Is the common gap in all social intercourse a matter of privilege?

Stephen Metcalf wrote in The Guardian about how neoliberalism has swallowed up the world along with all the beating hearts and minds within.  "Peer through the lens of neoliberalism and you see more clearly how the political thinkers most admired by Thatcher and Reagan helped shape the ideal of society as a kind of universal market".  Social reality since then, says Metcalf,  has been reordered where the blood coursing through our veins means nothing other than the price the market will give it.

We have been dismissed. Art, science, intellect, music, love and family means nothing if they can't make a profit for someone.  We have swallowed this reasoning to the extent that any reminder of society as community, kindness, inalienable rights and duties, is almost an admittance of our gullibility over the last forty years. 

We've been had and had bad.

Democracy in Chains

In a recent post (Missing Links) by George Monbiot we learn of how American democracy has been crippled by corporate funded economic theories. 

Papers found by Nancy MacLean at Virginia University after the death of James McGill Buchanan are the subject of her latest book Democracy in Chains: the deep history of the radical right’s stealth plan for America.

Buchanan's theories influenced by the neoliberalism of Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises,  argued that freedom is the absolute right to use your property however you wish without interference from society, human rights, social justice, and labour laws which are seen as exploiting "men of property on behalf of the undeserving masses." 

Monbiot's post is worth reading for how it reveals the progression from Western democracy and the threat of totalitarian capitalism.

I and Thou

Somewhere in Martin Buber's book "I and Thou" I remember the phrase - not necessarily in these words, but meaning "those who choose hate as a way out because they don't know what to do with their lives."

Now I confess I cannot find this quote although there are many by Buber or from people who write about his ideas.

I keep thinking of this phrase now that Donald Trump clearly directed his campaign through support from white supremacist, misogynist and an anti-immigrant demographic.

But what should "they" do with their lives when there are not enough jobs that will pay a living wage and will treat them with dignity?

The only thing that will come out of hate is a world of mute strangers competing with and afraid of the other.

Buber's main proposition is that we live in a dialogue with the world.  Either as I-and-It or I-and-Thou and that we find meaning through our relationships. I-and-Thou means I stand in relation to you as the meaning of  our lives unfold, giving me direction through inspiration in what to do with my life. The I-and-It is currently how our economic system is organized. People are workers, immigrants, criminals, customers and constituents. They are "Its" to be managed for the most profit.

I feel a burning rage inside that life has been reduced to this. I understand the rage coming from those made redundant by the ideology of neoliberalism. And I fear that hate will engulf the schools, the libraries, the clinics and malls just as it has in Syria.

It's not naivety to begin to live in relation to life - it is the reason for it.