Penny for the Guy?
I have become philosophically opposed to certain multi-billion-dollar corporations. These corporations collect big data about everyone so as to turn their customers into a product. The means used in that data collection are unethical. Further, there are many other issues equally unethical, and too numerous to detail here. Consequently, I have permanently dismissed my advertisers as all of them use the advertising networks provided by these corporations. I will no longer cooperate with these unprincipled entities to the best of my ability. Though my lack of certain skills and abilities force me to buy food and products from some of them, I can still resist.
All of this I am currently doing:
- I will work for ethical organizations.
- I will no longer advertise and make money from this website.
- When I do buy from corporations, I will prefer the ones who have the best ethics.
- I will prefer local small businesses.
- I will not break the law or do anything unethical in retaliation.
- I will continue to find new ways to resist.
I’ve got a few reasons why and some history lessons behind my motivations. If you’d like to learn more, then continue reading.
Guy Fawkes was the only man to enter Parliament with honest intentions. Having failed at the “gunpowder treason and plot”, Fawkes was executed quite horribly and burned in effigy every year since. His legacy is victim to being on the losing side of a resistance movement. But much like the Kill-Dozer guy, you sometimes just have to sacrifice yourself to stick it to the rich and corrupt. Fascinating history aside and long-story-short, Guy Fawkes’ Mask has become the symbol of the people resisting corporate evil and the corrupt government that enables them. And to quote his favorite comic book and movie (V for Vendetta), “people should not be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people.” The mask has also become the internet meme of the hacker group Anonymous; a decentralized group of elite hackers who fight censorship and generally support revolutionary activities. Though in recent years, they’ve been less active.
Class Warfare goes all the way back to the Coal Creek War. The coal company (rich) paid their employees in company script which could only be spent at company stores (with jacked up prices) or redeemed for real money for far less than 100%. The coal company also used a “company” checkweighman to weigh the coal which determined how much the miners got paid. State law already prohibited both of these practices. The coal miners (poor) only wanted to be paid cash and use their own checkweighmen. The miners stop working and asked the Governor to enforce the law. The Governor responded by sending in the National Guard.
At the end of the day, the coal companies and government had their private little war with hard-working Americans who despite other conditions were triggered by the use of the “Convict Leasing System”. This was in 1891. Since the abolishment of slavery, a more enigmatic system of substitute slavery was created that lasted into the 1950s. Arrest people on BS charges, send them to prison and rent them out as labor.
Cave Creek War is not the only example. There’s also the 1914 Ludlow Massacre where three different fuel companies organized the Colorado National Guard to attack a tent city of 1200 striking coal miners. The miners retaliated in force resulting in 200 deaths. Ultimately, the striking miners were replaced. 400 miners were arrested and charged with murder. 12 enlisted and 10 officers were court-martialed but then acquitted, save one who got a slap on the wrist.
Violence seems to be the only way to change. If we look at recent events such as Libya and Egypt, we see that armed resistance works and peaceful protests have little impact. If we look at 2012 Bahrain Uprising which you won’t see on CNN but only from non-USA free media sources such as Al Jazeera (video here); you will see that peaceful protests don’t do squat, and that the USA being the heroes of Democracy and Freedom don’t care enough to screw with their oil supply (controlled by the rich). In fact, with the corporations and the government working together, we don’t even hear about it on CNN, Fox News, or any other USA news outlet. My position on using violence is that it is an absolute last resort that should only be used by those willing to sacrifice their lives for their cause. To be clear, do not initiate an armed conflict; that would be immoral.
“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.” — Benito Mussolini, National Facist Party, First Marshall of the Empire, Italian Social Republic, Axis Powers, 1943.
Now I don’t like playing the “fascist” card as it is done way too often. But think about this: Fascists don’t like Socialism or Communism of the kind that was done in the Soviet Union. Fascists prefer Capitalism allowing them to control as much money as possible while avoiding social responsibility, which makes sense. That’s exactly where we are today. The corporations buy politicians and everybody knows it. That’s it, that’s Fascism, it’s that simple. It’s not ObamaCare or Illegal Immigration or Abortion or Gay Rights or if the Catholic Church should pay for Birth Control. It’s money from Super PACs, million-dollar lawyers, total control of the media, and they sucker us into it.
They lie to us from a hundred different angles and we buy it. They hold us hostage with mortgages and health insurance. They convince us that the rich are the victims who are forced to pay the most taxes. They use proof of inequality against the poor as proof of inequality against the rich. They convince us that trickle-down economics (or giving money to the rich first) works. Well, it does work. After 96% of that is used to pay dividends, the rest trickles down to India and China. How about trickle-up? That is you give the poor the money first, and then we’ll just see how many poor people fly to India and China to do their shopping. How about if you want our money then you work for it?
Passive resistance means one thing to the rich: Money. We can’t stop buying gas, clothes, food, and go live off the grid eating tree sap. But if we look at what we’re spending money on, we can find ways to deny the rich. I’m going to pick just one of many as an example: Facebook. This is one of those corporations that everybody generally knows just how evil they are, and yet we do business with them. If you somehow don’t know, go do a little research and you’ll see just how ugly the truth is. As corrosive and toxic as social media is, we continue to give them exactly what they want.
I don’t know how a bunch of “Occupy” tents lined up on the streets of every town in America will make any kind of difference at all. Those Occupy tents have become tent cities for the homeless. The rich will just drive by and not look at them. Most of the poor will continue doing little else than complaining about it on social media. If the tents actually annoy the rich, they’ll just call the Police who will remove them (as has already been done many times). History has shown that the rich prefer to kill the poor before giving back their ill-gotten money. History shows that the poor have to kill the rich for change to occur. The rich will never surrender their money because the poor asked nicely. Why would they? They never have before in the history of mankind. Someday, something will break, and everyone will lose. Well, I’m happy to burn in Hell so long as I can take those dirty motherfuckers with me.
