Dismantling the Corporate Behemoths and Leviathans

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By Rob Kall (about the author) Page 1 of 2 page(s)

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For OpEdNews: Rob Kall - Writer

I stopped over my friends house yesterday. We'd planned to go out for dinner.

But they had a salesman from Verizon there. He was setting them up with a package so they'd have a combo package-- video, internet and phone, all working on optical fiber network.

Optical fiber network. Not cable. Not analog or cell phone-- but optical fiber.

Now, my reaction was--- "wow, so I can dump C*mcast. I hate C*mcast." (I use the asterisk because I fear that if c*mcast actually sees me writing about them, they may cut me off, before I cut them off.)

You may wonder WHY I hate C*mcast. One, they are too big, too influential. Two, they run ads, often, advocating for legislation or positions that regulators are considering, that help big business and hurt consumers-- deceptive ads, like ones opposing the open internet that the blogosphere supports. It's not surprising. C*mcast would make more money that way. But their ads are total bullshit.

I also feel that being so big, C*mcast has too much influence over people, especially when they can run ads and content that support their existence and maximal profit.

That said, my initial enthusiasm for an alternative to C*mcast was quickly tempered. We're talking, after all, about Verizon-- one of the behemoths that have re-consolidated since the initial breakup of Bell Telephone.

Still, this option seemed attractive. From a pragmatic standpoint, if the service was available at my house, then I wouldn't have to worry about Cable outages during storms. And they were claiming to charge less money too, for a higher speed internet.

But the point of this article came about because I recognized my antipathy to C*mcast, and really, to Verizon too.

I don't want to do business with these business behemoths.

Can we agree on this? Let's talk about it.

I would rather do business with a local person-- a real, flesh and blood person. The young man who was setting up the account for my friends was from Memphis. He was a twentysomething, walking a rural road, literally hiking one block on a long driveway, just to knock, cold call, on my friends door. He is not a neighbor, not a member of the community. He's a kid who Verizon works, probably on a commission basis, and he has no connection to the community.

I would rather do business with a local business-- a small business that has roots and connections in the community. In some foreign lands, foreigners are not allowed to own businesses. They MUST partner with native businesses. Of course globalization is trying to do away with this. But it's a good idea.

Why not require that big, transnational businesses partner with small local businesses. Make it a law. Let locals profit. Require big corporations to partner and require them to make their business transparent, to prevent corruption.

Ideally, I'd like to see the biggest businesses made smaller-- broken up. Maybe there's another way to take advantage of bigness and the economies of scale that encourage mergers and acquisitions.We should look for alternatives. Big, huge businesses are bad for democracy and bad for humanity, especially when they corrupt government and legislation with lobbying, especially when they control the media.

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Rob Kall is executive editor, publisher and site architect of OpEdNews.com, Host of the Rob Kall Bottom Up Radio Show (WNJC 1360 AM), President of Futurehealth, Inc, (more...)

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
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