You should stop reading this, if you think that generally humanity is making progress. However, if you believe that humanity is heading toward a dark future, then read on.
While I am a 72 year old, dual citizen who has currently resided in Canada for the last dozen years, I'm still deeply concerned with what I see occurring in my home country and, by extension, the world. I am quite concerned regarding the world that I am leaving to my children and grandchildren! I assume, since you have read this far, that you are of the same mindset. In fact, as I still have your attention, I don't think that it is necessary for me to elaborate on the long list of obstacles that we are all facing now and in both the near and far future.
I must also assume that, since you are still reading, you are, like me, looking for solutions. Since I don't know what you know, let me fill you in with a few facts, as I see them, so that when I present this solution it will fall into a logical space and be comprehensible.
A few years ago, I got into a rather lengthy email debate with my favorite political pundit/podcaster -- Mike Malloy. He contend ed that the primary cause of humanity's demise can be placed on the shoulders of capitalism. My position was, and still is, that it is the corporations that are at fault.
Now consider that the basic historic path of international economic development went from the Barter System through Mercantilism (precious metals) to Capitalism. The system with the least amount of state or government regulation was the Barter System. The rest had various degrees of state controls.
While the concept of the corporation can be traced back into ancient Roman times, the modern form of chartered corporations only began toward the end of the Mercantile period and with the advent of the Industrial Revolution. Free Market advocates have held that capitalism is most efficient with no government intervention. However, it is generally understood that corporations should be regulated, if for nothing more than to be chartered. So, you may be asking yourself, what has all of this got to do with our central question?
Well, it has to do with a capitalistic system, which originally contained corporations, being overcome and dominated by the very entity that was to function within its boundaries. In other words, corporations took control of capitalism, instead of the other way around. This was a long and deliberate process that began with a little noted US court ruling in 1886 and has recently asserted itself again with the Supreme Court ruling in the Citizen's United case.
Corporations, as they are now configured not only in the US but throughout the world as well, have some very negative ramifications , relative to human life on this planet. Should you wish to look into the multitude of problems that corporations inflict on all of us, I'd like to refer you to the second website I ever put on the web -- click here.
However, to explore the true reason that humanity is losing its grasp of life on this planet, I'm only going to elaborate on a few of the more destructive aspects of corporations. Obviously, a for profit corporation's prime directive is to make a profit. It is also apparent that, in spite of having all of the rights of a human being, as an artificial entity a corporation hasn't the ability to experience empathy. It must also be taken into consideration the fact that one of the primary reasons that humans gather together and form corporations is so that no one individual can be held responsible for the illegal actions of a corporation.
So, what do we have when we combine just these three aspects of corporations? Well we have competitive, eternal, international, legal entities that are mandated -- often by law -- to make a profit. Our experience has been that in order to facilitate that mandate, they have subverted our political and economic systems in order to enact laws that are to their exclusive financial advantage. That these actions are often detrimental to the health and welfare of humans is of no concern to these parasitic legal documents posing as humans. Most importantly, and contributing to that lack of concern, is the absence of liability for any of the sociopathic humans who make these horrendous decisions " on behalf of the corporation. And there you have it, the psycho/sociopathic individuals who run these powerful corporations are rarely held responsible for their actions -- since it was the corporation who did it with no humans held liable. After all, if there will be no jail time, why not risk it? Similar to the mentality of a local cop, "If there will be no jail time, why not shoot?"
Now you may be asking yourself, "What can be done about this lack of accountability?"
Of course the world is full of people who have uncovered problems and put forth incredibly valid solutions. However, the very real difficulty is converting an imagined solution into a reality. That is certainly a major problem, in this case. The corporations are so expertly adept at thwarting our non-violent methods of politically and/or legally righting these wrongs that it appears that this is just another lost cause.
On top of that, those of us who are still paying attention now know that our votes don't even count anymore! Even if our election processes weren't corrupted beyond repair, what will it take to overcome the rising voter apathy and disgust that has stagnated our trust in any solutions offered by anyone?
There is a sheet of ice in Antartica that is the size of the country of Mexico. It is called the Ross Ice Shelf and it rests on a bedrock that goes deeply below the ocean's surface. There is a process which is called 'calving' which is relentlessly eating away at the underside of this shelf of ice. Because this enormous mass of ice is melting much faster than previously projected, scientists, just this year, are projecting that within a couple of decades that shelf could suddenly break off and fall into the ocean.
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