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Corporatocracy and Our Toxic Beliefs

In evaluating the allowing, we might subsequently discover and recover the power, sovereignty, freedom and rights handed over to the Corporatocracy.

As we progress into the first days and quarter of 2014, numerous global crises are revealing more than ever a sickening corporatocracy that railroads, lies, subverts and legislates to guarantee profit, power and privilege for the few at the expense of humanity and the Earth. It employs continual warfare (pre-emptive, false-flag, illegal and otherwise); the killing of millions of people through these wars, extrajudicial assassinations, poverty; violation of international, national and personal data through global surveillance networks; rigged markets, premeditated government shutdowns and currency wars; corporate-centralized media spewing endless propaganda and spin; increasingly brutal police crackdowns; ‘trade’ agreement coups, manufactured in secret; silencing and criminalization of journalists, boycotters, whistleblowers and dissenters, etc.

Embezzling, elitist and cabalist-driven, it games the system for naked power, and is destroying ecosystems and populations, and poisoning our food, water and bodies, whilst the majority is legislated, corralled and controlled into staying silent, paying taxes, funding corporate bailouts and subsidies, and voting from time to time to give governments the consent that legitimizes their rapacious partnerships with the Corporatocracy.

Critically, though, now-exponential disclosure of our numerous tipping-point crises are ‘shocking awake’ many into more deeply understanding our inherent interdependence for livelihood and wellbeing, and what it means to have our interdependence in the hands of the thieving and trashing runaway train that is the Corporatocracy. However, as much as we can ‘follow the money’ and see the heavily cross-pollinated connections between corporatocrats, oligarchs and plutocrats, and their toxic marriages with governments, banks and militaries worldwide, it is crucial that we step beyond just this level.

A more empowered awareness involves the deeper recognition now of what is also the collective allowing thereof. In evaluating the allowing, we might subsequently discover and recover the power, sovereignty, freedom and rights handed over to the Corporatocracy.

The Powerpoint Moment

Correspondingly, if we are to more fully pivot ourselves into a more conscious and participatory evolutionary trajectory, it will hinge upon the recognition of the toxic unsustainability of our most cherished belief systems and behaviors, both personal and collective. And how, in cherishing them, we are consensually co-creating (mainly inadvertently), the crises because not enough of us have understood the terrifying mirror that our environment, politics and science, for example, represents in relation to our most cherished beliefs, and the behaviors that arise out of such beliefs.

We may be startled to recognize that certain of these most cherished beliefs (and their related traditions and ideologies) keep us in blame or abdication, separate, disengaged, distracted and, most damaging, feeling victimized and powerless, and hoping to be saved by some agency outside of ourselves. Something or someone other than us (like government, or God, a neighbor, an activist) who will ‘set things right’.

In holding a mirror to our disengagement or hopes to be rescued, we may discover that not enough of us have cared about nor valued ourselves, each other, our environment, rights, bodies, etc enough. At least not enough to say ‘No’ and to take action with respect to the runaway train.

But, as alternative media, activists and whistleblowers continue dealing one blow after another to the manipulations at large, and the crises get larger, they are, importantly, also spotlighting the enormous, ideologically-sanctioned surrender and abdication of mass personal and collective power to ‘the authorities’ at large, be it spiritual, political, economic, religious or scientific surrender.

Consciousness-Raising Beyond Toxic Belief Systems

What we don’t value, gets trashed. What we don’t actively choose, gets chosen for us. We have to ask ourselves how much more degradation, demoralization, death, humiliation and rape we will continue to accept in our names, and with our bodies and resources?

This a matter of personal and collective dignity.

Attention needs to be centered not only on (necessarily) highlighting the destruction or on blame, but on the consciousness-raising (educating) that results in the illuminated moment, or series or moments, that triggers a person into their dignity, pride and self-respect. The consciousness-raising that awakens a person to their own power and into the galvanization of personal responsibility for personal and collective liberation. It’s a seismic shift from victim-consciousness into empowered consciousness that extends outward to include collective liberation, and the bottomline-say in what’s happening for possible futures. It enables one to say ‘enough’ to the trashing, to stand up, and to imaginatively forge other ways forward.

In the midst of our apocalyptic hopelessness, apathy, despair and perceived helplessness, we are being thrashed awake into action. To meet the next creative, evolutionary level beyond systemic trashing, we have to meet the moment with our trashed-awake, overhauled selves, and choose to stop being spectators….. paralyzed, docile, in denial, looking the other way and ‘asleep at the wheel’ of our current circumstances and of our personal and collective destinies.

Humanity is the only check on power, and it must get off its knees faster now, beyond beliefs (and institutions) that clearly no longer work, or that can no longer be relied upon.

Whether one’s dignity takes the form of outlining the violations through documentary, film, video or celebrity; joining online or on-the-ground grassroots organizations; whistleblowing, books and journalism; blogging, hacking, social media activism, boycotting, petitioning, alternative media, radio, TV and news channels; occupying, demonstrating, documenting and standing up to governments, corporations and police/military personnel; focused prayer, healing and intent, positive thought and emotion directed at synchronized intervals; involvement with government, non-violent communication organizations, trade groups, NGOs, think-tanks, etc at strategic and legislative levels……..

….there are many ways to be engaged. If it matters enough.

And clearly, the trashing will continue until enough individuals break through into dignity to make personal and biospherical respect important enough to say ‘No’ to what is being done in their names and with their resources.

A Mythic Moment

This is a mythic moment, and the Corporatocracy is (inadvertently) forcing breakthrough and awakening amidst its killing, abuse, infringements, spying, drones, desecration and rape of everything and everyone. The moment now ruthlessly demands what we are made of, what stories we tell ourselves about our imagined powerlessness, victimization and hoped-for salvation by outside agencies. It impels us into what really matters and what we really value, and whether we can forge the personal dignity to draw lines and boundaries. It confronts us into the discomfort of facing and transforming ourselves and of consciousness-raising to overhaul internalized, enshrined victimization, and to steer our ship other than along its current, destructive trajectory.

These tipping-points are beckoning for a humanity caring, connected and mature enough to step into a more responsive role….lest the runaway train destroys us all.

We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.

As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.

Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.

As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.

At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.

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