by Marceline Donaldson
If we live by truth and not by image, lies, pretense, manipulation and more, we will tell the truth about our American Corporate/Business Structure and Function.
We have Donald J. Trump as president because he is who we elected and who we think we need to bring the world back to where it was at its height of ugliness, viciousness, ‘better than people’, separate and unequal and eventually back to slavery including women as sex slaves or sex objects and so much more – the ugly offshoots of those morals and values.
We have a bully for president – surrounded by the kind of people with whom a bully surrounds himself. Take a look at Kelly what’s her name who made such a vicious comment from which many of us are still reeling. Is this how low we have sunk? You bet! That is normal life in these United States today. Those are the values we are showing to our children as what they need to live by. The Kelly Stadlers and Trumps of the world have risen to the top. Pathological lying has been normalized and our ethical base lowered to accommodate those, including the U. S. President, who demand the right to lie to us and force us to accept such as truth.
My entire life has been about business. Whatever else I’ve tried, business has been at its core and my growing-up family life was all business all the time for several generations.
How could that be? This ‘colored girl child’. That isn’t the way the world works. And you would be shocked at the fact that I am not the only one – there are many, many like me. with similar histories. ‘Creole colored girl child’ should be deep into debutante life; clothes; make-up; frilly anything; studying nothing except to be better for some man? Oh, that is angry? And so I am, – furious. And it is about time. I’ve certainly spent enough time trying to be ‘nice’ in this life. What was most amazing to me is that once I became an adult and my anger surfaced for whatever reason and that was with great frequency, I was put down. I was told that it wasn’t ‘nice’ to be angry. It wasn’t ‘nice’ to explode. It wasn’t ‘nice’ to speak the reality of life in this racist, sexist, misogynist world. That would turn people off and then where would I be. Yes, we all know of the bigotry, but we pretended and one was not supposed to call anyone ‘racist’ or ‘sexist’ or acknowledge that you knew what was happening was out of the very deep seated bigotry of the country in which you were born. And before you try to throw me or my family out as recent immigrants who don’t understand the ways of this fantastic United States – in which at least six generations of my family were born – take a look around? I was born into a family which was considered outside the norm. Most had substantial credentials when it wasn’t thought possible that such credentials existed in my ‘community’. Doctorate degrees; ordained priests; journalists; lawyers, entrepreneurs, and on and on and on.
What has come out of all that? A person with no ‘racial’ identity’ and no ‘group’ to identify with and so a person with the ability to see straight through this society’s pretenses and lies. And, since just about every ‘race’ of person went through our house as family and all with some kind of business they were working to establish, I saw that from a small child.
What didn’t I learn? How to lie the way Trump seems to be able to do with no effort. Call it like it is was one of my family’s values and that happened all the time.
Once I became an adult I began to hear other things – especially when I moved north. Friends would constantly say to me – “yes, we know that is racist but you can’t say so out loud outside of a small group of friends because that will just make it harder for the rest of us. No, you can’t call that sexist because that is just what women are like and so men have learned to respond and on and on and on. Stay away from them they are ‘foreigners’ they don’t even speak English, they will turn on you and hurt you one day.’ And we dare to say we really were caught by surprise when Trump surfaced. We had no idea the racism, sexism, etc. etc. were so entrenched and deep into American society. We had no idea because we didn’t want to know – we wanted the comfort of the ‘better than’ feelings without the responsibility of what our taking that meant to someone else’s life and the times in which we live.
Recently, in Somerville, Massachusetts, I saw the slaughter of one group by another and it was economically, financially, and every other way disreputable – a huge cheat, rewarded by society because it looked financially viable and made money for others. That is the story of Somerville Lumber and Home Depot.
We walk into Home Depot and up and down the aisles without a thought as to the human cost, the degradation, the lies and manipulations, the unethical and immoral history that made it possible for us to walk up and down those aisles. What we don’t think about when we shop in the Home Depot’s of the world is the limit Home Depot has put onto the kind and quality of materials we now purchase and accept as what we need. We are spending more and getting less. Quality is certainly missing in that store and all of its siblings. What we buy lasts a brief second compared to what other merchandise in the past was like. Cheaper, cheapest, falling apart before it leaves the store is what we have become accustomed to as normal and what we support financially and otherwise.
What happened in Somerville, MA happened around the country at the same time? People who owned businesses and those they employed now out of work, some out of money and worse. A small handful benefitted to the tune of billions of dollars helping to create and increase the class of American Oligarch’s. And yes, in the style of the Russian Oligarch’s.
I used to purchase hardware and other items at Somerville Lumber and sometimes at other smaller hardware stores – which were thriving and which had (compared to todays choice) some amazingly strong, sturdy and long lasting products. It was human sized and when one went into the store it was peopled by humans both in front of the counters and walking the aisles.
Along comes Home Depot – just a couple blocks away. Stolen from Somerville Lumber and other stores like it across the country was its life and future. The pattern – the business pattern and structure they developed stolen and copied with the assumption that this is what you do in this society. This is how you set up a successful business. Look around and copy what someone else developed by the sweat of their brow. Let someone else do the hard work of trying this pattern to see if it works and when they have successfully created something new – in swoops the American Oligarch’s to copy, steal and destroy.
Very quickly after Home Depot opened in that Somerville, MA. location, Somerville Lumber was drained of its customers, its life’s blood and it closed. Very quickly after Home Depot stores opened in several locations not far from that one – other similar smaller stores started to close and people who had put their lives into operating, owning, growing their stores were bereft of everything they had spent their lives growing and developing. There was no working with – no approach to those who were the creators of the idea – no conversation about anything – no compensation for what they contributed – just the stealth, the cheat, the ugly of using what others built to benefit those doing the stealing and destroying of those who did the building.
Where did the idea for Home Depot come from? The idea and business of Home Depot stolen from stores like Somerville Lumber. But in todays world that is not called stealing, that is normal and happens constantly over many areas geographical and otherwise. One group of very wealthy people saw an opportunity to make billions and took it at the expense of the rest of society and so our growth into an obscene country – spreading moral filth around the world. The fast growing class of American Oligarch’s.
Look around you. Get an idea for a business? If it begins to be successful and you are not a part of that billionaire crowd your idea will be stolen; financed by others who will enjoy the benefit of your hardwork and life’s blood and you will be left with very little as the reward for being the pattern and having developed the worth of the idea for someone else’s success – stolen success, immoral success.
Try to fight back and you will find those in that billionaire crowd have friends who will make sure you can’t fight back by doing what they can to contribute to your demise so their money will be able to return much more without any competition from you and your kind. Be a minority of any kind and you will find that push back against you vicious. What else will you find as a minority? You will find young white – mostly Northern European ancestry men – running around the country today in minority communities looking for ideas they can steal, have funded and if you were on your way to any kind of a great business you will find it stolen, across the street and draining your business while all the time ignoring the creators of the original ideas. Copying – stealing – replicating – using the vision of others – to produce something that is bereft at its core of any kind of morals we respect and were taught to live by.
That structure and those values have produced Donald Trump and all of those who surround him.
The same morality and value system explains why are we having such a hard time with Congress? They are foaming at the mouth to benefit financially from Trump and his connections and are ready to do anything to be a part of that to reap what they see as the goodies they see falling all around in this Trumpian world. Try putting that pattern up against the Nunes’ of the world and see how closely it fits.
Our world is being divided into the haves and the have nots with a gap between them creating almost an eternity of space. Never has there been as many homeless as we now see on our streets. Never have so many been so hungry for so long while others discard, waste and live as though the rest of the world is there to serve their needs. Never has there been such a judgment on those who have not by those who have – the immoral, unethical, gross people of the world passing judgment on those trying to survive in a world which is becoming more and more bereft of empathy, love, caring for one another. Instead we are becoming a nation of rapists.
As I look around the people I see concerned about those in need are disappearing or finding themselves in trouble and on the verge of moving into that group of homelessness; poor; indigent.
Take a look at businesses – the top business executives in this country. Take a look at their ethics. Take a look at what they are willing to do to stay on top – and way on top – not just doing well and making sure everyone else is doing well around them, but taking away from others as much as possible making sure they are among the super rich even if that means increasing those not doing well and pushing them into extreme poverty and oblivion until they are needed to serve the needs of this super rich group.
One of the largest companies in the world today is Amazon. Getting wealthier by the minute. What is their concern for those underwater? None! They are so busy grasping for more and more wealth and world control they don’t even see what they are doing. If you are management at Amazon you are doing well. If you work in the warehouses and are a part of the near-slave-employee-group you are working extremely hard for extremely little and limiting your life span to be able to eat today. Tomorrow isn’t promised to you at Amazon if you are a part of the lower salaried class of people. Benefits? Forget that! Advancement – hardly! etc. etc. etc. How many businesses and people who have worked in those businesses for a lifetime are being destroyed by Amazon. How many of us are doing our little bit to insure that continues to happen because we think we see our benefit in patronizing such horrific inhumane values and such a business structure with its future projections which are totally destructive of humanity?
WAKE UP! BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!
Many of you guilty of supporting such a structure are into things like climate change, etc. You are working for those things in this society which don’t take you out of your way to that brass ring you think you are going to get when the time is right. Supporting those progressive objective won’t help you and won’t change anything. The structures you are supporting will take you down in a heart beat and see that your children don’t have a chance. Is that what you are working for? Did you not notice when the gold ring was replaced with brass and that brass ring is now about to be replaced with a gold painted plastic replica?
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Tags: American Oligarchs, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, breakfast table talk, Donald Trump, Home Depot, Racism, Sexism, Somerville Lumber
