Good News? Some, but Enough?

Think Corporations Care? THINK AGAIN

I was talking to a few friends on the 4^th about many things, and the idea of good news vs bad news came up. As anyone who has read my writings over the last few years will know, I don’t find much good news to comment on. Sure there are always the feel good stories about saved animals and kids, brave cops and firefighters and super citizens who put themselves in danger for others. In my experience it is human nature to aid others, animals, trees or other humans, in times of distress. I agree it is good news and good works.

My take on the world, however, is informed by my equally deeply felt experiences that humans can be greedy and self-serving when operating on a more macro level: corporations seeking profit; chambers of commerce courting businesses; wealthy people trying to get even richer; governments seeking more power and resources. The list goes on and on. The net result of the nasty side of human activity is poverty, environmental degradation, disease and war. I see this as a natural condition of human kind since throughout human history, as we can know it, these or similar activities have always been around. Sure, again, some good is usually to be found, but not enough to outweigh the bad.

America? The same. Founded in war, forged by war and strengthened by commerce. The results are clear: declining arable land, declining and polluted water supplies, poverty, timber resources exploited in favor of fast growing mono culture, environmental and biological disasters. Having seen the outcome of centuries of exploitation, one might think that saner heads would prevail and through elected officials bring some sanity to the country. But the election process itself has been corrupted by huge amounts of money, and the judicial system has been corrupted by the corrupted elected officials, or if not corrupted then at the very least polarized to the point of de facto corruption. Example? Easy. The Supreme Court decision to make corporations “people” for the purpose of political donations. Thus injecting unlimited amounts of “polarized” money into elections.

During this same evening, a friend pointed out, rightly, that the demographics of the country are changing, and in a few decades the governing of the country will probably be done by more liberal politicians who might reverse the awful trends of corporate and municipal greed. I agree. I also think that if this occurs (bear in mind that the conservative actors are rushing to re-calibrate their message to attract new and more liberal voters, cynically I believe) the damage already done will be akin to having an inept surgeon remove the wrong leg from a patient and then being fired for incompetence: the patient still is without a leg. In the case of the country, the ground water will still be hopelessly contaminated; lakes, rivers and streams will still be hopelessly polluted; fish stocks will still be hopelessly depleted; women will be decades behind in equality; poor and disadvantaged people will be hopelessly under educated; and the rich will be unbelievably richer.

From my perspective: too little too late. Because along with America, will go the world.

There is good news out there, mostly deeds done by individuals and probably some by corporations and governments. But gosh and golly, the bad surly seems to outweigh the good.

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