Tag Archives: corporate personhood

‘The Election’

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Here at Brad OH Inc., we spend a lot of time discussing current political events, and what sort of future they might suggest. We’ve also explored many different writers and styles over the years. Today, we have a treat for you that combines the two!

Inspired by the unique ‘Gonzo’ writings of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, ‘The Election’ is the story of a cynical journalist covering the heinous events of the fourth annual ‘United Corporate Election’. In this dystopian future inspired by contemporary politics, Corporations control all aspects of government, and elections have been reduced to satirical pantomimes in which citizens use their ‘Citizen Spending Credits’ to vote on their favourite features for the elected effigy.

Journalist Duke O’Brady ventures into this ridiculous spectacle to experience the madness firsthand, but may be in for more than even he anticipated…

This short story is one of our favourites–after all, what sort of self-loathing Corporation wouldn’t dream of such an idyllic future?

We certainly hope you enjoy it as much as all of us here at Brad OH Inc. enjoyed writing it.

theelectioncoverCover Art by- Troy Barker

‘The Election’- Smashwords

-Brad OH Inc.

Dry Rot and a Consideration of Our Terrestrial Prospects

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purelyspeculation“Your house has dry rot.”

There is no phrase more dreadful to a home-owner. It’s a terrible verdict—an indictment which carries a sentence of severe financial and emotional penalties.

‘Dry Rot’, also known as ‘Brown Rot Decay’ (Link), is a fungal infection of wood which eats away at the parts which give the wood its strength and stability. It starts as a simple spore. But exposed to sufficient moisture, the spores grow and spread, infesting the wood and eventually flowering to produce new spores. The infection only grows from there—compromising the integrity of the wood and causing significant problems for the longevity of even the best built houses.

The funny things about Dry Rot, and that which it shares with so many other potentially catastrophic conditions, is that for the most part it’s pretty easy to ignore. When it’s merely a collection of spores, it can appear as a collection of fine orange dust. Sweep it away, and go about your day.

As the spores grow, they will take on the appearance of fine white strands, stretching over the surface as they continue to spread the infection. But this too can be passed off—rationalized as spider webs, dust, or a litany of other excuses which don’t require significant financial investment to address.

It’s no different from a chest pain passed off as gas, or an engine rattle excused as debris.

…Or overwhelming scientific evidence of ‘Global Climate Change’ passed off as liberal hysteria.

The thing is, it’s an easy urge to understand; among the easiest. When faced with something too big to comprehend or too threatening to deal with, our first and most natural inclination is denial. After all, why stress over some distant potentiality when it can as easily be brushed off with a flippant ‘it’ll be ok’.

With Dry Rot, this can be a fatal mistake.

Often considered a cancer to buildings, if left untreated, Dry Rot spreads rapidly through timber, eating it away until it is deteriorated to the point of crumbling between the fingers. For a building, this clearly can cause significant problems. With sufficient warning and proper treatment, the infection can be isolated and cured. But if the Dry Rot makes its way to structurally integral wood, the entire building may be lost.

The prognosis then is simple—act fast to fix the problem, or risk having nowhere to live.

For any informed decision-making adult, the choice is abundantly clear. It seems almost self-evident that when faced with a choice between an untimely demise (or in this case, homelessness), or an admittedly costly investment, there should be little choice remaining—take the hit, but save the whole.

But even in the case of illness, humans have a way of rationalizing away what’s important in defense of what’s comfortable. We ignore the complaints of an ailing body, but lament when we learn our neglect has caused greater harm.

We see the same thing with our world. As technology has grown and society has evolved, so too have the conditions to which we’ve exposed this planet of ours. Just like a home-owner ignoring the damp, dark places of his house, we’ve gone on our merry way, oblivious to the potential effects as our lifestyles have caused sky-rocketing atmospheric carbon-dioxide levels.

Now, the evidence is irrefutable (Source). The climate is changing. The ice caps are melting (Source). Even if most of us have not yet detected the rust-like dust of its impending arrival, the inevitable decree of an environment neglected for too long is slowly making itself known. The rot has set in!

Yet still, denial is omnipresent. Even when we’re rational enough to admit something is wrong, we eschew any responsibility, choosing instead to bury our heads in the sand. In a disturbing instance of this ‘Wait and See’ mentality, the US Senate recently acknowledged that the climate is changing, but fell short of acknowledging that humans are responsible. (Source). In doing so, they served also to rule out the logical conclusion that humans must start working on a solution.

But this is still among the better reactions. Far more depressing, there are countless sources (most of them supported by big oil, or other environmentally destructive enterprise—Source) clamouring to attribute the rumbling of disaster to mere myth. With a glib grin they point to a snowy field, overwhelming proof in their simple minds of the misguided nature of such ‘sci-fi’ notions.

But this is tantamount to the homeowner wrapping a fist against his kitchen counter to prove that Dry Rot has not infested his foundation. It’s an ignorant knee-jerk reaction at best. At worst, it is an intentional misdirection motivated strictly by greed. In the case of climate change, I’m inclined to suspect the latter.

In truth, we’ve waited far too long already. The rot has set in, and the question is no longer whether this might be a threat, but rather how bad it is, and more importantly, what our prospects are from here.

Ultimately, we don’t know. A good guess would be: ‘bad’, but guesses aren’t worth much in a scenario like this. Action is what counts. The first action—as with any well-implemented endeavour—is to understand fully the extent and prognosis of the problem itself. To this end we must turn to science. Instead of trying to shirk responsibility for this impending travesty—although there is certainly much blame to be placed—we should be investing research dollars into finding real solutions.

It’s time to take a good look at this home of ours, and start a discussion about how to salvage it. This will require immediate and likely extreme changes—not limited to the consideration of seeking resources elsewhere in the universe. It is an expensive notion, no doubt, but the alternative is to let the foundation crumble to the rot; which would mean finding ourselves homeless in a universe that is exceptionally inhospitable to such arrangements.

-Brad OH Inc.

The ‘Jenga’ Analogy

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purelyspeculationEarlier this week, I found myself playing a friendly game of Jenga. Well, not entirely friendly perhaps—it was naturally filled with all the taunting and tension so common to the game.

With each log I drew from the base with tremulous fingers, I breathed a sigh of relief as I watched the tower teeter and totter back and forth. But when it finally found its balance once more, the work was only halfway done.

After a brief period of respite marred only by a victorious sneer at my young opponent, it was time for me to finish my task. With the newly liberated block held delicately between my fingers, I raised it up and let it hover a moment above the top of the now lopsided and treacherous monstrosity we’d created.

Finally, I took a deep breath in and held it. The careful extraction was not my victory, for now I had to place the block on top—hoping against hope that the imbalance I had done to the tower’s base would not prove fatal.

Sadly, my hopes were dashed, and the tower came crumbling down. Wooden blocks scattered across the tabletop, and a squeal of unrestrained joy was loosed from the grandstanding lips of my tactless opponent.

‘If only I hadn’t had to put it on top’, I lamented. But that’s just the point here. It’s easy to cause imbalance. It’s far more difficult to deal with the consequences. When I’d slid the block out, I had created tension—specifically between the increasingly poor engineering of the tower, and the immutable force of gravity.

If it hadn’t been expressly forbidden by the sacrosanct rules of Jenga, I could have tossed the block lackadaisically over my shoulder and passed the buck onto the unaware child before me—forcing them to deal with the repercussions of my block choice.

“Again!” he cried, encouraged by his victory and likely reeling with a distinct sense of invulnerability.

But my mind was elsewhere, and time was not on my side. As I gathered up the blocks and began to replace them in the box, I turned to the clock on the wall to gauge my schedule. 11:00am—just enough time to get one last visit in before lunch.

Oh lunch: the vaunted reprieve from workday responsibilities. With a half-hour of stress-free liberty, my only significant choice would be where to eat. And if that’s the only conflict to resolve, things are pretty good in my books.

But as the last of the Jenga blocks was returned to its rightful place, my hunger-laden mind recalled suddenly the ongoing string of strikes and demonstrations against fast food operations around the world (Link).

Workers had taken to the streets, demanding delivery from the poverty level wages they had been faced with for far too long. The demonstrations were primarily peaceful shows of unity and hope—asking only a fair wage for a fair days work. But as is the leitmotif of any political discourse these days, the demand was mired in controversy and misgivings.

Among the myriad complaints aimed at the workers was the age-old notion of fiscal strain. The argument goes that if restaurants (and it should be noted here that the vast majority of those affected are multinational Corporations) were ‘forced’ to increase their minimum wage, the resultant loss of capital would have to come from somewhere else.

It’s a logical notion to be sure—money is finite after all, and if moved to one place, it must have come from another. The natural remedies, in the Corporate mind at least, are to lay off workers, increase prices, or decrease quality.

Of course, these options lead to long line-ups, inflated meal prices, and dangerously cheap ingredients. As images of soggy lettuce, smeared condiments, and dry, grey ‘all-beef patties’ danced before my eyes, my lunch options seemed somehow less appealing.

There is a problem with this key assumption however, and as so many problems are these days, it is tied to the fundamental structure of the Corporation. Guided by the anti-social leaning philosophies laid out in the ‘Friedman Doctrine’ (Link), a Corporation is structured with only one true responsibility—the shareholder. This means that with every decision a Corporation makes, it is obligated to ensure that the bottom line of share value is being increased.

In essence: no matter what the problem or potential solutions, the goal should be greater profit for the Corporation. Of course, this has historically led to a litany of grave injustices (Link), but just at this moment, it was my impending meal I was most concerned about.

And herein lies the problem. While it’s difficult to argue that workers aren’t entitled to a living wage—particularly in a world where an ever growing number of jobs are being pushed into the minimum wage bracket by increased automation and other factors—I still want a good meal.

But these desires are incompatible in the Corporate mind. You can’t have fair pay, good food, AND reasonable prices…at least not if stock prices are to continue rising.

And so it goes: as each year passes, Corporations continue to take money away from the bottom, while ensuring it also stays at the top. Increase the wages—lay off employees. Respect environmental regulations—decrease the quality of the product. Comply with fair tax regulations—jack up the prices.

You take a block from the bottom, and you put it on top.

The easy answer of course, is that Corporations should, and must, accept that as society changes and technology grows, sometimes they may see a decrease in overall profits. But this should be felt at the top—the shareholders and the CEO’s who are in dire need of learning that just as they claim that ‘a person doing a minimum-skill job deserves only a minimum salary’, so too must the directors of a decreasingly relevant franchise ultimately see a stall in their (still exorbitant) profit margins.

Of course, this isn’t what happens. While many of these fast-food franchises likely started out as very solid businesses offering a decent meal at a competitive price, they have long since grown unwieldy. As the towers of their Corporate offices rose higher into the skyline, their bases grew increasingly unsteady. And we’ve all seen the end result many times before. Eventually, the whole operation comes crumbling down. After all, no one wants to pay $14 for a shitty burger just so the CEO can afford to take a private jet to his island resort.

And this, better than anything else, illustrates the fundamental failing which has occurred in our conception of capitalism. Namely, the transfer of implicit company responsibility away from its customers—who rely on a strong and reliable base—to its shareholders—who care only for how high it can reach before they sell their shares and watch it all crumble from the vantage point of the next opportunity they make ready to despoil.

It’s a depressing thought to say the least. And so, as I slid the Jenga box into my bag and made off to my next visit, I made a decision. Today, maybe I could pass on lunch. I was hungry no doubt, but as I thought about the implications behind which barely-edible meal I’d buy, I found that my appetite was gone.

Fuck it, I’d just go hungry. After all, if the Corporations had it their way, that would be the fate of the lot of us.

-Brad OH Inc.

‘Of Pipers and Pigs’ Published on GonzoToday

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cropped-blogbanner1.jpgWell, we have some exciting new today for all our fans here at Brad OH Inc. One of our ‘Single Serving Stories’, ‘Pipers and Pigs’, is now up for viewing on the incredible new site, Gonzotoday!

A direct link to this publication can be found here: ‘Of Pipers and Pigs’ on GonzoToday.

Gonzotoday is a new group dedicated to the creation and celebration of new age Gonzo Journalism; carrying on the admirable tradition of the late great Dr. Hunter S. Thompson in bringing the world stories of heavy import and sincere meaning wrapped in the rage and vitriol inherent to writers with open eyes.

The site has a lot of fantastic work on offer, so be sure to visit at Gonzotoday.com.

One thing you’re sure to notice upon your visit to this publication of ‘Of Pipers and Pigs’ is the incredible new artwork, conceived and created by the divine talents of the staff over at GonzoToday.

This is a serious change from our standard fare. If you’ve taken the time to peruse our selection of ‘Single Serving Stories’ in the past, you’ve probably noticed that the cover art for each sits somewhere between childish-cute and insultingly unbearable. Well, it’s true—the pencil-necked nitwit we have working in the art department at the moment is something of a pariah around the office, and achieved his position only by merit of dubious references and claims of knowing Brad OH.

Needless to say, his contract negotiation skills far outshine his prowess in the art department, but with a little time, we’re certain that the Corporate Efficiency Streamlining process will forecast the end of this sad little dweeb in no time.

Ahem…

Anyways, that’s enough ranting for now. Today is a day to celebrate after all, and what better way of doing that than swinging by Gonzotoday and reading ‘Of Pipers and Pigs’, or any of the other fine pieces available there?

-Brad OH Inc.

The Uncomfortable Issue of Population Control

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purelyspeculationLast week on Brad OH Inc., we discussed the old and misconstrued ‘Fear of Big Government’. In that article, we explored the common revulsion toward the notion of government intervention in the lives of its citizens, and the ubiquitous but erroneous assumption founded by the repugnant Ronald Reagan that we need to get government ‘off our backs’.

The core thesis we developed in that article was that while the actions of many governments have been less than desirable in both past and present, the true purpose of government is the protection and promotion of its citizens—a function which should not be feared but rather revered. To these ends, there are certain central domains in which government control must undoubtedly be focussed, primarily: healthcare, education, infrastructure, stable wages/ living conditions, scientific research, promotion of environmental concerns, and access to food and water.

This is admittedly a very basic list, but it does provide a functional framework for government interventions. All efforts in these areas must—in any democratic government meant to represent the people—be aimed not at increasing profits for corporations and special interest groups which line the pockets of government officials, but rather at solving problems and promoting the general welfare of the electorate.

A quick peruse of these topics will, however, reveal one common and absolutely key concept for any government hoping to moderate over a well-functioning society; the uncomfortable and cringe inducing issue of population control. While money must never be the dominant issue guiding government practice, it certainly is an important concern when discussing support of citizens balanced against fair taxation, and as such the population size of a country is a crucial consideration.

Perhaps ‘population control’ isn’t the right term. Depending on where we are going with these notions, a better term might really be ‘population management’. If a government is to promote equity and access amongst its citizens, then central to its task will be the ability to understand the size and growth rates of its populace, and design an intelligent and functioning society to accommodate this.

At present, the ongoing fear of big government is serving its role well, rallying citizens to follow the lead of the unscrupulous political right in decrying government involvement in anything that might possibly help the general welfare and direction of the nation, while allowing it only in promotion of economic gain for involved parties. The results are clear as day; it’s a strange and subversive sign of the times, that it’s our poor who grow fat as our rich stay healthy.

Corporate needs dominate the political spectrum, poisoning our citizens and environment alike as record profits are posted and the ‘free-market’ is heralded as a success.

Naïve fools the lot.

So if turning the reigns over to profit-driven corporations and entrusting them to care for the people of the nation isn’t the right approach—and it most certainly is not—then what is?

The key issue here is not whether we must change the current system, but what system will fill its stead. An issue like population management is a heavy one to discuss beyond doubt, but it must be addressed directly and with honesty intention if we are to avoid it’s becoming a taboo issue discussed only behind closed doors by parties of questionable motives.

It is a driving issue, and must be discussed by the whole of the population to be managed. For even if we deny the issue, it will be a key factor in how we manage our economy, food stores, treat the poor, provide education and healthcare, etc.

Clearly, the more people exist, the more demand for resources, and in an unideal world, hence more scarcity. Even if we learn to plan our resources around population, and ever increasing population would lead to heavy sacrifices rather quickly. Ultimately, when it comes to the effective management of a population, there are, as I see it, essentially three basic approaches.

The first approach would be to simply accept that some people are less entitled to the productivity of mankind than others. This is most similar to our current approach. In this scenario, resource access would be determined by factors such as social standing, property/ business ownership, socio-economic status, and more broadly, location of birth.

Taking a stand such as this one, resources would be divvied up by priority, with some people gleaning great wealth and prosperity from our system, while an ever-increasing number receives very little.

A second approach—and the one which makes this such a delicate issue—is the more conventional definition of ‘population control’. A policy like this would demand a clear account of extant resources, and a broad understanding of what sort of lifestyle citizens are entitled to. From there, it would be a simple matter of division to determine the ideal size of the population, and steps—ranging from sterilization, birth limits, eugenics, or population culling—would be taken to make the numbers match.

This scenario has been enacted several times in the past, and represents some of the darkest and most horrifying eras in human history.

Neither of these approaches to population management result in the sort of society that I—and I should hope any of my readers—would hope for. So then we are left with the question, if not these failed methods, then what?

Given the incredible state society has managed to reach in spite of our past missteps, and the unspeakable potential promised by a commercially freed and unleashed scientific community, I believe we are entirely capable of creating a third, more ideal solution. I have little doubt that the combined power of modern computing, science, and human vision is able to design a system to monitor and anticipate both changes in population size and need, as well as existing resources. Such information would allow for a more dynamic and responsive means of addressing scarcity.

Further, in order for such a system to be created and maintained, increased government funding would be necessitated towards science, education, and healthcare—the lot of which would perforce be universal human rights if we are to expect any positive shift in the direction of our society.

A streamlined scientific community, coupled with an economy dedicated to the positive growth of culture and equity, would be fully empowered to find creative solutions to production, provision, and other means of positive population management through a system motivated not by profit, but by simply improving the general human condition.

Furthermore, one key long-term goal would be that of interplanetary exploration. This would provide for both an alternate source of resources, and ultimately alternate planets to inhabit and build upon. But this might be better discussed in a… future article.

The roots of these convictions have already taken hold. Examples range from innovative solutions to solving urban food scarcity (Link), to active attempts at subverting the mounting energy crisis (Link), to community based food-sharing programs (Link). It is by examples such as these that we will work actively towards solutions, rather than merely using obfuscated politics to justify corporate-manufactured deficits.

The end-goal here is to plan for the world we want to live in, rather than cope with the one we’ve created through greed and ignorance. But first, we need to change our priorities. A culture which focusses solely on profit, and defines freedom strictly in market terms, is forever doomed to the scarcity and inequality inherent to such ideals. It is science, not business, which must be unleashed; that, and the passion of earth’s good people—determined to build a better world. On this front at least, I remain convinced that scarcity is not an issue.

-Brad OH Inc.

On the Fear of Big Government

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purelyspeculationLast week on Brad OH Inc., we explored the issue of government infringements into personal data. This is a serious concern to a great many people—and the striping away of civil liberties such as privacy is a trend which continues to show the detached relationship government has with its citizenry. With such gross violations becoming a regular trend, it’s no wonder we still toil under the outdated notion that ‘big government’ needs to be held in check.

But make no mistake about it people, this is no reason to hate big government; just bad government. In the 1980 presidential race against Jimmy Carter, it was the infernal idiot Ronald Reagan who promised to “get government off our backs” (Source). After taking office, Reagan followed through dutifully on his promise—shattering the government’s role in protecting families, citizens, and the environment. Business, of course, flourished.

This push by Reagan to reduce the size of government was founded on claims of a fictional ‘welfare queen’ getting rich off the tax dollars of the electorate, and the general claim—as off-putting now as it was then for a man seeking public office—that “Government is not a solution to our problem. Government is the problem” (Source).

This toxic line of thinking heralded in an era of anti-government dialogue which effectively allowed rights to shrink away as powers were handed off to the corporations. Social programs were cut, and people suffered. The fictional ‘welfare queens’ theorized by Reagan have been fully realized in the decades since, as corporations are given increasingly large portions of the communal pie: receiving corporate tax breaks, bailouts in place of bankruptcy, and taking eagerly the keys of governance from the discredited and disenfranchised democratic system.

Ever since then, people have been treating government like it’s a dirty word—perhaps because it so often acts like several of them. But fear of government is irrationally motivated, and exercised for all the wrong reasons. It serves only to allow government abuse of citizens. People must remember that proper governance is there to protect them, from exactly the sort of threats which corporate governance has become. We should not fear government; we should utilize and control it to our own empowerment.

Of course, the government has to remember this as well.

The very notion of democratic government is anchored firmly in the concept of representation for the people—and this includes all people, not merely the drivers of the economy. In this era of ever growing population and incredible scientific potential, the ‘free’ market has proven itself a failed notion. But let’s hope that from this mistake we’ve learned at least not to store the meat with the dogs for safe keeping.

It’s the government’s job to put these lessons into action: protecting and promoting the healthy growth of society. This is the primary and most fundamental function of any government which has a legitimate claim to authority, but the vilification of big government started with Reagan has led to a very different objective for government institutions.

By reducing government programs, the general citizenry has been left out of the conversation, while political control has been corralled into the realm of economic growth. The corporations which now run the economic and social systems are malignant automatons. For all the time humans have piddled away fearing robots or advanced and indignant AI’s, they miss that they have not only created such in the corporate human, but also given it the keys to the driver’s seat of our society.

If such a threat came from metal clad robots or from outer space, the entire world would be clamoring for government intervention. Instead, it is claimed to be ‘capitalist’ and a product of the ‘free’ market, and the electorate has bowed their heads in well-rehearsed reverence for their reckless and self-serving overlords.

The point cannot be stressed enough: it is the function of government–elected by and representative of the people—to reign in these brutes, to protect natural resources that rightly belong to all, and to ensure that whether or not commercial entities deign to send our jobs overseas (leaving all save the CEO’s destitute), the people of this and all other countries are provided for from the resulting bounty.

These are the needs of a society, and the job of the government. To fear such is the sole result of misinformed and malicious propaganda. What we have now is not a democratic government, and this needs to change. If we are to find our way out of these difficult times, it must be faith in government—true government—which is the light on our path. This is our salvation—for to fear all government is to leave ourselves alone in the dark, looking to the wolves for solace.

-Brad OH Inc.

Embrace the Security State

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cropped-blogbanner1.jpgHere at Brad OH Inc., we are acutely aware of the ongoing concerns over government infringements on personal security (Link). At an ever increasing rate, governments are worming their ways into our homes, businesses, and private lives—all in the almighty name of security.

While these government intrusions into public life are most often done under the broad banner of national security, this isn’t the case for all instances of data theft. Next time you’re browsing through your favourite social media sources, take some time to observe the side-bar of advertisements tailor-made for you based on websites you’ve recently visited or items you’ve considered buying. This is all possible through the ability of the current website to read your browsing history and sell it to advertisers.

And why not? No one reading this right now has the ability to protect themselves from international killers any more than they have the clairvoyance to choose what to buy for themselves. No matter whether we’re discussing terrorism, cyber-security, or consumer habits, it’s foolhardy to deny that without corporations, we are as helpless and exposed as fish in a barrel—or the ocean at the very least.

It’s inevitable that we rely on corporations for these fundamental needs, just as we rely on them for everything else: the building of infrastructure, the shaping of our society, and the social stratification of our population. So let’s take a moment to calm down, cause I’ve seen a lot of griping going on about the notion of the government and corporations perusing through our personal data in order to serve us better.

At Brad OH Inc., we suggest you give up this tired charade. Safety, privacy, and advertisements are better left to those who know how to run things. Worrying is for the birds, and in our humble opinions, the only action left to your sorry lot is to relax and accept the inevitable. After all, be it civil liberty or private data, the only real way to protect what you own is to own nothing at all!

Maybe this notion seems hostile to you? Maybe you’re the sort that easily set off by trifling abdications of liberty? I’m sorry to tell you, but you’re entirely wrong her. Consider this: if you don’t like what you’re reading right now, maybe it’s your own fault. After all, if we here at Brad OH Inc. had the level of access to your personal lives and information that the government and other corporations do, we could happily go out of our way to ignore reality and write up just about anything you wanted to hear.

…Just like they do.

-Brad OH Inc.

The Global Scale

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purelyspeculationYou may have noticed that here at Brad OH Inc., we tend to cover a lot of issues centering on the politics of the good old U.S. of A. Now, this shouldn’t be overly surprising, as we’re really only following the lead of the news world at large, but an interesting fact is that we are in fact based out of Canada. Now, undoubtedly we’ll eventually relocate to a more convenient tax haven—the Canary Islands perhaps (Source)—but until then we are firmly entrenched here in the great white north.

Given this consideration then, why do we tend to cover so many American issues? Well, the quickest answer is that American issues are world issues, plain and simple. The issue of Corporate Imperialism is a global one, and while many of the relevant stories are centered in America, it is in no way defined by national boundaries. In fact, many of the crucial concerns we have right now with global politics revolve around the obfuscating and intentional subversion of national boundaries.

American Imperialism is nothing new. Under the governing principle of ‘Manifest Destiny’, America has spent its entire existence working to expand its global influence (Source). Now this article is not about American Imperialism per say, but focusses instead on the ways in which the subversive corporate process tends to seize control of not only single governments, but entire global systems.

In ‘Democracy Incorporated’, Sheldon S. Wolin (Link) describes this process as one of ‘Inverted Totalitarianism’. As greater and greater leeway is made for corporations to expand, it becomes easier and easier for such exceptions to be made. The civil ruling in the case of Citizens United (Source) saw corporations legally defined as persons, and their use of money in politics was defined as protected under the freedom of speech amendment.

This allows for corporations to spend unlimited sums of money to fund lobbyists and special interest groups which can affect the political process—thereby ensuring the passing of further laws designed to benefit the corporations while damning the rest of us.

With the power allotted to them, corporations, both American based and otherwise—an especially tricky notion to even define given the ongoing ability for corporations to take advantage of ‘Corporate Inversion’ loopholes, changing the legal base of their operation in order to avoid paying taxes (Source)–can exploit overseas markets to take advantage of indecent foreign labour laws and low wages. This takes jobs out of local economies, while reinforcing a split world notion of what’s good for us is too good for them.

This issue is conflated by political embargoes on trade, such as that placed upon Cuba. Further, because of the global impact of corporate power, laws passed in American court rooms inevitably affect the rest of the world as well. Consider climate change for instance. Here, American courts can pass laws governing the environmental impact of the corporations operating within them, even though these laws ultimately affect the world as a whole. Another easy and timely example of this is the issue of net neutrality (Source).

Meanwhile, the power afforded to lobbyists and the open door between corporate firms and government positions, allows corporate pressures in Washington to go so far as to effect war time policy; destabilizing foreign governments in order to ‘crack open’ new markets.

Clearly then, while the basis of much of what we read in the news is centered in the U.S.A., the system is ubiquitous, and defies any conception of national boundaries.

Neither is this an issue to be solved by American politics. In the same way that the effects of this system have spread to the entirety of the globe like a contagion unchecked, so too is the solution beyond the voting power of the American electorate.

This is not an issue of one misguided leader or party, and therefore the solution will not come from the other misguided leader or party. It is not a calculated, intentional process made by a cartel of greedy and deeply informed plutocrats—although there has undoubtedly been plenty such deals made along the way.

The process leading us here was an understandable though unjustifiable series of small exceptions. It can be thought of as tantamount to favours between friends; ‘well I usually wouldn’t do this, but…’ is the mentality driving it. Politicians accept huge sums of money from their corporate lobbyists, and then pass bills to support them. Few of them, with the exception of the above mentioned Citizens United, have been terrible to the ‘man who sold the world’ extent, but their cumulative effect certainly is. The unnatural coupling of unchecked capitalist ambition with backdoor political deregulations has spawned a new and terrible sort of brute.

Corporate Imperialism is an infectious and wild beast, reared on its own legal momentum, and driven by the cumulative greed of all the snakes writhing at its rotten breast. The ceaseless need for expansion will continue to push the boundaries of what is legally excusable, all the while reinforcing the western world in their role as exploiters, and relegating all the rest to the forgotten underclass of the forgettable exploited.

This is not a political viewpoint or ideology, but an unintentional by-product of ongoing mistakes. It is self-perpetuating, growing cancer-like with utter disregard for consequences. It is the fetishization of money, and money acting with its own power to expand its reach. Greed is the engine behind this, and a system which allows greed to change its workings in favour of its own expansion that has allowed the situation to get to where it’s at.

This is why when I write about America, I’m not writing about the country as a singular problem, but rather the resulting corporate contagion that’s dominating global politics.

In conclusion, let it be known that the mission of Brad OH Inc. is in no way meant to be interpreted as Anti-American. No, we are anti-world at this point, and underlying all is the fundamental belief that greed and self-service shall not be the driving factors in globalization. Equality, decency, and the betterment of humanity are the platforms we are interested in, and if that rings as starry-eyed idealism to you, you might do well to put some serious consideration into the alternatives (Link).

The change that’s needed is not a new political party in America or elsewhere, it’s a global revolution.

-Brad OH Inc.

Bourbons by the Fire

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Under the Green Desklamp…

Green Desklamp

There’s a bottle of bourbon in arm’s reach of my chair, and through the window in front of me I can see the last vestiges of the day’s light hanging on the horizon. It illuminates the glass like hot iron. It seems the sunsets last longer these days. Or it could perhaps be that, with each one that passes, that singular moment when the last ray of sun clings to the western sky lingers longer in the mind, with its promise that light will come again.

On nights like this, the dangers of thought far outweigh those of the bottle, and the intoxicating effect of knowledge brings a sickness far worse than any hangover imaginable. And so I have a drink.

It’s a strange time, a time when any decent person with an eye for details might come to suspect they are one of the few remaining sane souls left in a terribly dystopian world—the sort of world where little girls grow up dreaming of being heiresses.

These days, the heedless ambition of the powerful is to society as is cancer to the individual. It first gnaws at the extraneous, chipping away the small pleasures and devouring the variety of life, making all things secondary to its demands.

But like cancer it grows unchecked, consuming everything allowed to it until all that remains are memories of times that were better, when hope for a brighter future still blossomed in the hearts of those now disenfranchised by the voracious appetites of its expansion.

It’s a desperate time—the kind of time when great ideas tend to come along… or else when people will cling to the best idea they come across.

I take another drink, a long one. It’s warm going down my throat, and fire in the stomach—a slow, soothing sort of burn.

The sun is growing dimmer, and light and dark weigh heavy in my thoughts. They’re timeless concepts—forged into the spirit of our society by countless books, songs and films. For me it was Tolkien, but the sources are innumerable.

Sometimes when my mind wanders, it goes unbidden to dangerous places. There are times that I wonder where the decency of man has gone. We’ve all heard about it—that innate spark of light within all people, destined with only the slightest encouragement to guide us from the ever encroaching darkness.

It’s getting darker.

We are but monkeys grown beyond our means. We make up stories, and bow before them to reckon ourselves to the fact that we are raised with a terrifying capacity for evil, yet maintain a gentle compulsion for good.

It’s not an easy understanding to bear, and the more you know, the madder you go.

I can see how it happens, how you can get lost within your mind. You chase some dream, and at first it dances about the edges, enticing you to believe you might catch it and make it true. But it leads, and you chase. Like a boy following a rabbit into the forest, you pursue it until you lose the trail. Then you look around to realize you’ve lost your own as well. You are left with no clue where on earth you are… or worse still, you’re not sure you remember who you are.

A man needs to fight against it, that infernal apathy. It’ll set in and boil, and pretty soon even the most casual of social encounters will feel like ships passing in the night fog.

Again, the bourbon soothes my thoughts.

What is a man to do? That’s the question that keeps bouncing around my head as my fingers rest limply on my keyboard. People often think I’m multi-layered, but the truth is I’m just multi-talented. This is my weapon—the written word is like a Lego set for smart people, and the destructive potential it can harness is a terrible thing to behold.

People glue themselves to reality programs, fixating on fictional calamities as their government is looted by faceless Corporations and their inalienable rights are stripped away like the clothes of a drunken debutante in a dingy frat house.

This is the reality allotted to us, and it’s difficult to blame the cowards for looking away and leaving it for the next generation. It’s a defense mechanism rooted deeply in our DNA.

With a web as intricate as this, no answers are clear, and even the most optimistic zealot can find himself lost in the chaos around him. But one must not avoid doing right for fear that the devil has deceived them into doing wrong, or else surely he has.

I grit my teeth and crack my knuckles. They’re stiff, and the flesh is dry and cracked. Have I grown this old in so short a time?

Everyone else is smiling, and a cheery voice on a television to my right tells me that quick and harsh punishment will come to the foreigners who object to our imperialistic agenda.

A cheer rises up—on the television to my left, a touchdown has been scored.

Godforsaken idiots.

My mind drifts again to the tales of my youth, and the things they promised: ages of miracles, and the certain defeat of darkness. It always took until the last moment—when hope held on by the thinnest thread. That’s when delivery always came, when people woke up to their innate power to change the world, and made real the paradise they cradled secretly in their hearts.

The sun is down now, the window dull and translucent once more. Outside, neon ads flash, telling me it’s time to buy a new phone. Then everything will be ok.

Darkness has always been our nature. It doesn’t need to be forceful, for it can grow at any time, and is capable of overtaking us and condemning us to savagery whenever we let down our guard.

The light within is different. It flickers perilously, and I’ve heard it said that once it’s out, it’s out. It may dwindle, imperceptible at times, yet it’s driven ever towards great good and kindness.

Sometimes we must squint to even detect it, yet in dark times like these, it is the thing we must search for the most earnestly, and count on for deliverance.

This is an active process.

Few things truly raise my ire, but the depthless greed and thoughtless destruction wrought by the heedless empowered lights a righteous fury deep in my bones.

There’s music playing somewhere, but I can’t catch the tune. My head swims under the drink, but I’m not confused. It’s certainty that drags my mood down, and the refusal to close my eyes to that which surrounds me. An unfailing belief moves my fingers now, and their clatter upon the keys pounds out a drumbeat all my own.

It’s short and simple. Its rhythm churns like a locomotive, driving itself on by necessity. It says that we must return to decency. It proclaims that glib cynicism and ironic detachment are the tools of cowards, and that making a joke of the night is the surest way to get lost in the dark. Above all, it wails that even under the guise of freedom—callousness and selfish greed must not be the fundamental underpinnings of our society.

If you don’t hold to that, know that you have an enemy in Brad OH Inc.

I take another drink, and the comforting warmth brings a smile to my tired face.

-Brad OH Inc.

A Call for Corporate Suffrage

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cropped-blogbanner1.jpgOn September 11th, 2014, a piece of legislation passed through the United States Senate in an attempt to overturn the ruling of the Citizens United (2010) case. This proposed amendment, dubbed SJ RES 19, would grant authority to congress to regulate money raised and spent on political campaigns. The legislation failed however, being unable to garner sufficient support to come to a vote (Source).

Thank goodness!

This bill was a direct attack on the human sovereignty of Corporations—and subsequently an affront to social justice.

The ruling in the Citizens United case made several key distinctions to the American public—distinctions which should be held in high esteem by any citizen who values the founding principles of freedom and personal dignity.

Firstly, for all intents and purposes, a Corporation is a human. That much at least should be beyond debate. Following from that, because a Corporation is a human, and as such a citizen, it would be a violation of our First Amendment rights to limit our freedom of speech.

Of course, ‘freedom of speech’ is a bit of a loose term; blame our unincorporated founding fathers for that one folks. To understand it better, let’s break it down a little. ‘Speech’ is a means of communicating, and communication is usually centered around wants and needs. There are, of course, different ways to express ourselves. Infants cry—it’s incredibly annoying for everyone around them, but it’s their way of telling the world what they need (usually milk, or shelter, or some other selfish thing like that). Body language is also an important form of communication. Who amongst us has never managed to read more into a wry smile than words could ever express? Mind you, the message there may have been more to do with the needs of the reader than of the person smiling, but that’s beside the point.

Corporations express themselves in different ways; although no less relevant than any other form. Specifically, we tend to speak with our pocket-books—funneling tremendous amounts of money into the coffers of politicians open to a little bit of honest advice. It’s as legitimate as any other form of communication, and to suggest otherwise would be painfully unpatriotic.

And yet that’s just what SJ RES 19 attempted to do. By limiting Corporate spending on political campaigns, it sought to silence the voice of Corporate Personhoods in a democratic government meant to represent the people.

How else can Corporations express themselves? If a law currently in place is obstructing our access to valuable natural resources, or if we need to ‘crack open’ a new market in an as-of-yet non-destabilized foreign government, we are limited by our very nature to using money to achieve those ends.

This proposed amendment was a direct attempt to thwart that—and it simply will not stand.

It’s time to make a change. If we are to continue as a free nation, a nation ‘of the people, by the people, for the people’, we need to be unflinchingly certain that humongous financial institutions bent only on expanding their own power base are represented within that definition of ‘people’.

Yes, it’s finally time to talk about Corporate Suffrage.

Throughout history, Suffrage has been granted again and again to interest groups seeking to have better representation in government. Starting with removing the requirement of property ownership, then allowing freed slaves the right to vote, and finally expanding to women, the concept of Universal Suffrage (Link) states that the right to vote is not restricted by race, sex, belief, wealth, or social status.

How can it be denied? That’s a pretty noble goal. And there’s one word in there that we at Brad OH Inc. think is especially important: wealth.

SJ RES 19 was a blatant and unforgivable attempt to discriminate against the Corporate Person based on our wealth—our most effective tool for harnessing our right to free expression. This is a travesty to be sure, and here at Brad OH Inc., we will not abide such a miscarriage of justice.

As persons, we must rise up and demand our inclusion within the inarguably just definitions of Universal Suffrage. Corporations are, as a matter of fact, the most productive and valuable citizens any nation could hope to have. We do the building, create the jobs, manage the infrastructure, and like it or not, we make the decisions. Corporations are tenacious, and we’ve proven time and again that we will take our rights one way or another. The failure of SJ RES 19 was quite simply not enough. In order to move towards a more equitable relationship with the country, we must stop being forced to use our hard earned money to have a voice in the political machinations of this country, and be allowed to do so directly through the electoral process.

It won’t be an easy process of course, but here at Brad OH Inc., we’ve taken the liberty of working out some of the kinks in advance—after all, we’re here to fix problems, not create them.

Clearly, a single vote for a single Corporation would be ludicrous—and far less enfranchising than the situation we currently have. Under an arrangement like that, our voice would be treated as merely equal to that of any other citizen, and we’ve already established that isn’t the case. Moving from complete control of the government and national direction via unlimited campaign financing to a single vote would be an unabashed attack on our sovereignty.

Instead, we suggest a system of representational voting—those liberals have been begging for it forever, so we could silence that infernal racket as well. Everybody wins!

Yes, in place of the ongoing and expensive persecution that continues to plague Corporate existence, let’s move towards a system of voting which fairly recognizes the national contributions of all citizens. By embracing a system which weighs each vote against the percentage of GDP a citizen creates—Corporate or not—we can finally give credit to the hard working efforts of honest citizens; and maybe even encourage a few slackers to pick up the pace a little. Raise your productivity, and raise your electoral voice. What could be more fair than that?

It certainly is a revolutionary idea to chew on, and we can accept that it will take a while to mull over for those of you without a team of highly paid advisors, but you can trust in one thing—Corporations will not be denied our rights. Not the right to free expression, not the right to vote, and not the right to mould this nation into the sort of tax free, unregulated paradise we need for the ongoing inflation of our profit margins. This is the land of the free after all, promising justice for all… with discounts available on bulk purchases.

Your Guides to Forward Progress,

-Brad OH Inc.