[Are corporations tapeworms? The Rude Guy rips into Enron, Jeff Skilling, McKinsey Consultants, rip-off academics, data-for-hire, corporate corruption, greed and malfeasance. And General Smedley Butler, GANGSTER for capitalism.]
This is the Rude Guy. The sand in the gears of corporate culture. Whipping post, for the fragile FEMALE ego. Yes…they DOO like to lash out at me. Welcoming you to the Reality Cult. Presenting the Idea of the Week.
This the show where we believe that…if you achieve success, in an insane society, then you are, by definition, INsane. The show that believes that men are good, and corporations are bad. And that the less time we spend beating up on men, and the more time we spend beating up on corporations, the healthier and happier we will ALL be.
[tweet]
I just saw a screening of the film: Enron, The Smartest Guys in the Room. And when the film was over a guy in the audience stood up and said “I was there. I worked for Pacific Gas and Electric, when Enron stole billions of dollars from the people of California, by routing power out of the state, and then selling it back, at huge markups, of 200 TIMES the normal cost, to desperate consumers…Babies in respirators, and retirees in desert trailers. And what I learned is, you cannot have a free market only for the buyers, and not for the sellers…Only for the buyers and not for the sellers.
You can’t have millions of people bidding on the price they are willing to pay for water, and electricity, and food, and gasoline, and only have a handful of companies supplying these necessities. That’s where corporate capitalism, and free market rhetoric, have fooled us. If there are only a few suppliers of any of these essential things, they have to be regulated… regulated to hell… or outright nationalized. Taken over by the government…. Hmmm
I also learned that the evil genius of Enron, Jeff Skilling, is an alumnus of McKinsey Consultants Corporation. If people knew anything at all about McKinsey, they would have understood Enron from the instant Skilling took over. McKinsey is possibly the most corrupt company on earth.
McKinsey produces detailed SURVEYS, tailor-made to the HIGHEST bidder. And they do so without a twinge of conscience. You pay them enough money, they’ll prove beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the moon is made of green cheese. Or that Enron is a spectacularly profitable company.
Let’s say you are a corporation that wishes to exploit the copper resources, of a small African nation. For twenty million dollars, you hire McKinsey to produce a gargantuan study… charts, slide shows, paper printouts three feet high… that details all the compelling reasons why you, and you alone, have the corporate expertise to properly exploit this resource…and it would be crazy for anyone else to even THINK about doing it.
However, if YOU are the small African nation in question, and you can come up with twenty ONE million dollars, McKinsey will produce an even MORE detailed study, showing that there is NO way in the world that the aforementioned corporation, or any OTHER foreign corporation, should be permitted to exploit this resource. In fact, it would be insane to even imagine such a scenario…
[donkey]
In the world of big business, McKinsey has the reputation of being DISCREET. What they mean by discreet is: McKinsey never tells anybody who they’re working for. So you never really know WHO’s paying the money, to get these surveys done, other than by the obvious, after-the-fact conclusion, that whoever the survey FAVORS, is the one who paid for it.
You can see the problem already. How many small nations and indigenous tribes can come up with 21 million dollars for a study, just to beat back corporate invasions of their economies. This is the academic “guns for hire”, think-tank ruse, we talked about earlier…that the Rockefellers invented. Facts, and data, for sale, to the highest bidder. It’s an ethical outrage, enormously harmful. And it’s the reason why ALL facts, and ALL information, can NO longer be trusted. We are fools to believe ANY of it. It’s just DATA for sale to the HIGHEST bidder.
[tweet]
Americans have been taught to believe that our government is out there doing good things for the world. Saving them from Communists and terrorists. Feeding people, giving them medicines, helping them in disasters. Indeed, we do fewer of those good deeds, per capita, than most European nations… But it gets worse.
General Smedley Butler, was one of the most celebrated leaders of United States Marines expeditions, and nation building experiments… in the Caribbean, in the early 1900s. After he retired he had THESE thoughts on his career.
Quote “I spent 33 years and 4 months in active military service…and during that period I spent most of my time as a high-class muscle man, for Big Business, for Wall Street, and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a GANGSTER for capitalism.” A GANGSTER for capitalism. This is a United States Marines GENERAL talking here.
Quote “I helped make Mexico, and especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys, to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics, for the benefit of Wall Street.
I helped purify Nicaragua, for the international banking house of Brown Brothers, in 1902 to 1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic, for American sugar interests, in 1916. I helped make Honduras RIGHT, for American fruit companies, in 1903. In China, in 1927, I helped see to it that Standard Oil, went its way, unmolested… This is what President Woodrow Wilson called “Making the World Safe for Democracy.”
“Our boys were sent off to die with beautiful ideals painted in front of them. No one told them dollars and cents were the real reason they were marching off to kill and die.” Unquote…GENERAL Smedley Butler – 1934.
What does any of this have to do with us? One word: Iraq. One other word: Venezuela. The only strange thing about the bombing of the World Trade Center, is that it didn’t happen a hundred years sooner. And that it wasn’t done, by South Americans. We have been fucking with the rest of the planet, for over a hundred years now, and calling it: making the world safe for democracy…
[Outrageous]
But, the rest of the world is waking up. That’s why they hold these yearly World Social Forums, attended by tens of thousands of people, that the U.S. media refuses to report on… where people from all over the globe, vociferously oppose the spreading cancer, of U.S. Corporate Colonialism… Also… from what I hear, our troops in Iraq are NOT naïve and stupid. They KNOW they’re there, because of money and oil. And they just want to survive their tour of duty. They don’t intend to get killed over it.
[tweet]
The Idea of the Week this week is: Are corporations tapeworms?… Are corporations tapeworms?
I just stumbled on a web site called thenewliberator.com, put together by a guy named Douglas R. Page.
Clearly, he’s a deeply Christian guy…who came up with an interesting metaphor …And I’m gonna paraphrase him…
[pause]
Corporate Capitalism, Corporatism, like the tapeworm, is a parasite. It requires a human host. It can exist, ONLY if we humans, WORK for an employer…AND if we CONSUME. It would DIE if we curtailed EITHER our work as employees, or our consumption.
Capitalism, like the tapeworm, will eventually kill its human host. Then the tapeworm will also die…but the millions of eggs it has spread through human feces, will infect other human hosts.
The “corporatist tapeworm” is concerned solely with making as much short-term profit as possible, for those relatively FEW humans, who are employers… or for those who INVEST with employers. Just as the internal tapeworm forces humans to consume MORE FOOD, in order to feed the worm, so it is with the Corporatist Tapeworm. “He who dies with the most toys wins,” is their motto. It prods us to consume and consume until we are buried beneath all our junk, suffocating under a mountain of DEBT.
The “corporatist tapeworm” can meet NO human needs, other than those that can be produced at a profit, for employers. The “tapeworm” will not allow food or medicines to be produced, unless they can be SOLD at a profit. Thus, although there is enough food, RIGHT NOW, to feed a global human population, one and one half times our current size… millions of people cannot afford to buy it. And 30,000 people die of starvation EACH AND EVERY DAY… 30,000 people.
The corporate “tapeworm” cannot provide public education, universal health care, childcare, old age security, or communities or parks. The “tapeworm” has no concern whatever for human health, preservation of the resources of the planet, pollution or global poisoning…spiritual or religious values, human sharing, cooperation, community, or culture.
The “tapeworm” is voracious. It actively seeks new natural resources to devour, and fresh humans, who will do its work for LOWER wages. Its voraciousness MAKES it, the main cause of war.
The metabolic cycle of the “tapeworm” is based on two classes of humans: those humans who employ other humans…and those humans who are hired. The human with SOME money…whether inherited, stolen, obtained from slaves, or wherever…hires a human with little or no money, for the lowest possible wage… in order to earn as much wealth as possible, for the human who already HAS money. Over time, the metabolic cycle of the “tapeworm”, makes the employer class of humans immensely wealthy, while it weakens and impoverishes the class of humans, who are employees.
The “tapeworm” hates human efforts, to meet human needs, by working together. Where humans have cooperated, through the state, to build public power generating facilities, or water supplies… the tapeworm seeks to “privatize” them, so that those humans who hire the labor of employee-humans, can have yet another opportunity to accumulate wealth.
The “tapeworm,” over time, also confers immense political power, on humans, who employ, other humans. It hires the media to brainwash voters. It permits the wealthy as much political power as they can buy. It corrodes the egalitarian basis of democracy… based on equal sharing of political power among voters… and thwarts majority will.
The tapeworm has no sense of concern, or responsibility, whatever, for its employees. It will quickly move its activities, to whichever locality, will supply employees, who will work for a lower wage. It will substitute a machine or a computer for employees, whenever possible. It thoughtlessly abandons those employees, who previously served it.
The “tapeworm” has no sense of propriety or ethical values. The “tapeworm” richly rewards those humans who are greedy, selfish and aggressive, but it has NO place for humans who are cooperative, generous or compassionate.
That’s one of MY BIG beefs. The most successful people in America are NOT the hard workers, who did a great job. The most successful people in America are the liars and cheaters and thieves. What a fucked up country.
[humpfg]
The “tapeworm” takes exhaustive measures to protect itself. It creates a TABOO, so that it may not even be discussed. Its employee-humans…most of whom have no alternative source of food, clothing and shelter…are desperately dependent on the “tapeworm”, for their jobs, and their survival. Employee-humans, even when they are organized together into unions, do not criticize, or analyze, the “tapeworm.” The employer-humans would quickly fire them, for exposing the metabolic cycle of the “tapeworm.” Thus the “tapeworm” fosters a TABOO, based on fear, among all employee-humans, at every level of employment. The taboo infects journalists, college professors, preachers, public health workers, social workers…so that no one even USES the word “capitalism.”
No one even USES the word capitalism…This is SOLID evidence, for how deeply we are being brainwashed. We canNOT discuss the pros and cons of capitalism, because we don’t even use the WORD, CAPITALISM. It’s always “free” market, or “free trade” or “freedom”, or some kind of FREE fucking something or other. Never capitalism. Never what it really is. People all over the rest of the world use the word capitalism. But not HERE. Not in America. It’s like a censored word here. Like fucking. You can’t say fucking, and you can’t say capitalism, on TV, or in the papers. In North America.
People call me a Marxist because I use the word capitalism…but they won’t tell me what OTHER word, I could USE, to describe an economic system, where a handful of UNelected people, control ALL the wealth, for their OWN personal benefit. How can we pervert our thought, and language, and ideas, to that extent? It’s like calling a barracuda a reef fish. Yeah, it’s true. A barracuda IS a fish, that hangs out, around reefs. But that certainly doesn’t describe its true nature. It’s a predator. It preys on the weak. Like all free market, corporate, CAPITALISTS.
The corporatist “tapeworm” is a gigantic, global, institution that feeds on us humans, and gradually enfeebles our minds, and erodes our democracy and our health, security, and well-being. We have NO option but to oppose it…or perish.
………
[tweet]
I’ve done fourteen podcasts in fourteen weeks and I’m getting stale. Don’t worry, I have MOUNTains of material left to cover… all of which substantiates my opinions that men are good, corporations are bad, and God exists, for the purpose of helping us. I don’t think saying something one time, is enough. Ideas need to be repeated over and over, in different ways, for them to really sink in… Also, please understand, I have the EASIEST research job in the media world. All I do is talk about the stuff corporate media WON’T talk about, and that means, my subject matter, is ALMOST limitless. Because those assholes don’t’ talk about anything, of importance.
However, I spend so much time on the profoundly boring technical audio production of this show, and so LITTLE on the content and performance, that it’s time for a change. I keep trying to make the shows shorter, and THEY keep getting longer. Coming out with a weekly show is not as important to me, as making sure, every show, is as good as I can make it.
Then, there’s the problem… that my mother is dying. She’s been given three to six months to live. So I need to pack up, and get back to Chicagoland, to help her, and my dad, for a few months.
So… it’s unlikely… I’ll be coming out with a new show once a week. But, the shows might be longer, and they might get better… I’ve gotten tremendous support from men concerned with men’s issues. Donations, emails, purchases of books and DVDs. And…Zero support from so-called political Leftists. And… Zero support from so-called religious people.
Good thing I’m not running this show on ratings, or I’d switch to all men’s content. But I’m not going to allow leftist bigots, to commandeer progressive politics. And I’m not going to allow right wing religious nuts, to commandeer religion. As if the only political progressives, are those pushing abortion. And the only people of faith are fundamentalist Christians… We don’t need to have abortion, AND nationalize our oil companies. We just need to NATIONALIZE our oil companies. That’ll be enough. No more Enrons. No more energy trading for profit.
[tweet]
So…Wanna loosen the lug nuts, on corporate capitalism? Kick right wing, AND left wing, bigots, in the nuts?…Go to therudeguy.com and click on the links.
Buy a book, buy the Corporate Vampires DVD, donate a few bucks to keep this thing going… www.therudeguy.com
And check out the Rich Zubaty web site at: happyfool.orG. By helping him you’re helping me… www.happyfool.orG.
And email me: therudeguy@hotmail.com… email me…so I know I’m not just talking to the myna birds, in the mulberry tree, outside my window, this sunny Maui morning.
And thanks to Scott Huckabay for the really unique music clips, for the intro and exit. Anybody else out there has any interesting audio to share, lemme know about it.
This is the Rude Guy. I’ll be back…in a couple weeks. Producing this show on the road is gonna be a trick. And I’m NOT gonna drive myself crazy. I’m just gonna do the best I can with it.
God bless you…and lend you, HIS strength. That’s what a blessing is, after all… when someone stronger than you, lends you their strength… Bless you… STAY strong. Don’t let anybody intimidate you. Don’t let anybody shame you.
No more BULLSHIT. That’s our motto. NO MORE BULLSHIT!
Ahhhhhhh….feels a little better already.