"Hell on earth is a damned good business idea. I personally, along with all the Iraq war corporate profiteers, have made a fortune from the human suffering created by scapegoating." -- Brad
I went to the Green Festival in D.C. the last week in October to hear Medea Benjamin, Ralph Nader and Jim Hightower and others, and to talk with them. One thing very, very consistently agreed upon by these three speakers and particularly underlined by Hightower and Nader, is that the focus on taking back the power of corporations to have the same rights as individuals, then their right to give money to campaigns, their right to lobby, their right to get away with morally reprehensible profit taking, etc. should be the central take back power focus of the people's movement. Ralph said we should take away state charters for corporations and have Federal corporate charters and rules that allow for the revocation of the charters by the people if corporations violate the law. I like this because stockholders would have a vested interest in keeping CEO's under control or else have their stock suddenly be worth nothing.
After hearing Medea summarize all the reasons we have to stop our local home grown fascists, and after they both spoke, Ralph, Jim and I talked. I asked them what they thought about a national strike. Jim had read the recent article in Harper's proposing a nationwide strike and very much liked the idea. Ralph said he thought it was too big a step at one time, but the idea of asking everyone to show up a half hour late for work, could be effective, because a lot of people could do that.
And if we organize and publicize a "show up late to work" strike, we can have it supported at the same time by a consumer's strike. Tens of thousands of people, on the Friday after Thanksgiving weekend last week, didn't buy a damned thing. And the same thing will happen with even more of us on the day after Christmas. I we let the corporations know we are the ones in charge by cutting back their profits and save ourselves some wasted money at the same time, it could be fairly easy. I am doing that and I ask everyone who reads this to help me with it. I also am not buying Christmas presents except for children this year, and doing that at places other than big corporate stores.
What is emerging from our ongoing conversation is a nationwide strike against corporate power until the United States pulls out of Iraq!!! I am on strike, as a consumer. I ask you to join me. If you have a job, please join me by showing up late to work every Friday and increase the amount of time you show up late by a half an hour each week and tell everyone at work and everyone else you know, exactly what you are doing. Medea, Jim, Ralph and a whole bunch of notable and articulate people are already on our side ready to focus on a worldwide slow down strike!
The interview that follows gives some of the premises (from End Game by Derrick Jensen) that cover the reasons for using our monkey wrenches to stop the machine now. And here are the promises (from protestors and the radical honesty community) that we can make to bring about the undoing of our sick civilization.
Brad Blanton, Ph.D, has been a psychotherapist in private practice in Washington D.C. for over thirty years. He is the author of the best-selling Radical Honesty series, and CEO of Radical Honesty Enterprises.
You can find Brad Blanton finishing his new book, the autobiography "Some NEW Kind of Trailer Trash". Click here to pre-order now.
