Corporations are People Too
An Open Letter to Corporate America
I turned 50 years old this past year. When I was 20, I thought for sure I’d be dead by now. Somehow though, I’ve managed to survive. I was alive when there was no such thing as the Internet. There were no cell phones. When you wanted to email someone, you wrote them a letter on paper, using a physical pen, then folded that paper, put it into an envelope, licked a stamp and walked out to the mailbox, put it in, raised the flag, and…waited. The mailman (as they were called in those days), would then come by and get the letter and deliver it for you, in a few days. If you were lucky, a single round-trip communication between you and your sweetheart could take more than a week, especially if she wasn’t a good writer (which would be unheard of then!)
I’ve made it through many military conflicts, stock market crashes and recoveries, and devastating catastrophes. I watched in complete disbelief as the Space Shuttle exploded on live television, along with a young teacher named Christa McAuliffe, as she literally disappeared into a fireball of jet fuel, along with her entire crew, her name becoming forever emblazoned in the memory of everyone alive at the time.
I, along with the world, watched in what can only be described as shock as a dozen Los Angeles Police Officers surrounded an unarmed man lying on the ground and continued to kick, beat, and use their clubs and sticks on him until he was almost dead, simply because he was Black. That terrible moment in time was the beginning of the end of the innocence for me, and I suspect many people around the world. The full breadth of my naïveté still had years to go before completely disappearing from my thought processes, but if I’m on a period of self discovery, this was a pivotal moment for me where I knew things were not only not as they seemed, but they would never be the same again.
Somehow through most of it, our human spirits have remained surprisingly resilient, even hopeful. After all, we are the United States! Birthplace of rock and roll, apple pie, baseball, and benevolent mega corporations that practically guarantee our place in the World Order, and certainly offered a living wage and jobs for all that wanted them. The benevolence of Americans has always been something I held to be unbreakable. We’re the ‘good guys’ after all! We define the world’s moral compass by which everyone sets sail on the high seas of compassion, charity, and morality. But all is not well in Kansas; not any longer.
As I settle in to this fifth decade of life, I often reflect on the lessons that I’ve learned from the most influential people that I’ve known, both personally and otherwise. Like many of you, one of the most influential people of my life, was my grandfather.
My grandfather, along with his own father, had literally helped to pioneer the tiny southern Alabama town that he grew up and lived in, and I myself was raised in, until I was six years old. He was a quiet man, an introverted extrovert as it were, with an inherent wisdom and genuine humbleness that while I myself try to emulate every day, have not seen since his passing several decades ago. I like to think that of all the family, I’m most like him: that I somehow genuinely have people’s best interest at heart, have empathy for others even when I feel as they don’t deserve it, and to try and be kind to people in general, especially those who serve others in ways I don’t, and who provide the real value to the world. I’ve always aspired to be that sort of person, from as early as I possibly can remember, and I’m as certain as Alabama heatwaves, it came from my grandfather. It’s one of my most prized, but constantly influx and evolving possessions. I continue to fall short of the mark set so high so early on, but there is a lesson that most of our grandfather’s taught us and it can save America from the path it’s on currently.
“When you’ve got a job to do, you’ve got to do it well.”
from ‘Live and Let Die’ — Wings
My grandfather Herman, moved physically slower than most people, slightly hunched over most of the time, his gait similar to that of someone twice his age. His disability the result of a factory accident in his late 20’s, leaving his back broken along with all of his hopes and dreams for a better future for his young family that included four children, the youngest, my mother. For the rest of Herman and Louise’s life, they would live in virtual poverty in a house the size of most people’s closet, with no heating or air conditioning, outhouses for bathrooms, and three rooms with sheets hung so lovingly and caringly serving as doors to the three tiny rooms, and dutifully tended to by my grandmother. Inexplicably, all of Herman’s children escaped small-town Alabama life and even excelled by most anyone’s standards.
While my grandfather never let the small things bother him outwardly, and seemingly could subsist for days, weeks, or even months without the utterance of a single word, fully immersed in thought, or books, or soaking in the nightly news with Walter Cronkite on one of the three major channels available at that time, his wisdom both small-town and ubiquitous with the human experience transcending political and economic boundaries, he walked softly and carried no stick. His life, an example for the rest of us to live up to; not because we want to, but because we are responsible. We are. Us.
No matter what the Supreme Court of the United States may say, corporations are not people too, and the second Citizens United declared otherwise, the people, ironically, stopped caring about people and started caring about their bottom line. It’s easy to only care about the bottom line when you’re a sharecropper. Aren’t we modern sharecroppers? Who owns their house outright? Show of hands. Who has no balance on their credit cards? Show of hands. Who doesn’t have student loans, medical bills, food shortages, an abusive environment they live in, or any number of the other things that we allow to go on in the richest country in the world in which at least three individual people have enough money to build private space programs for billionaires? We don’t just allow this nonsense, we’re complicit in it because we have all the power to stop it and none of the will. Not only do we not have the will, we have the opposite. We have the desire to continue like a drug addict that can’t help themselves.
“Round here we talk just like lions, but we sacrifice like lambs.”
from ‘Round Here’ — Counting Crows
In so many ways, my grandfather’s life was cut short far too early; long before his physical death. When I think about his life, it was one of kindness and patience, forged through military service in World War II and all that that entails for someone in the 1930’s. His life of untold suffering and incredible hardships, common for his generation, especially for the economically downtrodden as he was, must have been crushing. The loss and struggle inherent in small towns in his time (and perhaps even more amplified, now) and the truly stark reality that must have befallen all men of his age living so deeply in the Deep South of Eastern Alabama, complete with all of its perils and morality, religion and ethics, yet fully and unflinchingly compromised in the most important ways. His crown of failure was permanently in tow and on full display for his friends and enemies to see, the overwhelming defeat of poverty fully permeating every aspect of his human life, he somehow was never angry. How?! I’ve wondered so many times! How could you not be mad all the time?! I’m mad now and I have everything anyone could want and then some.
I, and all of his kids and grandkids, have better lives than he could have ever imagined, and when I say that, I really mean it. He could not have imagined that all four of his children would go on to earn college degrees, one a PhD!, one a financial analyst for one of the largest companies in the world, and one an unusually gifted and financially successful artist! All have families and children and grandchildren and all Herman’s children are even married to their original spouses. None live in poverty. None want for anything. All four are financially successful beyond that of most Americans. All of Herman’s children own their own houses in nice neighborhoods the likes of which Herman never saw once in his lifetime. Ever. He could not have imagined any of that for a second; not one second. He never had the chance to imagine it; it just wasn’t a reality he was even aware of.
Somehow, one of my grandfather’s lessons has always stood above the rest and stuck with me: when you have a job to do, do it to the best of your ability, not because of how much you get paid, or even if you don’t get paid, do it anyway and do it the best you can, no matter what, even if you hate it. I’m not saying I always followed his advice when I was a kid (and maybe even now sometimes), but for as long as I can remember, that lesson is my golden rule to live by. I would learn that lesson the hard way a few times through the years, but eventually I stopped putting my hand through the fence.
Herman rarely spoke to anyone at all, but when he did he was always courteous and he always had a kind word to say, albeit softly, quietly and always a fan of brevity. But Herman loved me dearly and he wouldn’t just talk to me, he would never stop talking. Incessantly the man told me things that every boy and man should know. He never stopped talking to me. If I was awake or around, he was talking to me. I was quite young at the time, so I don’t remember a word of it, but I do remember everyone always commenting about how quiet he was and indeed he was…just to everyone else. I just remember thinking that I was the most important person in the world, because my grandfather would not stop talking to me when he wouldn’t talk to anyone else! He died when I was very young unfortunately and I never got a chance to really know him as one adult man might get to know another, but I feel the spirit of his memory all the time. I feel his strong desire to improve the things that he could, and let go of the things that he couldn’t. America must learn to do the same if we are to avoid the final stages befalling all corporations of any size: decline.
This form of capitalism so pervasive in the destruction of our most desired and completely possible way of life, is akin to the result of how many companies turn out after venture capital or private equity managers take over. The company becomes focused on profits and a quick exit strategy, forgetting about what made them successful to begin with, or more likely not caring, not investing in employees and long-term gains, but instead concentrating solely on the bottom line. Currently, the entire political, economic and world system is in complete chaos, with literally 100 seconds to midnight on the Doomsday Clock. With corporations in firm and tight control of the resources that matter, the result will always be more war, more aggression, more oppression and on and on and on….
“Meet the new boss…same as the old boss.”
from ‘Won’t get Fooled Again’ — The Who
I’ve always wondered how prison guards maintain control of a large number of prisoners. If there is one guard for every 50 inmates (a high estimate I would think), that means that for every 1000 inmates, there are only 20 guards total; in the whole prison. How can 20 people physically control 1000 people? Why don’t they just coordinate and kill the guards or take over the prison? But what happens, if instead of violence and killing and taking over things, the prisoners just decide to make their community pleasant to live in? What then? Who would be deterred from going to prison? What would you do to incentivize people to not commit crimes and go to prison? I’m suggesting there would be more people in prison than outside, and then who is actually in prison? What could the guards do about it? What if the guards decided they would also participate in the community and make it pleasant to live in and work in? The entire prison/punishment/justice system would fall apart overnight! We don’t have a rehabilitative prison system; we have a punitive system. An eye-for-an-eye, so to speak. What if instead we tried actually preventing the situations that cause the need for prisons now? No way! That would destroy entire populations of good jobs! The industry is a person too, remember.
Herman died at 67, his wife, my grandmother, several years later at 72. When they were young, I’m certain they had different dreams than what ultimately happened to them. I’m certain that it happens to all of us as well. If we’re logical, rational, educated beings that learn from history and apply the sound principles of science and math as we proclaim so loudly to everyone who will listen, then we must see that major course corrections are direly needed. That, or we will all be working for The Corporation, most likely even after death.
There are no limits or rules for leaders that lack human consideration, as the basis of their decisions. They are free to rape and plunder with impunity. If they are “successful” as measured by our current yardsticks, then we celebrate them as having succeeded against the odds. If they fail, they are simply forgotten; lost to the winds of the many inevitable fleeting thoughts of has-beens. But we are all far worse off for having allowed these people to control our paradise. We have all of the power to change. We can do it tomorrow. We can wake up and make the world better for everyone. Everyday we wake up and actively decide to make the world worse. The great Romanian-American writer, Elie Wiesel said, “The opposite of love is not hate; it is indifference.” Indeed.
The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.
Elie Wiesel, Romanian-American Writer
Corporate America owes the world something. It owes the world its stewardship. It owes the people that it claims to serve. It owes the shareholders of the Earth. The bill is quickly coming due and our credit card is way over the limit. If we claim to love our children; if we want better lives for them, to make them better human beings that live in a better world, then prove it. Because if you don’t, who will? Because if you don’t, what will our children do? Because if you don’t, what will happen to us?
