Corporate Theft of the American Community
I predict that in the near future, society will be vastly different than it has been circa the 1920’s - 2020’s. As a species, we’ve been drifting further and further away from nature and from each other while the systemic side effects of this are becoming overwhelming.
We now can communicate instantly with anyone and everyone we wish, we have more working knowledge than ever before in history, and vast improvements in technology seek to elevate our livelihoods for the better. Yet… why does the future seem bleaker than ever?
I argue that it’s because our sense of humanity and community has slowly been stolen from us. We’ve been swindled by self-insisting consultants and middle-men that do not have our our best interests or vision in mind. What I mean by this is that we’ve lost our sense of producer/consumer and supporting each other in society. Additionally, politicians leverage this divide for personal gain and turn us against each other by supporting policies that further benefit mega-corporations and exacerbate the advantage they receive; thereby entrenching us in a cycle that will never stop as long as it remains profitable.
What middle men are you talking about, Greg? Any examples?
Enterprise Grocers & Food Industry Friends
Promoting/advertising unhealthy food as it drives over-consumption & a larger profit on cheaply made junk food (e.g. BOGO sales, 2 for $4, etc).
Marriage of the BigFood & BigPharma industries within supermarkets to provide a nice, convenient one-stop shop to purchase the drugs recommended to treat symptoms of the many illnesses/diseases that could’ve been avoided through a proper diet that you couldn’t afford — just as those companies intended. These industries both make much more money when you’re unhealthy, unhappy, unsatisfied, & over-consuming; it’s that simple.
The sheer fact that I can buy a single cucumber for the same price or more than I can a bag of chips which will satiate me longer in the short-term & taste more appealing.
Partnering with the oligopoly of big food brands with the intent to drive record profits instead of community well-being.
Selling more-and-more cheap, addicting, affordable junk full of added sugars & fat with little to no nutritional value and having the audacity to sell it as “food”.
Decimation of small-to-medium businesses (SMB’s) in communities that were unable to compete on prices when large enterprise grocers entered the scene.
Artificial inflation putting profits over people in times of crisis and hardship.
Constantly merging together and obfuscating the true owners of a store/brand in order to provide illusion of choice.
Conditioning and indoctrination of children into unhealthy eating habits through constant advertisements and marketing designed to trigger dopamine responses in those that lack the ability to reason against those impulses. How is this legal?
Representative Politicians
I want to keep this brief & bi-partisan.
Our political system in American is a representative democracy where we elect others that we trust to keep our values in mind & act on our behalf. This clearly made a bit more sense in the olden days, but with the advances of humanity since 1776, this doesn’t seem to be working out in the favor of “we the people” very often. I see the modern American politician as a middle-man in the grand scheme of things. These politicians are not inherently bad, but our current systems clearly benefits them to work with the interest of mega-corporations in mind rather than we the people. Politicians literally control the rules of the Capitalism game and these rules can be altered at any point in time.
There is no such thing as a true “free market” within our current implementation of Capitalism, nor would a true free market benefit mankind. History has proven that not everyone is a good actor and removing public oversight is not the correct solution to this problem. We need more “hybrid” & empathetic politicians that can balance public policy with private interests.
Modern News & Media
Dismantling of journalistic integrity, reducing news to entertainment channels fueled by controversy in order to drive more ad revenue.
Promotion & proliferation of further division, controversy, and half-truths as that is what is profitable and grabs viewers’ attention.
Used extensively by the other middle men above to convince you that they’re good actors. If you have to say it at all, you’re probably not — especially publicly. Your efforts to do so are contrived, unauthentic, and we see right through them.
What can we do to fight this?
Support SMB’s in your community over large enterprises at every opportunity.
Research companies on sites like GoodJobsFirst’s Violation Tracker to find all the juicy details on a company’s past illegal operations, actions, & behaviors that they bury from you in search results via PR campaigns.
In general, the total amount of fines ($) is more important than the total number of fines.
Communicate your interest & support of InfraGreen Farms & Co. as our goal is to start fighting against these unnatural, cyclic systems that’ve been established over the past 100 years or so.
MOST IMPORTANTLY, using all of the information above in addition to your life experiences, follow the old adage: “vote with your wallet”.
