IN GREED WE TRUST 31 OCT 2013

On this night famous for monsters, I am going to talk about some man-made soul-less monsters, who are believed to be the saviors of this nation. When one looks at the silly monster myths of some primitive tribe, one might be tempted to think: how ridiculous, I’d never believe such a thing. Yet, if we step back, Americans believe in an incredible monster myth. (And after warning about this for close to half a century, this post’s message seems close to “timeless”.)

BIGNESS & BADNESS. The soul-less monster I discuss is the corporation, given artificial life by the law. (I don’t mean mom & pop operations which are another thing.) As you may know, Adam Smith, an early eco . guru taught that people won’t serve society out of goodness, but only if greed is involved. In this vein of thought, in America the corporation is credited with making America great, & whatever is good for the corporation is good for America. It is automatically assumed that society profits from the monster’s profits…the love of money has to be good (bad assumptions according to the Word). Increasingly, corporations are being turned to for social services, running prisons, education, health care, and on the side running politics. Do people in corporate leadership know what is best for people? One expert said, “business has a notoriously bad record…Organized business has been chronically hostile to every humane & popular reform in the history of American capitalism.” The only real moral/ethical standard of corporations is profit (greed). That is not my opinion, but what the law says. The original precedent setting legal case was 1883, when a judge ruled, “Charity has no business to sit at boards of directors qua charity.” This judicial attitude became Amer. legal principle in 1916 w/ the Dodge v. Ford case. Ford tried to give the man in the street low car prices, and his business partner Dodge sued because they were losing profits. The judge ruled for Dodge, meaning that managers & directors have to put profits above the interests of all others. Ford was rebuked for setting low prices. Corporations enjoy the appearance of virtue, but they are soul-less monsters w/ the legal purpose to make money. Feed them profits & they are happy. Take profits away, & the monster bites.

Some of you may remember Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring warning about Monsanto’s chemical pesticides. The company wrote their rebuttal in their company magazine’s 10/1/62 issue, quoting their own experts’ alarming predictions if their pesticides were not used. At some point, the govt. has stepped in & stopped Monsanto products, such as their detergent chemicals that were ruining lakes & rivers, & their soft drink cyclamates (banned by the FDA in ’69). It would be unfair to single out Monsanto; the same ethics of profit is found in the entire set of chemical, pharmaceutical & biotechnology corporations. For instance, in spite of FDA approval, Zoloft, Neurontin, & Paxil were all ineffective & known by their producers from tests to not only be of no good for their stated purpose, but were known from tests (prior to coming on the market) to be dangerous. Zoloft & Paxil made people suicidal. Doctors were bribed to prescribe Neurontin for bipolar orders for which it was worthless. Even worse was the painkiller Vioxx, marketed by Merck, who knew from the start that it was potentially fatal, and covered up that info. Before it was legally banned, Vioxx caused between 88,000-140,000 serious cardiovascular attacks! This is the ethic of greed, but Amer. strangely think that this is what made America great & will save America, so they think little of huge bailouts, of large govt. donations to corp. to go overseas, and of special laws such as for nuclear power plants that exempt them from normal liability for accidents. Corporations like to manufacture needs (desires for their products), for example, I have watched elementary age children seriously “need” certain clothes & nothing else, because corporations have taught them the value of a person is measured by what products were purchased. People, how one is valued is a spiritual issue! Soon we will see them advertise major improvements to humans for sale (genetics)…and in spite of the real risks, & the bad record of corporations, people will want to buy these genetic improvements. Corporate news is promoting life-boat ethics for everyone because supposedly resources are rare. Many resources are being falsely pictured as rare & near exhaustion, which again is good for profits & pop. control.

Moral responsibility is fragmented in bureaucracies, the military, and corporations. Corporate accountability is uncommon. Occasionally, managers & employees or individual soldiers quit because of their conscience, but often they rationalize why lose my job when they can get someone else to do it; plus with others making the decisions & their fragmented understanding of what is going on, it is hard for individuals to feel accountable. Cartels, trusts, even monopolies set prices & production. Corporate control comes from a small elite. 90% of all corporate stock is held by 10% of the stockholders. The top 1% of the shareholders own half of all stock. Corporate leadership is appointed from top down. Along w/ all this we have a govt. of the corporations, by the corporations, & for the corporations, due to the immense money the monster has to buy influence.

James (Yakobi), the brother of Yahshua, writes as a prophet to the merchant class, “Come now, you rich….Your riches are corrupted [gained by corruption & sin–spoiled, decaying, rotten]….Your gold & silver are corroded [rust keeps eating], and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have heaped up treasure [filthy profits] in the last days. Indeed the wages of the laborers…you kept back by fraud [exploitation]…and the cries…have reached…the Lord [cf. DT 24:15]. You have lived on the earth in pleasure & luxury; you have fattened your hearts as in a day of slaughter. You have condemned, you have murdered the just; he does not resist you.” JAS 5:1-6 This is especially appropriate for the Illum. elite that control these interlocking directorates of the big corporations. And these verses in James are back by many others in the “Old Testament” condemning the exploitation of workers, for instance JER 22:13, “Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness and his chambers by injustice, who uses his neighbor’s services without wages and gives him nothing for his work….your eyes & your heart are for nothing but your covetousness [greed], for shedding innocent blood [military industrial complex], and practicing oppression and violence.” Christians, many attending corporate churches, say changing hearts will change society, then I say those changed hearts should be changing society.