Mercury Rising #6 , April 1992
Every now and again, in my line of work, I find myself having to take part in a delivery for a company or person that I find objectionable on some moral, environmental, or political grounds.
Those of us who ride for a company can't pick and choose which clients we want to work for. We all know that corporations operate for profits not for the common good. Nor do they protect public health, promote stable social order, or produce decent products. They drown the Earth in a blanket of toxic garbage, use misleading advertising to trick us into buying things we don't need, and sell us stuff that is designed to have a short lifespan (durable goods). Or we could be talking about a food product made with the cheapest possible ingredients that you would never think to eat if you found them in the food laboratory.
We do know who really benefits from all this deception, and it is not us the consumers. Consumers are like the planet’s most abundant natural resource. We are bought and sold like potato chips, I mean poker chips. The ones who really benefit (profit) are the stockholders, investors, and some employees.
Take for example Bechtel, the world’s largest privately held corporation (except for maybe Saudi Arabia), it’s a family business, sort of. Bechtel is now working with the repressive Kuwaiti government to rebuild their country, under an agreement that was reached before the highly questionable ground assault began last year. Before it was even damaged by our bombs, Bechtel had a contract to rebuild it!
So, we all find ourselves at Bechtel, Chevron, or the gates of some other evil empire when we get sent there to work for these creeps. But how do we resolve the moral dilemma of being sent by our dispatcher to work for something we do not approve of? How do I come away from there not feeling co-opted or like an accessory to a crime? I want to feel good about my job and work for something I believe in. I don't want to think/know my work is trashing the Earth and turning society into Living Hell!
Let’s check the options:
1.) Quit my job- not an option. Jobs are too scarce and somebody else would do the dirty work instead of me.
2.) Ignore the issue lie to myself, I don't think so.
3.) Tell the client how I feel- pretty much the same as quitting unless done in a very tactful manner. LAME.
4.) Use any information I gather on the job to act as a watchdog for corporate misbehaviour.
The way these corporations got their power was from the Industrial Age. The big thing then was being able to move natural resources around and sell them. We cannot compete with these giants on their terms so we must devise our own. Besides, we live in a new age called the Information Age. Information and control of it is the crucial factor that decides our future, not our wealth or military strength. It has already been decided (not by us) that we will not have wealth or military might. The only way we stand a chance is to utilize our most effective tool/weapon and that is our ability to interpret and relay inside information we see and hear at work to the outside world so that we can all decide what is in our (planet’s) best interest.
Just about everyone I know indulges in self-destruc tive behaviour (even Grandma drinks beer) but can we as a single unit (the human family) afford to be self-destructive?
I know sensitive corporate information is very well protected. There are spies (corporate and government) out there looking furiously for the leaks that could be right under that package you picked up off that desk. I don't advocate narc-ing on clients for money, glory, foreign governments, or any other twisted reason. This article is about how to clean up your karma from delivering all those bankrupcy filings that give companies more time to hide the money.
Like Dave Foreman says "Our society is like a car doing 90 miles an hour with no brakes, down a one-way street, toward a brick wall." These Death Corporations will never awaken from their shortsightedness in time It is up to us. If they came right out and said, "Will you cooperate and support us while we totally fuck you over?" What would you say to that?
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