Posts Tagged → corporation
Trump is the Resistance
When I was a very young person, I was exposed to a shocking bumper sticker in bright red letters on a white background, on the rear fender of a rusty rattletrap vehicle in front of us: “QUESTION AUTHORITY“.
How I hate to admit that much of my adult political philosophy was shaped by that one dumb, but true and fortuitously placed bumper sticker, at such a young age. Guessing around 1972-1973.
Well do I recall asking my dad (who was driving our car) what that bumper sticker statement up ahead meant, and how the young hippie gave me his explanation. Recall that this encounter and resulting discussion was during the very end of the Vietnam War. It was a time of great change in America, with young people like my hippie parents finding their own interests and cultural comfort zones, and questioning assumptions and everything they had grown up with.
To my dad, QUESTION AUTHORITY meant to question what the government was doing, as it was the ultimate authority, and could cause great damage if left to itself without citizen oversight. He also told me it meant to question what people with authority and power and self-interest anywhere are doing, including teachers and policemen, to ask what corporations are doing, what drug companies and pesticide companies are doing, and so on. To my dad, and then to me, the bumper sticker (which I can still see now in my mind’s eye as clear as the day I first saw it) was the original fact check, an encouragement to think for myself.
It was the original statement of resistance against “The Man.”
“The Man” being the euphemistic hierarchichal boss overseeing all aspects of American (or any other country) government, industry, and culture.
Well, well, well, how times have changed.
Now, those once-young hippies run the government, the teacher’s unions, the drug and pesticide companies. They are The Man, they are in control, they do not want to let go, and brother they tolerate zero questioning of their authority. Their political orthodoxy is absolute and stifling. They tolerate no dissent. It seems once they had achieved power and control over all of the institutions and levers of power and decisionmaking, the once-young hippies settled into cruelly enforcing their views. The same views that once encouraged people to question authority.
But don’t you dare question their authority!
Yes, this irony seems lost on the hippies, but what is most curious is how few young Americans today want to question authority, to think for themselves. Instead, I see a huge proportion of American young people as mass produced, cookie cutter stamped young authoritarians coming out of the very industrialized education system. They do not question authority, rather they aspire to be the authority, the unquestioned, the duly obeyed.
Against the enormous array of completely corrupted and highly organized power and authority – the media, academia, entertainment, government schools, corporate America, Silicon Valley, the United Nations, both political parties in Washington DC, etc. stands One Man, who is questioning authority.
Against this incredible array of raw power and exploitative money stands Donald Trump, Our Man, the very image of resistance against The Man, of the American citizen standing against corrupt power.
The fact that so many young Americans do not identify with the underdog resistance the way the hippies did in 1972, the way healthy young people normally do, but rather so many desire to bully the underdog, to crush the resistance, to blot it out, to sadistically damage, cancel, hurt and destroy the underdog resistance, so that their own authority shall not be questioned, is a very bad sign. These are sick children.
To all the un-sick young Americans out there: Donald Trump is the resistance. He is the symbol of The People’s rebellion against the evil empire in Washington, DC. He is the underdog representing all of the forgotten little people in America, the forgotten workers and forgotten taxpayers, questioning the authority of terrible people, and he is battling against terrible forces of great evil and destruction. He deserves your support.
If you want to fight against the evil empire, join forces with Donald Trump. He needs you. America needs you. We have just a week remaining to save the galaxy, your galaxy, your future.
Weis soda instead of Coca Cola Coke soda
“Woke” companies like Delta Airlines and Coca Cola Coke have been leading with their chins lately, daring their own consumers to punish them for having turned against their consumers. Leading with your chin means that you run the risk of being punched back on your chin, and really suffering.
I myself run a small business devoted to achieving public benefits using private markets. Whenever possible, I buy land and try to get it folded into the existing public lands around it. State Game Lands, state forests, state parks, etc; if we have a public partner on a given property, then we can conserve that land.
But I would be blowing up my own business if I directly attacked the very people I need to do my business with, like Delta Airlines and Coke have been doing. For some odd reason, these two companies have joined with the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, and now Major League Baseball to crap on the very people who they want to have as customers. Who they expect to be customers. It is the oddest thing, really. It probably stems from this notion that a certain segment of aggressive Americans have that all of these enterprises, including America itself, are just too big, too rich, too successful to ever fail. Which is, of course, foolish. Every enterprise can and will end at some point, but doing things that directly harm your own interests just serves to hasten your own end faster than it would naturally come.
So the latest with Coke and Delta Airlines is that they did what they could to punish the state of Georgia for passing a voting law designed to protect voting rights. Somehow, the decision makers at Coke and Delta Airlines were confused into believing that the Georgia law is a bad thing, when in fact it is a very good and important thing. Voting is the basis of our entire American enterprise, and if voting ceases to mean anything, the entire thing ceases to mean anything. So anything that can protect the concept and practice of one person-one vote is a good thing. Except in the eyes of Coke and Delta Airlines executives.
Maybe they are so tight with China’s leaders, who desire to use weak American voting laws to elect people in America who are favorable to China, that they have thrown America overboard.
So people like me, who value voting rights and counting all legal votes, are unhappy with Coke and Delta Airlines. As a result of our unhappiness, we have been looking for alternatives to these two products. After all, we would rather support companies that are at least not at our throats.
Therefore, I am happy to announce the discovery of a very refreshing alternative to Coca Cola Coke, and that is the Weis brand of sodas (see photo below) (I “discovered” these refreshing Weis sodas at my friend Scott’s house, in an ice chest cooler, on his porch). Most generic, off-brand sodas are not very tasty or refreshing. I mean, let’s face it, Pepsi and Coke spent decades perfecting their products to meet the widest taste acceptance possible. These two companies have been so successful they now completely dominate the soda market. Very few competitors can even try to take some market share from them. And that means that most competitors who do show up have expensive alternatives, or their products are not very good tasting. Until now.
Whatever Weis is doing, their diet cola tastes a lot like diet Coke. It is very close to the same taste soda drinkers enjoy. It is also cheaper than Coke. Weis is a regional company, run by a family from Sunbury, Pennsylvania. Weis has been a part of my own food shopping experience since I was a child, and they still are now in my adult years. So see if you can find a local Weis, and try some of their sodas. I was more than pleasantly surprised at how good they are; actually, I was almost shocked.
If you are looking for a good alternative or substitute to Coke, try Weis. You will like it, and you will be supporting a local family run business, not some global corporation working hard to make friends with America’s worst enemies, and punish Americans for protecting America.
