Ⓒ Alessandra Meniconzi
This part expands on the last comment in part one and explores the subtle influencing of our thinking.
Now and then articles appear about how damaging the 60s were, and they are right.
Those times damaged the elite, the social order, governments and for a while businesses, but not the people. Oh no! We all had a fair old time breaking down the barriers and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Instead, question the motives of those who decry the 60’s. Are they trying to stop you from raising your voice again? Some even suggest that the protests of that time - there were lots - achieved nothing. Except, in reality they did.
To mention a few lasting areas. Whaling was halted, seal clubbing halted, dolphin culling halted. The fur trade was encouraged to ‘shut down’. While for the people, working conditions were dramatically changed. Changes which many of us still enjoy. There were other changes too. And ‘us small’ people started our own businesses and began questioning governments and the status quo (no not the group!)
The environmental movements started around then too, as did the WWF. People’s awareness of their environment and position within it changed, for example, the peoples rights to roam were being explored- against the establishments wishes. And so things continued to change until the 80s when the collectives took control of the government once more and began bullying the populace again. But that is another essay for someone else to write - I simply do not have the stomach or stamina to face Thatcherism and Blairism again.
Generally, you’ll find most gripes about the 60s originate from businesses and the political end of things, as well as the families of the investors who made less money or lost it altogether. But they are merely expressing grudges that are at least 60 years old. The Collectives have long memories and hate losses.
As a happily fully paid up member of the hoi polloi I can say hand on heart that the social changes were welcomed. I saw how society eagerly edged away from the darkness of the collectives shadows in 40s into the glimmering light of the 50s and on to the floodlights of the 60s and early 70s, before Thatcher dulled the lights once more.
For most of us, the changes were good, and we happily dismissed class pretensions which is still evident today in the regional accents of newscaster and presenters on T.V. We shrugged off the shadows of the overlords while rejoicing in the free flow of jazz and the thinking of Jean Paul Sartre and the like. I argue strongly that people today owe their freedom to live and work how and where they choose because of the 60s and early 70s. Now we have to put the same effort into changing business ethics and putting right the environment.
The spirit of the 60s and 70s shows that we can come together and make a difference if we are willing to first face what is stopping us.
In one form or another, every major business around the world is contaminated with the The Psychopathy Of Business syndrome. It is that which the environmentalists fight on behalf of the population and the environment.
Consider this comment.
“Nothing will change on climate until death toll rises in west,” says Gabonese minister - Cop27 - Link: From The Guardian
His message was frightening, yet at the time it hardly raised a voice. Why…? That is partly explored in The Shadowy Regions Of Our Subconscious (part three). For now, hold onto these two words - Prejudice and Indigenous. Now we move on again.
It is easy to provide a long list of historical examples illustrating The Psychopathy of Business at work, one long enough to make heads spin. But here are few examples, The South Sea Trading Company, The East Indian Trading Company, and The Highland Clearance - that gem involved the mass clearance of millions of Scots from their ancestral homes to satisfy the wants of The English ‘Collective’. That is the subject of many books, but not those generally found in a comprehensive schools library
All of the above was encouraged by a Royal family and a government keen to enlarge their domains by adding Scotland into what was eventually to become the UK. Which they still fight to hold onto the last vestige of empire. Just as they do their financial philosophies, even when they are shown to be wrong.
Link: Has GDP outgrown its use - Financial Times.
There are many more articles and well-informed websites such as this one UN Charter for Ecological Justice - Poems For Parliament, who argue well that GDP is wrong and is the cause, the drive if you like, behind the destruction of our environment. On that site there are also some excellent ideas for the way forward.
Let’s just briefly allude to other land grabs for profit. Ireland, India, the Americas, Canada, the West Indies and the Caribbean, China, Africa, Australia, New Zealand and so on and all taken and ransacked for the sake of The Collective’s profit. Other countries such as Spain, Portugal, France, Holland and so on all have their walks of shame to answer for.
The history of covetousness behind the Highland Clearance and the hundred of thousands if not million(s) of Scottish deaths is enough to make a decent person cry in shame, without all the other outrages to consider. And all committed for the sake of the enrichment of a few.
The wonder for me is that in the UK we still hang onto a Royal Family. But then it is not the people deciding that, it is The Collective. I suspect they seek preferments while longing for those days when they were able to shape the world to their wants without hindrance.
Touches of The Psychopathy Of Business was obvious in Truss’s philosophy - we must massively increase production and commerce. Without care for where such materials might be plundered from and the pollutants produced. She was rightly ousted, but only because she threatened The Collective’s wallets - it was not for environmental concerns.
For those supportive of her thinking this article is sounding a little like a communist manifesto, but it is not. It is a fact that commerce has to exist, but not in those guises and certainly not run with the present Psychopathy Of Business compelling it forward to engulf all like swarms of hungry locusts.
The following is a very simple illustration of The Psychopathy Of Business at work - explained in a more personal and simple way that we can all appreciate.
Some will look at the following image of an Indigenous Lady in her home and see her quiet contentment with life and happy willingness to make do. Even a little mockery perhaps at the photographer’s eagerness to take her picture.
What that sees is an Indigenous who is exploitable. And who might earn lots of money if forced into a brothel! And as for those rugs of hers…! They’ll fetch a fair price for sure. They just have to be taken, that’s all.
Ⓒ Alessandra Meniconzi
None of that is an exaggeration. It is a sad fact of life. Indigenous girls often end up in brothels. So much is taken from their villages and country that they have little choice. Or they are kidnapped. And aren’t we, via businesses, plundering their resources still? Please wonder why their countries are so poor that they have no choice but to sell off their assets cheaply to us in the West.
As to the methods used to remove her from her rugs, they could range from barter, force, intimidation, coercion or at the worst for the coveting business, purchased - but at the lowest possible price of course. And you never know, because she is indigenous she might even accept a handful of pretty glass beads in exchange?
The attitude behind the last comment is at the heart of what is destroying the environment and that is explored further in part three, The Shadowy Regions Of Our Subconscious.
“It’s dog eat dog,” some say about the above. But a dog will only eat another dog if there is nothing else left to eat… And anyway, what a horrible psychopathic argument that is!
On closer examination, the syndrome is enough to make the fair-minded weep. Yet we the populace say and do nothing. We even respect the CEOs because they wear suits and shake hands with politicians. Maybe so, but that does not stop them from being psychopathic. They want their wants, and will do whatever to attain their goals. They will even smile at Liz Truss or back Trump or shake Putin’s hand.
COP26 reasoned at length that the world must reduce its reliance on fossil fuels. Which most sane people agreed was fair enough. Except, we know that the promised reductions did not happen and lawsuits abounded, started by businesses angry that their assumed right to mine and destroy the planet in pursuit of profit was being hampered. And of course, governments caved in to the emperors demands!
COP27 saw more representatives from the Oil industry attending than all the other delegates put together. And it was said their ‘booths’ were the most visited. They know how damaging their products are, and have known since the 50s (Exxon), yet there they were frantically peddling their poison. That is The Psychopathy Of Business at work.
You will and must use our products. We do not care if they kill the environment and people. We want our wants and you will make sure that we get them.
The Psychopathy Of Business.
We will never solve environmental issues while The Collectives utilise The Psychopathy Of Business. Never!
Arguably at present, all we are doing is choosing the wallpaper to put up on a damp ridden cracked plastered wall, one beset with mould and fungi - a wall most likely owned by The Collective.
We the people have to perform an exorcism on the Collectives and force out The Psychopathy Of Business. If we fail, the damages presently being done to the planet will continue.
What severely hinders us from achieving anything lasting at the moment is The Collectives ongoing social and financial engineering of societies around the world - including their rigid adherence to that awful environmentally destructive GDP philosophy, that free-pass to do as they like and where they like, so beloved by businesses and governments.
The contempt The Collectives have for our lives and the planet was pointedly illustrated by how the collective howled derisively and mocked and taunted a small country when the ruler dared to suggest:-
People's happiness is the true measure of a country's success, not GDP.
But now fellow sufferers buckle up, for it’s time to enter part three, The Shadowy Realms Of The Subconscious.
Comments as usual to author@theannstories followed by .co.uk