Your Saturday Cartoon
by Noah
I think that most people that exist in a corporate style environment will have their brain rotting after a while and chances are they won't even know it. I've worked in four such environments and have seen very few people who have escaped unscathed. The corporate media is a prime example. I've seen the inquisitive traits of journalists, pundits, or whatever you want to call them get slowly and methodically sanded away until all is smooth. The best ones start out with a kind of zeal and determination to "get it right" and then one day the writing is no longer aimed at informing but aimed at not offending car companies, pharmaceutical companies, and the like. Nothing is revealed and therefore nothing changes except the savings accounts of the performing bears.
Same with the political world. That's a strikingly similar environment. At least some of the winning candidates come into it with sense and sensibility but along comes the big brain sander and, ptoof! The energy, morality and desire to inform and improve is gone. Money doesn't talk, it swears. Gotta keep those car and pharma guys happy! Are you seeing a trend? It's all just like Invasion Of The Body Snatchers. Decades ago, I worked in a place called Black Rock. It was the world headquarters of CBS, Inc. A couple of us used to see what I'm talking about happen to people and it didn't seem to matter what division of the corporation they worked in. We'd joke that, all of a sudden, we'd seen a co-worker not care enough to be committed to an ideal anymore. For some, it was more important to be wearing "the right suit" or "the right shoes."
Their emotions and expressions had gone blank. Their eyes were now dead, and we'd also joke that we'd seen the remains of the pod vegetation right outside their office door in the morning. Yeah, just like Invasion Of The Body Snatchers. Maintenance had come along by 10:00 and swept it all up. Another corporate employee was just a mindless pod person now, contributing nothing. This is how companies and governing bodies grow stale and useless. Then, it all becomes a living death, drifting on to the inevitable failure.
The legal system? The lawyers? The judges? Who wrote the laws? Who structured the legal frameworks? Who passed the legislation? The politicians. Who helped put them where they are? Who reports on their doings and doesn't do enough looking into the nuances? We look to all these people and more to make sense out of all the mess. Clergy? Don't make me puke. A fake brass ring afterlife not even worth discussing. All of this is bullshit as a dollar store artform. Look at what the no longer Supreme Court has done to us all. They, too, have been corrupted by corporate thinking and they gladly accepted the cash along with the afternoon teas in the Hitler Gardens. So easy. They accepted it all happily from the billionaires that made that cash running things like car companies and pharmaceutical companies. Which came first? Those who benefited from the votes of voters or those who brainwashed the voters into how they voted. Chicken or the egg? A vicious circle. We never had a chance.