Humanism against corporatism rises up in a surprising revolution, locally and across the globe
Humanism against corporatism rises up in a surprising revolution, locally and across the globe
Are we seeing the birth of a counter-culture evolution?
Yesterday I submitted an edited version of The major role played by Idexx in crafting the Major Business Headquarters Expansion Act, to Newsbreak, which remained “under review” for about twenty-four hours. It was published several hours ago but still has no impressions. So wait and see how this latest conversation with the machine evolves……or not.
I am getting the message that someone does not want this story to be told.
The story is a follow-up report to How Paul LePage codified the global capitalist world order into the Maine statutes, which was originally rejected by Newsbreak claiming “misinformation” but was published shortly after I appealed it as an unsubstantiated assertion.
It is unlikely I would have gone deeper into this story but for the assertion that the first story was “misinformation”, with warnings left in place even after publishing the story. It felt like intimidation.
Whatever happens with Newsbreak, this newsletter will shine a light on the mechanisms of the expanding wealth divide, a major legacy of my generation, that is protested loudly by succeeding generations who, among the workforces are having an “I’ve had enough and I’m not going to take it anymore!” moment. The movement has grown so loud that it now has a name. It is called “The Great Resignation”. There doesn’t seem to be a plan or an understanding among the workforces of how it all came to be, just “We’re not doing this anymore!”. That can only last so long without a real direction, though the attitude is quite refreshing and is exactly the courage needed.
As one who inherited a small ceramic design and slip-casting enterprise, I have grown used to swimming against the tide of big corporatism. Who are all these other swimmers and floaters in my waves? I thought that only happened when the waters are the warmest! Welcome! Cool waters run deep, and this new wave is very cool!
I Want to Live in a Van Down by The River by Jessica Wildfire.
The program of subsidized corporations is sold on the premise of ensuring security when there is none. It may seemingly require greater courage to jump off the beaten track and follow one’s course but stories of people nearing the age of retirement who get laid off just before qualifying for a pension, reflect the general consensus of the prevailing corporate mindset that prioritizes profits over people. One’s fate and destiny are in the hands of the corporate overlords, at every turn. To make their jobs easier, corporate management has created a culture of the unindividualized grid. The grid dwellers are waking up from the dream and realizing that this isn’t going where I thought it was supposed to go.
The Great Resignation: Why Millions Are Now Fed Up of Corporate Bullshit by U-Ming Lee is a well-expressed explanation of what is going on among the corporate workforces across the world. The comments are also worth reading, particularly the one by Ed Blosch. It’s not only about the money. It’s about humanism.
The spontaneous revolt of the workforces is a response to the corporate mindset exemplified by Idexx as it extracts capitalization funding from Maine working people through multiplying corporate incentives, in non-disclosed amounts, negotiated by state authorities who act as if they do not answer to the people. Idexx shares are sold on the stock market to become a passive income for others, capitalized by Maine working people.
Let us not forget that we are governed by Constitutions and the Maine Constitution specifically reserves the power of taxation to those elected by the people.
Maine Constitution: Section 9. Power of taxation. The Legislature shall never, in any manner, suspend or surrender the power of taxation.
In the story of Idexx, it is easy to see the mechanisms that increase the wealth divide. In the prevailing order, people who work for a living are the losers while the winners depend on a “workforce class” to capitalize and sustain their fountain of wealth.
Working has come to provide fewer and fewer basic living needs. The working people capitalize OPO (other people’s ownership) means of production through taxation but can no longer afford to own a home of their own.
Jessica Wildfire, an influencer who calls herself an “unfluencer”, is upset at the prospect that she will never have the spacious house of the American dream. People need more space than the grid is willing to give. Life on the road in the wilderness is looking pretty good these days.
There is a direct relationship, between the centralized economy and the expanding wealth divide, but people do not see it, in part because it is hidden. The mainstream media does not report on it. Medium is where one gets to hear the many voices, not just the mainstream, not limited to the message crafted by corporate culture but including those living inside of it.
Minute by minute update on the state of the modern media….
Margaret Sullivan is the media columnist for The Washington Post. She has a new book: Ghosting the News: Local Journalism and the Crisis of American Democracy. She wrote about it for the Atlantic.
The Constitution Doesn’t Work Without Local News
Local news makes a huge difference. A PEN America study concluded last year that as local journalism declines, “government officials conduct themselves with less integrity, efficiency, and effectiveness,” and corporate malfeasance goes unchecked. With the loss of local news, citizens are less likely to vote, less politically informed, and less likely to run for office, according to the study. Democracy loses its foundation.
If we in the 21st century are to remain true to their vision, we must find a way—indeed, many ways—to reinvent local journalism before it is too late.
Atlantic Magazine The Constitution Doesn’t Work Without Local News
Newsbreak could play an important role. I am trying to figure out where they stand. After about seven hours of zero impressions, impressions jumped to 370. Thereafter they rose quite steadily and continue to do so. They are now more than the previous article.
As you can see the story with the lowest impressions is the story where Andersen Design becomes part of the story. Is that why the impressions are so low? If I don’t tell our story. Who will?
Talking about the local news:
A recent story in the Boothbay Register is titled Concerns raised over Boothbay Winter Festival Traffic. Three people of Boothbay are protesting the town for allowing Lester Spear to stage a Town Fair on the Commons during Gardens Aglow, objecting to the additional Christmas lights and claiming the Fair will create traffic congestion.
The Fair began with van life, not living in a van, but operating an independently-owned free enterprise in a van. It’s so hip to the new spirit of the dawning times.
Last year, Lester Spear hosted an event featuring food trucks, ice sculptures, and many many Christmas lights, on his own property.
The event was a success but many of the good people of Boothaby were upset. Boothbay is a town, with ordinances intended to limit the growth of home businesses. The objection to home businesses, I am told, is that multiple cars might park on the premises.
And so the good people of Boothbay complained about the cars parked along the roadside of Lester Spear’s successful event and the town passed a new ordinance forbidding cars to park along the roadside on that stretch of the road.
But then something unexpected happened!
The town offered Lester Spear the use of the Town Commons. Traffic going to the Botanical Gardens passes by the Commons, making it prime real estate for a fair!
This also upset the good people of Boothbay. They complained about the additional Christmas lights that Spears is adding to the town lights and said the fair would cause traffic congestion!
The protest opened up the conversation of traffic congestion at the Center of town so I posted the following comment. I hope this long-winded analysis does not bore my reader. It is essential to the point of how differently grassroots entrepreneurs, taxed to subsidize large corporations like Idexx, are treated compared to wealthy developers.
Country club owner and town developer, Mr. Coulombe was put in charge of the design of our public infrastructure without having a clue about the first rule of design: Form follows function.
My comment in the Boothbay Register:
The traffic is created by the Gardens, and the congestion is created by the roundabout.
The Commons is for the people's use and pre-exists both the Gardens and the roundabout- the sources of the traffic congestion.
Before the roundabout there was a one-way roundabout around the Commons, which since the roundabout was installed has become a two way street, that sometimes abruptly becomes a one-way-dead-end street without warning. My impression of that is the roundabout's transformation of a one-way street into a two-way street, accommodating new entrances to the country club, compromised the parking around the Commons, requiring the two-way street to be blocked off at one end to allow for parking when events take place on the Commons. Since the one-way street became a two-way street the former parking system used for events on the Commons became problematic, and the solution created the abrupt-without-a-warning-dead-end street- not continuing around the Commons.
When I encountered the abrupt dead end sign, I had to back up into that large parking lot that meets the new two-way-suddenly-one-way-dead-end street around the Commons. I am guessing the new parking lot connecting to the new two-way street around the Commons belongs to Mr. Coulombe, who was in charge of designing the roundabout, per DOT rules of public-private relationships. It is the roundabout which creates all the congestion in the center of Boothbay, not only during the Garden's big traffic event, but during the seasonal busy season as well.
There is also the Town Office parking that was used for parking for Commons events in the past but if there is a lot of foot traffic going across the walkway in front of the roundabout and simultaneously there is a lot of traffic coming from the Gardens and going out of town travelling on Corey Lane, newly relocated to make a roundabout intersection, where there is no traffic light or other system for governing the rules of the road, the Corey Lane traffic could block the passageway of the traffic coming from the Harbor if traffic has to wait for people crossing the road to and from the town parking lot.
There is also a Church Parking lot which does not have the roundabout issue as directly as the Town Parking lot. Perhaps temporary traffic lights could be used at the roundabout to direct the traffic and prevent congestion within the circle.
Perhaps, all things considered, Mr. Coulombe could be kind enough to make that large parking lot available to off season events on the People's Commons. After all. the Commons event parking is off to the side of the main throughway, not plopped down in the middle of the main throughway causing permanent traffic congestion!
Most of the year there is practically no traffic coming to and fro the Commons entrance to the roundabout, which was the only intersection with the main throughway before the roundabout was installed. How ironic that the traffic going to and from the Commons intersection is said to be the cause of congestion! We should build a four million dollar roundabout "so that the traffic can flow" but prohibit traffic from flowing to and from the one intersection that was there to begin with?
The transformation of the road going roundabout of the Town Commons into the roundabout in the middle of the main throughway is an enduring political symbol of what is going on in this town and state and the world, a symbol of the people not considered while public-private relationships make deals in their own self-interest. Businesses in or attached to a home are discouraged because cars might park in their driveways but a large developer disrupts the infrastructure affecting the entire community, creating a royal mess, and is treated like the Emporer wearing no clothes! FACT! The roundabout has created a traffic congestion problem that is only going to get worse! Let’s get rid of that roundabout! It’s the smart thing to do.
Andersen Design hopes to be part of The Fair organized by Lester Spear but there are still problems to solve.
Andersen Design has been using the tagline “Taking the road less traveled since 1952” long before exiting the grid suddenly went mainstream. We are the poster child of taking the road less traveled as Idexx is the poster child of the public-private state - because we earned it!
We are considering collaboration in space in the Town Fair, which would make the scheduling easier. It is for four days a week for four weekends but promises a high turnout. If interested, you know where to find us.
The Fair as Networking event for Andersen Design Museum of American Designer Craftsmen!
If we can bring it all together, we would also like to use the event as networking in the interest of finding three board members so that we can get our revolutionary counter-culture Museum officially established as a 501(3)(C) with a fiscal sponsorship function to benefit other travelers discovering the road once less traveled.
The energy of the new awareness is a surprising and unexpected turn of events, but to build a life outside of the corporate grid requires a plan and commitment. The designer-craftsman life is engaging and independent. In its function as a fiscal sponsor, the Museum will provide a means to the individualistic pathway of the independent grassroots entrepreneurs, interested in establishing a designer-craftsmen business. Since a business in a home is a historical popular lifestyle of the designer craftsmen, once called cottage industry, the non-profit mission of the museum will also intersect with a new category of affordable housing that incorporates a business in a home.