Winter in New England is so long that by the time the first crocuses bloom, I’ve just about given up hope for spring. Even after dozens of winters here, the euphoria of those first blossoms always comes as a surprise. Yesterday was my first sighting of spring flowers, so I have no choice but to welcome April with an exuberant song:
Faudel’s Je Veux Vivre is just the kind of optimistic, energetic tune I crave this time of year. It also makes a nice counterpoint to my earlier post about cheerful messages and depression. No doubt this song won’t be relatable for the truly depressed, but by keeping the tense in the first person, he avoids telling us how to feel, and just shares with us his own joyful experience. Hearing Faudel enumerate the many wonders he wants to live for inspires me to keep in touch with my own list. Music features prominently.
Today we celebrate UNESCO’s World Poetry Day, recognizing poetry as cultural heritage and “the song of our deepest feelings.” For many years, I found poetry difficult to read. As a painfully logical thinker, I like to “get to the bottom” of things, and the best poems have no bottom. The longer I live in this world, however, the less I need to find a singular reading. Each time I listen to these three poems, they activate new strands of thought, passion, meaning and commitment. Since I have not yet exhausted what I can get from these, perhaps others would like to join me in making meaning through listening to these poets speak their truth.
Since corporations are a preoccupation of this blog, I start with one of my favorite poems on that topic:
I first saw this clip about a year ago when I had the good fortune to attend a small workshop on poetry for social change. I’ll never say what a poem is “about,” but his relationship to his voice and the need to speak still takes my breath away:
Finally, this piece takes a well-worn word and allows me to hear it anew, one of the most important words that should always be a living act, not just a political buzz-word. There is so much power in this 2-minute performance, it makes everything seem possible:
Since the US Supreme Court lifted restrictions on corporate political contributions in its 2010 Citizens United ruling, concerns about corporate political power have been growing in this country. And not just among activists: the vast majority of US voters across the political spectrum believe that corporate money is a major threat to our electoral process. As a 20-year veteran of corporate campaigning, I share these concerns, although the focus on election spending strikes me as overly narrow. Political spending is only one of the ways corporations influence our policies and our very perceptions. From junk science to revolving door relationships to PR and outright ownership of the media, the threat is real, but it is not new.
Citizens United and the rulings that preceded it rest on the legal extension of “personhood” to allow corporations to usurp citizens’ Constitutional protections, with little of the accountability. In 1911, Ambrose Bierce defined a corporation as “an ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.” Today’s transnational giants wield exponentially more wealth and power – political, economic, legal and cultural – but Bierce still holds a critical insight: corporations aren’t persons, but their beneficiaries are.
One of the most important precedents for Citizens United was the 1978 Bellotti case, in which First National Bank successfully challenged state restrictions on corporate political spending by means of a First Amendment claim that such spending constituted protected speech. Of course a bank doesn’t have opinions, it represents the interests of its owners and managers: that is who gains extra access and extra representation under this legal regime, through their association with this fictional “person.” If First National, now Bank of America, were a person, it would have been locked up years ago for mistreatment of its employees, customers, competitors, regulators, and the communities in which it operates. This list chronicles the bank’s dozens of fines, settlements and misdeeds since the financial crisis and bailout. And those are just the legal infractions, it doesn’t even capture BoA’s environmentally destructive investments and its equally destructive pollution of our democratic process.
Of course if Bank of America were a person, it would be hard-pressed to find a safety net equal to the 2008 bailout. The fact that we are incarcerating, disenfranchising and abandoning our fellow human beings at heartbreaking and globally unprecedented rates while these serial offenders continue their rampage virtually unchecked should give us all cause for outrage. Unaccountable elites have hidden behind the corporate shield for generations. Granting political rights to structurally amoral, profit-seeking organizations corrupts one of our most important mechanisms for protecting the public interest and pursuing progress. Government of, by and for the people may be an unfulfilled ideal, but moving toward that goal requires a movement that encompasses a breadth of creative strategies and forms of activism. Whether we’re building local solutions, challenging specific harms or building toward broader policies like a Constitutional Amendment, it is we – the human persons on whose consent this government exists – who must make the rules.
I’ll end on a hopeful note because I truly believe in the power of organized (human) people. Do yourself a favor and check out Twice Thou’s the Bank Attack, written for a national protest against Bank of America and starring inspiring organizers from City Life/Vida Urbana, which is fighting back against foreclosures and building strong communities in Boston.
I can’t overstate the power of music. It is one of the few sources of inspiration that I don’t over-think, it has sustained me through rough times, provided the soundtrack to my best moments, and helped me feel connected, energized and ready to charge ahead. So I’d like to welcome each new month on this blog with a song, starting with one of my favorite videos of all time. If we could all “be what I am” and love ourselves like Mariposa Solar, life would be so much richer.
Five years ago this month, I lived through the most traumatic experience of my life. I incurred major losses, both material and intangible, and before I could heal, I needed space to feel that pain and integrate my shock, which meant a couple of years of deep depression.
That summer, I moved to Boston, the home of Life is Good, Inc., a company dedicated to selling clothing and accessories with optimistic mottos. Almost daily, I saw someone wearing or carrying a branded item bearing what felt like an admonition. From friends to strangers to store windows, the message blared: “Life Is Good!” As if I was alone in going through a rough time, and if I couldn’t see the goodness in life, that was just one more failure on my part.
Hyperbole and a Half describes the experience of depression powerfully.Read the full posts here: Part One and Part Two.
Therapy, supportive friends, reflection and writing, and a couple of years of anti-depressants helped me move beyond despondency and build a new life for myself. I’m happier today than I’ve been in years. But I don’t regret my depression: I believe it was an acceptable part of my process of healing, and an understandable expression of my grief, anger and loss.
I don’t impute bad intentions to the makers or wearers of Life is Good. In fact, several friends who wore this brand were among the most supportive and helpful in my healing. They listened to my experiences non-judgmentally and helped me feel connected, valued, and eventually able to see a path forward. In truth, life is good. It is also, in the immortal words of Thomas Hobbes, “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” Life is unfair and full of danger, and while controlling our outlook can be a source of strength, choosing to see life as good is not always the best coping strategy.
Recently, activist Anil Vora expressed a similar ambivalence about the It Gets Better Project. Sharing words of encouragement to help LGBT youth feel less alone and spark a conversation about bullying and discrimination are laudable goals. But as Vora points out, “for many LGBT people it only gets different, not better, and for many others it actually gets worse…” People who don’t identify with the gender they were assigned and people whose love is not exclusively heterosexual continue to face institutional, structural, legal and cultural barriers to equality. Minimizing that reality runs a risk of alienating or erasing some people’s experiences. A more powerful approach is to celebrate people’s ability to make choices that support their lives and transform society for the better. In fact, winning equal rights takes activism and movement-building which are only possible after facing the reality of the problem, coupled with faith that things can change. To me, that is the wisdom of Gramsci’s “pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.”
This is not a condemnation of good intentions but a call to empathy. A caution that such declarative language can be discouraging for those whose experiences at any given moment might not be good, and whose feelings are still valid. That summer, I needed to feel my loss, to process my experience and find a way forward that respected the lessons I had learned. I can’t even count the men who told me to smile during that time; seeing the ubiquitous message that “Life is Good” felt like an accusation that I was wallowing, and it made me feel more alienated and alone than I actually was.
You can make your life and the world better and there is good in life aren’t as pithy, but universalizing statements can do more harm than good. To encourage others and help them feel hope, in my experience really listening and connecting is always more effective than telling someone how they should or will feel.
I’ll close with a few Google searches that make me feel less alone in my ambivalence:
The annual Superbowl has become the best time of year to hear public discussion about advertising, something I wish we could be more critically aware of year-round. This year’s focus was Coca-Cola’s multi-lingual rendition of America the Beautiful, celebrating the nation’s demographic and geographic diversity. Racist and xenophobic backlash online predictably generated the best kind of publicity for Coca-Cola; one NBC anchor declared: “Coca-Cola has always been about inclusion. And they clearly know how to get people talking about their brand.”
Some commentators observed that Coca-Cola is not “about” inclusion, it is about selling its products. But a disheartening number jumped to defend Coca-Cola and applaud its message. A commercial message: a strategy to associate Coke with patriotic multicultural values. At a cost well over $4 million, the ad’s aesthetic or social value is secondary. Its purpose is commercial: an investment in a brand.
The clip’s message is clear: the US encompasses a beautiful diversity, but what unites us all is Coke. Calling Coca-Cola an ally in the work for justice and equality requires tremendous feat of amnesia. Not long ago this corporation held the record for the largest racial discrimination settlement in U.S. history. Coca-Cola doesn’t have feelings or opinions, inclusive or otherwise. It is a corporation, not a human being. No advertisement should lull us into attributing motives other than profit to an institution bound by law and structure to prioritize its own perpetuation and growth. No marketing angle will change Coke’s labor violations and ongoing racial discrimination, or hold this corporation accountable for its global abuses.
so many examples…
Coca-Cola hasn’t cornered the market on hypocritical advertising. Take, for example, recent appeals to feminist values like the Pantene series which flies in the face of parent Procter & Gamble’s corporate track record of gender discrimination and sexual harassment of female employees, not to mention its funding for reactionary and anti-gay political candidates.Marketing statements don’t signify a policy or commitment of any kind. Often the same corporation promotes different messaging around its male-targeted brands.
Information on corporate practices is easily available, there’s no excuse for relying on ads and misinformation for an impressionistic view of the corporations that dominate our media and consumer landscape. It’s satisfying to stand up to misogynist or racist backlash, but we should avoid adding fuel to the fire which seeks to burn away the corporation’s track record and actual practices in a blinding crucible of positive associations. By provoking the trolls, Coke and Pantene hope to summon our (brand) loyalty by provoking the bogeyman on the right. Personally, I get enough of that at the ballot box. I’d rather hear corporate actions speaking louder than ads.
Countering ingrained assumptions: writing is integral to my un-learning process.
