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Hi Chris, you touched on so many important points and I'm blown away by your prolific, high quality output. Deeper posts are great, yet I enjoy your punchy ones just as much. Maybe mix things up from time to time?

I totally agree with your assessment “This capitalism thing isn’t working. This idea that anyone can and should be rich at the expense of others is careless, toxic, and also untrue.”

Instead of striving for material riches, I see more and more people striving to become rich in a myriad ways our humanity find expression in this soul factory called planet Earth.

I'm currently working my way through two books, and think they are relevant to your topic:

1. The Corporation by Joel Bakan

The author goes into the history of these entities called corporations and discusses in depth how in the 21st century corporations have evolved and adopted language and public “personas” that can be seen to be doing and saying things like caring for the environment and society. But that, in fact, it's only in as far as it makes business sense and not one inch further, that capitalism "allows" this type of social / environmental responsibility to drive business agendas. It’s a sophisticated marketing ploy, basically.

2. Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt by Chris Hedges

I'll leave you with two thought provoking quotes from this highly recommended book. The first is from the author himself, at the end of Chapter 1 discussing the decimation of American Indian society and culture in context of the “corporate state”. He says: “The old conflict between Indians and Euro-Americans, between colonisers and colonised, between masters and serfs, is the template for the last act of the corporate state. The tyranny we imposed on others is now being imposed upon us. We too are wage slaves. We, too, no longer know how to sustain ourselves. We, too, do not grow our own food or make our own clothes. We are as dependent on the corporate state as the Indians who were herded into the agencies and stripped of their self-sufficiency. Once trapped on reservations, once the buffalo herds no longer existed, once Indians could no longer move bands to gather wild potatoes, wild turnips, berries, medicines, and cottonwood bark for their horses in the middle of winter, once they could no longer hunt in different places to prevent exhausting the game supply, they became what most of us have become — prisoners.”

The second quote from the same book, is from a letter “Poor Bear” wrote shortly before his death: “The white male hurries because of money. Do not allow that influence of male inside your heart because they have already influenced your mind. The male-influenced world is based on money. Our world is not. We come form the other side. That word is not based on money. There are two senses. One is in this dimension. That one is your flesh. The one in our dimension is our heart. It gives life in a different way. That is real strength. The absolute gift is the warming of the heart not of the flesh. I give you that gift. That is the way we are going to live as a people — not as individuals, but as a people, the people of earth. We all come from our great mother and she is the earth, a child of Tunkasila [Our Grandfather]”

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Wow, Carlos. Thanks so much for this. I've only heard of Days of Destruction, and I haven't read either of these. Thanks for sharing!! I will absolutely check these out. I'm definitely in search of better systems and resources for understanding the parts (and sentiments) of American history that have been hidden from classrooms. Thanks again for your thoughtful and helpful reply!

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