WCVB

September 15, 2014

Thank you to the people who are trying, courageously, to show that they don't support the conglomerate's agenda.

I don't want to be the clothing code police.  I hate how much I feel that I have to think about every clothing decision for what I wear.  It's also sad, how many years I have spent wearing only a few colors, of all the colors there are.

I am serious when I say that the unequivocal statement needs to be made that the conglomerate's agenda is an agenda of crime and human rights abuses, that the agenda won't be promoted, and that those crimes and human rights abuses won't be tolerated. Code alone can't make that statement, and code alone can't defeat definite actions that make that statement.

Those who object to corruption always risk turning into zealots, or turning other people into zealots.  I don't want to be a zealot or encourage other people toward zealotry.  I object when people are obviously trying to promote the conglomerate's agenda, but I don't like to think of people feeling bullied into wearing things that someone who was trying to make a conglomerate-supportive interpretation wouldn't be able to distort.  I don't think a day has passed in the past 4 years that the conglomerate hasn't attacked me, cackling at what it has decided is proof of tacit conglomerate support in my language, food, clothing, books, music, choice of route, sleeping position, and everything else.

Like all bullies, the conglomerate insists that everyone do the evil things it does. It also believes that everyone wants to do those things, and that people who say they don't want to do them are lying or prissy.  Like all bullies, the conglomerate damns you if you don't do the evil things it does.  Once you know that its abuse is unavoidable because it is abusive and not because you did something to deserve or attract that abuse, making decisions under its scrutiny is less fraught with fear and guilt.  Instead of thinking "How do I avoid being attacked" you are thinking about what you'll do when you are attacked.

Copyright L. Kochman, September 15, 2014 @ 6:56 p.m./edited @ 6:59 p.m.