By Charles Springer
If homeless American citizens are treated as if they are not because we don’t pay taxes, then why are corporations who move jobs and corporate headquarters off American soil to avoid taxes and increase profits called American corporations?
Why should these entities be allowed to have a say in the making of laws and policy in the federal, state and local governments? Such as the “no sleep zones” set up by the “corporate coalition,” which now seems to be dictating Santa Monica’s homeless policy.
What is the difference between the regimes we toppled in other countries for human rights abuses and the corporate “regime” here in Santa Monica? They have a “kinder, gentler machine-gun hand,” but a human rights violation is a human rights violation.
Whether it’s nerve-gassing or sleep deprivation and slow starvation, it’s still a violation of human and constitutional rights. We, as decent American citizens, should be thinking about these issues, especially after good ol’ boy King George II has waved the patriotic flag in everyone’s faces for his war in Iraq.
We should be questioning the patriotism behind the motivation of these corporate entities and should be looking for ways to make them either pay taxes and bring the jobs back to U.S. soil or not be an American corporation. And if they continue to send jobs overseas and not move back on the soil of their corporate birth, they should pay the tariffs along with other foreign corporations who import their goods here.
This would really help to stimulate the economy and bring the much needed jobs back to America where they belong.
There are also some in Santa Monica who think they are “elite” because they have money and they can “payve” their way through life. These people — like Tony Street, who has an adverse comment for all of us who live on the street or in a rent-controlled or section 8 apartments — and Mr. Bauer who think they are exempt from all that is happening in this depressed economy. It’s people like them who, if they own mega-coporations, would move the jobs and corporate headquarters off American soil.
By the way Mr. Bauer, if you are so much the “elite,” my challenge still holds for you, and I now extend it to Mr. Street and anyone else who thinks they are “elite” — come out here and live on the street without your money and only what you can carry on your back for one month and see how elite you really are.
If you are the elite, you would take this challenge.
People like this who crave power and money are the ones who, in my opinion, have serious self-esteem problems. They keep the poor and homeless that way to bolster their egos. They are the type of people who run these American corporations who force policies like the anti-sleeping and anti-feeding ordinances on the cities they “occupy,” taking constitutional and civil rights away from those they deem unworthy.
They are the type of people who become as cold and unfeeling as the corporations they run. They are so detatched from the reality of the situation they lose the compassion for the very people who make the money for them. In essence they become nothing more than unfeeling “corporate entities” in human flesh. Profit becomes more important than even the country from whence the sprang.
But there is an easy solution for this problem, besides forcing these corporations back on this soil by threatening to take away their status as an American company and making them pay tariffs.
There should also be an amendment to the constitution calling for a separation of corporation and state. This would give the ruling government control over the corporations and help to stem the tide of corporate greed that has taken its toll on this great nation and this most excellent city by the sea called Santa Monica. (Charles Springer is a freelance artist and writer currently living, not by choice, on the streets of Santa Monica.)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 28, 2003. Read the original PDF.