Last week’s Supreme Court decision, effectively giving Monsanto and other megacorporations the power to buy our senators and representatives in Congress really threw me into a tailspin. I’ve seen this thing coming for months now, but I don’t think I ever really allowed myself to consider this outcome a possibility. After all, even my nine year old knows the difference between living things and those that aren’t. The whole fiasco was simply inconceivable until it actually happened.

The idiots who applauded this decision were quick to point out that labor unions were included in this ruling, but seriously, when was the last time organized labor actually stood on equal footing with big business? That’s like sending Pee Wee Herman into a boxing ring to fight Mike Tyson; no contest.

Big business and its endless, insatiable drive for more, more, more will soon own our government outright. No more hiding behind lobbyists and PAC’s, even foreign governments will be able purchase a piece of the pie by simply setting up or buying their own corporate entity. I can see the floor debates now.

“The Senator from Walmart has the floor.”

blah, blah, blah…

“I yield to the distinguished gentleman from Exxon for a colloquy.”

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…

“I thank my friend, the Senator from United Health, and yield back the balance of my time.”

Maybe they should wrap their desks with sponsor logos the way NASCAR teams decorate their cars. Throw in a few fiery crashes or fist fights in the aisle and Joe Six-pack might even tune in to watch the spectacle.

Meanwhile… Rome burns.

The real problem here is the huge magnitude many corporations have grown to in recent decades. Quite a few corporations are now so enormous that they dwarf the economies of many third world nations in both economic power and political influence.

Whether the owners of these behemoths are sick, evil bastards or simply misguided fools, super-size corporations are just too damn big and we’ve got to cut’em down to size before we all end up in the belly of some corporate beast.

Once upon a time, most industry was local – locally owned, locally operated, beneficial to the local economy. Local businesses created jobs in the communities where they operated. Owners paid taxes and supported philanthropic work in the regions where they lived and employees spent their paychecks, for the most part, at local and regional businesses.

Local communities thrived, but that model got pushed to the curb as bigger and bigger conglomerates purchased local industries and more and more of the revenue generated began flowing to corporate stockholders living outside the local economy.

Eventually the economies of scale ideology took hold and small factories were merged into larger facilities with more automation and requiring fewer workers. Then came off-shoring, the relocation of  entire industries to other countries where labor costs are lower and regulations more relaxed or non-existent.

Today, most manufacturing, the backbone of any sustainable economy, happens elsewhere in the world. Our middle class is on the verge of extinction and most people are in debt up to their eyeballs. The price of everything far outstrips its value, and the banksters and other corporate profiteers refuse to see that without a vibrant middle class there’s nobody left to buy their products or services.

We need to return to the smaller, more diverse local and regional scale of commerce and industry of a few generations ago, re-tool our communities toward sustainable economic models and become less dependent on banks, factories, and farms that are too big to fail, but it’s going to be a steep, uphill battle. Big money likes its power, and it won’t give up without a fight.

We’ve got to begin now – today – getting behind the few remaining independent voices in Congress. We’ve got to push for major campaign finance reform, or even an end to campaigning in general, as my friend News Writer has suggested. We’ve got to get behind legislators who offer bold new ideas such as those proposed by Congressman Alan Grayson.

We’ve got to demand reform of our electoral process to encourage third, fourth, and even fifth political parties to enter the debate and give voters who favor them the opportunity to make a realistic contribute to the process. Instant run-off voting and similar electoral reforms can make just such a difference and are ideas that must be brought to fruition even if it means temporarily entering into loose coalitions with those we are otherwise diametrically opposed to long enough to get the job done.

Ending the tyranny of the two-party duopoly would be a huge step in the right direction, and the recent influence of the Tea Party movement, vomit inducing as it is to progressives, just proves that the climate is ripe for reform to occur. We need to get out in the streets and make it known that we will not go quietly and perhaps follow the example of our brothers and sisters in Europe and hold a general strike, after all, nothing gets the attention of big business and our government like reduced profits.

All it would take is one or two election cycles to fill the halls of government with fresh faces willing to work together to reverse the rules that have for so long undermined the will of the people and left us the poorest example of democracy on the planet.