Lao Tsu, an older contemporary of Confucius, was keeper of the imperial archives at Loyang in the province of Honan in the sixth century B.C. All his life he taught that “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao”; but, according to ancient legend, as he was riding off into the desert to die – sick at heart at the ways of men – he was persuaded by a gatekeeper in northwestern China to write down his teaching for posterity.

- Gia-Fu Feng, translator, Vintage Books edition of the Tao Te Ching, 1972

In the past few weeks, one phrase in the above passage keeps pulling at my sleeve.

As the extent of corporations’ rapacious practices – which have been fully and eagerly aided and abetted by our “leaders” – have become clear in this Silent Spring, it is the only phrase that fully captures my feelings.

Far more than I can ever recall in my 50 years, I feel sick at heart at the ways of men.

The way we continue to pursue the unattainable – ever-increasing profitability for every for-profit entity in existence, along with those not yet created – is simply, undeniably, categorically wrong.

The way ideologues, through factless “fact” and rhetorical acrobatics – succeed in keeping us on this dwindling path, that’s wrong, too.

The way we delude ourselves. The way we ignore science.

“The way the camera follows us in slo mo…”

Wrong. All of it. So very, very wrong.

Our Mother stands violated in the name of our constant thirst for ROI. Toxins bleed into the womb from whence we crawled millions of years ago on our way to the canopy, from which we would in turn descend many millions of years later still.

All for a higher share price. Always a higher share price.

Hundreds of thousands of us have fought long and hard, for decades, to warn of this day.

In the end, we were ignored. Completely.

Sure, we raised a little consciousness – among our own choir. We even grew its ranks. We organized. We protested. We marched. We sang. We chanted.

But we lost. Big.

The proof floats in the Gulf of Mexico, and is washing onto our shores. Regardless what Haley Barbour has to say about it.

What happens next? We already know.

Nothing.

That’s what happened after Obama/Biden. After Clinton/Gore. After Exxon/Valdez.

Are we gullible-stupid-naive-hippie-pacifist-loopy enough to think things will be different now?

They won’t.

Not through “laws” (suggestions), “regulators” (whores), or “technology” (shortcuts). Nor through “Congress” (accomplices), “free market capitalists” (robber barons), or ”green incentives” (corporate welfare).

Until we make corporate crime – and rape is a crime – NOT pay, nothing will change.

The magnitude of the task is daunting; to make even a dent, we will need to succeed on two fronts.

First, we must frame corporate crime in the broadest possible terms: It must be nothing short of any policy or practice by any company which in any way limits any human from enjoying basic freedoms, rights, and access to opportunity. We must make the complete changing of corporate culture and business practice the social issue it actually is, on the same plane as Civil Rights, Gay Rights – in short, Human Rights.

Second, each of us will need to do whatever we can to profoundly change the way we live, and the way we work. We must see many of our ”conveniences” for what they really are: luxuries the Earth – and future generations – simply cannot afford.

We must take bikes, not cars. We must eat what we can grow, or what is grown within biking distance of our homes.

We should imagine and create new modes of transportation. How about super-lightweight passenger ”cars,” even buses, weather-tight and driven like our gas drinkers are now – but in which each rider pedals?

How about if we tell our employers which 40 hours of our lives they can have every week – rather than them telling us? Seriously, when was the last time there was a general strike in this country? And if not now – when?

There’s another option, of course.

Also at the core of Taoist belief, it’s stated in the notes of that same 1972 translation quoted up top:

Accept what is in front of you without wanting the situation to be other than it is. Study the natural order of things and work with it rather than against it, for to try to change what is only sets up resistance. Nature provides everything without requiring payment or thanks, and also provides for all without discrimination – therefore let us present the same face to everyone and treat all men as equals, however they may behave.

I’ve been an activist all my life, but at this moment – in the face of corporations’ near-total control of the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink, the health care we get, the way we work – and yes, the leaders we elect – I’m as close as I’ve ever come to giving up and pulling a Henry David Thoreau. Retreating to the woods. Leaving The Grid behind. And giving myself over to the joy of neither knowing – nor caring – exactly how bad things are “out there.”

Not to mention the joy of doing an honest day’s work – for nobody but me.

And the time, now and then, to do nothing at all.

Cross-posted at The Malcontent.