TheCorporation

by Jesus Gonzalez

  “But that’s...” Michelle sputtered.

  “Deception? Yeah, it’s that and a lot more,” Alan said.

  “Their ultimate goal is to be not only the dominant corporate power in the country, but the world,” Rachel said. She drew another cigarette from the pockets of her coat and lit it. “By applying their methods of operation to their client companies, the more the client produces, the quicker profits are funneled up to Corporate Financial and its dummy company. Think of Corporate Financial as being a giant leech. It establishes links—tentacles, if you will—all over the corporate sector. It inserts their employees in this company, establishes their...methods so to speak, and the client begins employing these methods by fair means and foul. Upper management is quick to go along with this because it means larger profits, which translate to bigger salary increases and bonuses for them.”

  “This is...” Insane was the word that popped into Michelle’s mind. Paranoid was another. But part of her whispered, what if this is true?

  “You saw the behavior today at the meeting,” Alan said, directly addressing Michelle. “How attentive everybody was, how obsessive, how wholly focused they were on the meeting and nothing else. That’s one of Corporate Financial’s methods. They work into you, insinuating themselves into you so that you begin to think and behave like them. It’s like they take control of your thoughts and your life. You become a literal corporate zombie, your only purpose to live is to work for the company’s goals. Your own goals and interests and life become forgotten.”

  “But I don’t understand!” Michelle said, trying to puzzle this out, confused and scared about what she was thinking. “You’re suggesting something...impossible!” Jay O’Rourke’s statement to her last week at the Lone Star kept circling her mind. They’re like something out of that Jack Finney novel Invasion of the Body Snatchers. She refused to believe that.

  Alan must have read what was on Michelle’s mind. “Remember Jay’s little verbal spat with Barb at the Lone Star last week?”

  Michelle nodded.

  “Barb Shull wasn’t the emotionless drone she seemed that night when I first met her a year ago,” Alan continued. “Jay even admitted that to me a few weeks ago. She was always a very career-driven person; one could certainly characterize her as a workaholic. But she totally changed a year ago. Trust me, I saw the change. If you thought she was a corporate drone last week, you would have thought she was a sweetheart a year ago. And back then her employees didn’t think much of her. Now they absolutely loathe her.”

  “So you’re saying she became possessed somehow?”

  “Possessed is a weak word. I prefer the term hijacked. Taken over.”

  “Don’t they mean the same thing?”

  “She’s got it right,” Rachel said. She drew on her cigarette. “Especially in light of what we’ve found out in the past two years or so.”

  “Hmm, yes, I think you’re right.” Alan motioned to Rachel for a cigarette, which she passed to him. She lit it for him with her lighter.

  “What are you talking about?” Michelle asked. She wished they would stop beating around the goddamn bush and just lay it all out.

  Rachel Drummond and Alan Perkins traded a glance. Alan looked a little uncomfortable. Rachel drew on her cigarette, her attention focused completely on Michelle. “Take this for what you will...but Tyler and Marstein’s family were involved in the original incarnation of Corporate Financial. Marstein’s family has an interesting history. They’re from Germany; one of his cousins was a member of the SS. Hubert himself wasn’t a Nazi sympathizer, but he took a keen interest in some of the artifacts his cousin Joseph Marstein amassed during the mid-thirties. You see, Joseph was a devil-worshipper. That’s the only term I can use to describe him. Not an occultist, not a witch, a devil-worshipper. And the material he collected while he was a member of the SS was a cache of rare occult volumes, books on black magic and the like. Joseph was killed in 1942, and Herb sought to have his cousin’s belongings brought to the United States. They finally were, in 1945 by a family member who served in the US Army. Hubert stashed the material away and delved into it more fully. I guess you could say Hubert shared his cousin’s faith.”

  Michelle didn’t know what to say. She could only listen, spell-bound.

  Rachel drew on her cigarette and tapped ashes in the ashtray. “Marstein’s son began to take on a larger role in the family business as the years went by, and when old man Hubert died in 1968, Frank took over as President and Chairman of the Board. By this time he was living in northern California, in the high Sierras, and he maintained offices in San Francisco. He was also well-known in occult circles in the Bay Area to be a very powerful member of a secret satanic organization, one with ties to some pretty sinister groups—the Children of the Night, the Order of the Golden Dawn, groups like that. When he took control of Corporate Financial, the company’s growth began to accelerate drastically. By 1980 they were the largest private consulting firm in the country. Their methods began to slowly creep into the standard everyday practices of corporations across the country, and by the mid-eighties their Human Resources division was beginning to be embraced by their core clients. Ten years later, these methods were widespread, and today they’re spreading faster than you would like to believe.”

  “What are these methods?” Michelle asked.

  “Complete subservience to the corporate cause of your employer in order to feed it and Corporate Financial.”

  “But how does that happen!” Michelle was trying to understand what Rachel and Alan were telling her but she was having a hard time with it. In a way, she did understand some of what they were saying. So many people did what their employers told them to do, no questions asked. Other people (a lot of people, really) had no sense of self-worth or identity and became subservient to their employer as a way of feeling good about themselves. Michelle had never been like this, even when she was working for All Nation. “I understand a lot of people don’t have a mind of their own and—”

  “That’s how they do it,” Alan said quickly. “The first converts are those who can’t think outside the box. They target the emotionally weak and vulnerable, those with no sense of self-worth or identity. They also use methods of psychological warfare to get those that are more strong-willed—they’ll spy on employees, keep track of their personal life, find a way to blackmail them.”

  “How can they do that? They can’t spy on people!”

  “Yes they can.” Alan took a drag on his cigarette. “The Fourth Amendment protects individuals against the government. It doesn’t protect them against other individuals, especially individuals who form a corporate governing body. In the late 1800’s, Congress made various rulings that, in essence, defined corporations. Corporations were given the same rights and status as people, with all the same legal rights as you or I. To make a long story short, after the Civil War, the thirteenth through the fifteenth amendments were ratified to provide full constitutional protections and due process of law to the newly freed slaves in the United States. At the same time, there was a movement against Paine and Jefferson’s rulings almost a hundred years earlier that severely regulated corporations. States had made it illegal for corporations to participate in the political process, made it illegal to lie about their products, and required their books and processes always be open and available to government regulators. They also made laws that gave State and Federal government officials rights to inspect companies and investigate them when they caused pollution, harmed workers, or created hazards for communities. Needless to say, those laws were a constant thorn in the side of many corporations, and with the passage of the 14th amendment, the owners of what were then America’s largest and most powerful corporations—the railroads—figured they’d finally found a way to reverse Paine’s logic and no longer have to answer to ‘we, the people’.”

  Alan paused, his eyes seeming to seek a reaction from Michelle, then he went on. “They would claim a corporation is a person. They w
ould claim that for legal purposes, the certificate of incorporation declares the legal birth of a new person, who should have the full protections the voters have under the bill of rights. Attorneys for railroads filed suits against local and state governments on the issue. This went on for over twenty years, and they hammered the same issue. Finally, four different cases reached the Supreme Court in 1886 when a Recorder of the court wrote into his personal commentary of the case that the Chief Justice said that all the Justices agreed that corporations are persons. This was clearly a clerical error on the Recorder’s part. This headnote had no legal standing, yet it was taken by generations of jurists, including the Supreme Court, who followed and read the headnote but not the decision. The ironic thing about this is the Recorder in this case knew the Court had not ruled on this issue. Since then, Corporations have used this case—Santa Clara County vs. The Union Pacific Railroad—to press their cause further and as a result, these non-living, non-breathing persons are now fully entitled to the full protections that shield people against abuse from government.”

  Michelle sputtered. “That’s—” Insane was the first word that popped into her mind.

  “A few of the largest corporations referenced Santa Clara and successfully claimed the protection of the First Amendment, then lobbied Congress and the FCC so they could take control of our media. Once that was done, they claimed their First Amendment free speech rights to tell us whatever serves their interest and call it news without consideration of its truthfulness or having to worry about giving fair and equal time to other viewpoints. They claim the protection of the Fourth Amendment so they can prevent the EPA and OSHA from inspecting factories or environmental or labor violations without first obtaining the corporation’s permission. They also now have the protection of the Fifth Amendment, and the Fourteenth Amendment. Companies can delve into your personal records, monitor your private email—even from ISPs you maintain outside of work—dig up a lot of information about you that does not relate to your job and they can do it legally.”

  “Furthermore, they’ll play hardball with you,” Rachel said. “They’ll threaten your loved ones, mess up your financial records, do anything to get you to toe the line.”

  “But that’s harassment!” Michelle protested.

  “And they’re very good at it,” Alan said. He regarded her calmly. “Look at it this way. You’re strong-willed, very independent, can think for yourself. Suppose you were a single mother and left your child at a combined school/day care center during the day while you worked. The daycare in question closes at six and you’re always able to get your child by five-thirty. Ninety percent of all employers realize their employees have children and must make arrangements for child care, plus most employers operate from eight to five anyway. Now suppose you’re suddenly told that your workload or your projects are so important that you have to stay at the office until your tasks are done for the day, even if it means missing the deadline for picking your child up. You know you can’t do that: the daycare center will dock you five dollars for every minute you’re late. And you don’t want to do that anyway; your child will grow worried that you haven’t picked him or her up, they’ll get very upset. So you do what any parent will do who puts their child first, and you leave when you usually leave. Maybe you leave a little late, but you still make sure you have enough time to get your child. Only your employer doesn’t like this. They start guilt-tripping you, questioning your loyalty to your job and your profession. You stand your ground. Later that day, they tell you some very personal things about your child, things only you can know. This is delivered as a veiled threat, that if you don’t toe the line at work, your child will be hurt or killed.”

  “That’s when it would stop,” Michelle said, the thought of this scenario chilling her blood. “I’d tell them to fuck off and walk out of there.”

  “That’s what you would do,” Alan said. “But there are people in different situations that wouldn’t do that at first. Maybe they’d be under financial pressure, scared to do anything. Some might try to fight back, but they’d be dealt with severely.”

  “You make these people sound like the mob,” Michelle said.

  “That’s because they behave that way,” Alan said. “I’m not saying they are the mob, but they employ those same methods.”

  “But why would they do this? Companies that would treat their employees that way are only going to lose them and—”

  “They treat their employees that way because they can,” Rachel said. She took a drag on her cigarette, her features stern. “That’s what we’re trying to get through to you. They can do this because they’ve been doing it time and time again. They don’t give a shit about the people who work for them. Their entire goal, their mission, is to make as much money as possible. When they first started such strong-arm tactics, there were people just like you that filed grievances, got lawyers and sued them, the whole nine yards. The courts always sided with the company, especially if it was a company with Corporate Financial on their side.”

  “You mentioned earlier that you admit that working conditions in this country are growing worse,” Alan said. He glanced casually out at the parking lot as he spoke. “Longer hours, companies having less loyalty to their employees, drastic reduction of benefits. It’s been happening very gradually since 1980. And it’s been happening gradually to slowly acclimate the American Worker to this state. Prior to 1980, most employees in office jobs worked seven and a half hours and enjoyed a forty-five minute lunch break—a lunch break that was paid for, I might add. Now what’s the norm? Eight hour workdays minimum, an hour for lunch unpaid. Most people are putting in nine, ten, and twelve hour workdays, if not more. These longer workdays have become more common, and it’s been happening gradually. People in Germany and France work fewer hours than us and they’re more efficient.”

  “And companies there have long promoted shorter working hours and more vacation days,” Rachel said. “They realize that a healthy, happy employee is a more productive employee.”

  “They’re less apt to call in sick, there’s less turn-over, the burnout rate is much lower, and people do tend to be more productive when they’re not so stressed out,” Alan stated.

  “That’s all changing over there, too,” Rachel said. She took a final drag on her cigarette and stubbed it out in the ashtray. “Corporate Financial has become global during the last ten years. They’re starting to change the way business is being run all over the world.”

  “And they’re doing this simply because they want to be the dominant Corporate force in the world,” Michelle said, musing over everything Alan and Rachel had been telling her.

  “You see how this is all taking place now, don’t you?” Alan asked. “How they’ve influenced our work structure, our government?”

  “I guess,” Michelle said; she was still having a hard time believing it but, crazy as it sounded, it was all adding up.

  “If it keeps up, pretty soon independent business will cease to exist,” Alan said. “Corporate Financial will keep swallowing company after company. Their influence will work its way into everybody who works for the companies they do business with. People who work for them will become slaves in the literal sense—they will only exist for the company they work for.”

  “And the bigger they get, the stronger they’ll get,” Michelle said, running the figures and scenarios in her head and suddenly not liking it. She was connecting the dots now—the FCCs gradual relaxation of the rules in regulating competition among competitors, allowing rival companies to swallow the competition in buyouts, the drive to eliminate benefits in order to drive down costs, sending jobs overseas to drive down costs; and the result was those who pulled the strings getting richer and richer at the expense of the workers who poured their livelihood into their chosen trade.

  “You see now,” Rachel said. She was looking at Michelle in a new light and Michelle realized the younger woman could tell she and Alan had gotten through to her.

>   “Yes, I do,” Michelle said, the implications so clear and terrifying now. “The bigger they get, the more power they’ll yield over everybody, especially thanks to all the deregulation. In fact, they probably already have control of the government.”

  “Not completely, but it’s getting there,” Alan murmured.

  “What happens if they succeed?” Michelle asked.

  “At the rate things are going,” Alan said seriously, his features grave, tired. “We could see the global enslavement of the human race.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  SUNDAY WAS A whirlwind.

  She went to sleep finally at 4:30 a.m., physically exhausted but mentally wired, still fretting over everything she’d learned. She tossed and turned for an hour and finally arose at 5:30 to take a sedative—she always traveled with them because she always slept badly when she was away from home on a business trip, and she dropped off like a stone fifteen minutes later. She finally arose at twelve-thirty p.m. to the ring-tone of her cellular.

  She groped for it. “Hello?”

  It was Donald. “Michelle, we’re here.”

  “Where are you?” She forced herself to wake up. She sat up in bed.

  “On the outskirts of the city. Jay’s driving. We’re going to find a cheap motel and check in. I’ll call you later.”

  “Great!”

  “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah.” She rubbed her eyes. “Just...sleepy.”

  “We’ll talk later, okay?”

  “Yeah. I need to take a shower and wake up.”

  The shower made her feel better, and as she was toweling her hair dry, Alan called. “Sam hasn’t called yet?”

  “No.” She had slipped on a pair of panties and was wearing nothing else. “Will he?”

  “He might try to get you to do some work. This is supposed to be a day off. If he does call, make an excuse.”