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"Advocating Economic & Personal Change"



Crime

December 02, 2007

Today I heard a bit of news on the radio concerning the murder earlier this week of Sean Taylor, of the Washington Redskins football team.* Mr. Taylor played the position of safety. The report mentioned the victim, and "FedEx Field," the football stadium hosting a game today between the Redskins and the Buffalo Bills, the first game the Redskins will play since Taylor's slaying. FedEx Field was also the location of an impromptu memorial for Mr. Taylor:  during the game, a period of ceremony and other activities were to occur in remembrance and honor of the victim.

In fact, four young men were arrested yesterday in connection with the murder, which occurred as part of an attempt to burglarize the player's home.

In catching the brief report from the small white radio on my kitchen table, I instantly saw the causal connection and relational significance between two elements most people would not construe as related:  the murder, and the name of the stadium. Broadly speaking, the socio-economic phenomenon that would result in a sports stadium named after a huge delivery company, and the robbery and subsequent murder of Sean Taylor, are one and the same. The event of the murder, and the titling of the stadium, both spring from the same root:  capitalism, and the values, principles, and personal, social, and economic behaviors it powerfully and unremittingly engenders.

As social philosopher Erich Fromm has pointed out, under modern capitalism the values and behaviors of the marketplace become and are the de facto values and behaviors of the larger society. In this case, in fact, the values of the marketplace are also the explicit values of the larger society--how else would it be that we have a sports arena named after a corporation? Such corporate sponsorship, widespread now in the United States and elsewhere, denotes and reflects the rise of absolute corporatism and the hegemonic power of the corporate class. Without question, such a strict and unyielding form of capitalism brings with it and engenders across and throughout society its own severe set of social values, and corresponding social environment.

As you might guess, this social environment is not one of cooperation, brotherhood, and love, but of compulsive and institutionalized greed, corruption, and impersonality, as well as pathological individualism and materialism, on one side of the coin, and on the other, superfluous poverty, misery, and desperation, manifold addictions, and artificial scarcity and want. All which is underscored and in good measure fueled by the grinding necessity for economic survival by any means necessary. Given these realities, wouldn't it be foolish and naive of us not  to expect the full range of human aberration, certainly including all manner of criminal activity? Thus, actions such as robbery and even murder, moral transgressions as well as legal infractions, of which Mr. Taylor was a recent but unfortunately not singular victim, are and will remain an over-arching fact of life in capitalist society.

The solution? Establish a society that is  informed by cooperation, brotherhood, and love, and a consequent sensitive regard of all toward all, underscored by a decent and generous sharing of resources. Such a society is called a Cooperative Society, and is precisely the powerful and plausible vision advocated by One Human Family. Please join BOMA now, and apply your unique talents as we endeavor to strengthen our presence and influence!


*Note

BOMA notes the discomfort American Indians and others may experience at use of the term redskins  in titling a sports team.





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