Greek Mythology Cannot Hold a Candle

It is no wonder the Greeks are in trouble financially. It all began with ancient Greek civilization and their belief in polytheism. They had all sorts of gods like Zeus, Apollo, Hera, and Poseidon. They were not perfect gods by any means and often imitated human behavior. In other words, they were projections of human beings on a screen writ large and given immortality to boot. Lately, the Greeks turned their will and their lives over to the care of politicians who promised them an Elysian Field full of benefits they could not pay for, and now the Greeks are going to suffer drastically for their folly.
Why is it we humans invite gods into our lives and then allow them to rise and take over our lives? Here in America today we have allowed the development of titan corporations and banks that appear to be headless when you look at them but nonetheless are more powerful than any gods the Greeks could conjure up. America’s gods are real, and they are allowed to run rampant over our thought-processes, our values, and our well-being.
Much of this can be laid at the feet of monotheism. By proclaiming that there is only one true God, we have lain ourselves open to allowing corporations to become real gods in our midst. We cannot see them as such because of our predominant belief system. We cannot believe a corporation could possibly become a god. There is no such thing because there is more than one corporation and there can be only one god. It’s a beautiful set-up for corporations. They can go about the business of gobbling each other up, shipping their profits off-shore, finding cheaper workers in other countries, and swallowing politicians from both parties because corporations have been declared legal persons and therefore are human, not god-like. We cannot see the gods they are because of the human label we have bequeathed.
We have made some of them gods in another way by proclaiming them “too big to fail.” If that isn’t a sign of man-made immortality, then it is a sign that we bow before titans of our own making. Save the god or we’ll all suffer.
We are taught daily, even hourly, to worship the products of the corporate gods. Some of us may go to church for an hour each week, but we spend much more time in front of a TV screen (over four hours each day on average) being told incessantly that we cannot live without product X. You name it: drug, car, beer, cereal, or car insurance, we are taught over and over that we should believe certain products will restore our health, our happiness, our sense of self-worth, and our social net worth. In other words, these corporate products will do for us directly what that church god many Americans pray to will only occasionally if ever do for them.
Some corporations have divvyed up the national politicians according to industry, in some cases, while others buy both sides of the isle to ensure they have influence no matter what. Oil and gas corporations tend to purchase Republicans while Wall Street of late has favored Democrats. Our national and even local political scenes are controlled and marketed by corporate lobbies that barrage the TV networks with “enemy attack” and “pro-industry” advertisements in the guise of what once were public service announcements.
Unions that once championed the working poor have risen to match the god-like power of the corporations and have become self-serving gods in their own right. The NEA, for one, stands in the way of genuine reform of public education in America by protecting bad teachers from being replaced by good ones. Gods have a way of inspiring opposition to match, but it only creates more gods, not fewer.
So the next time you turn on your TV, computer, iphone, or ipad, look for the gods in your life, recognize them for what they are, and begin to think of ways to reduce their influence in your life. The Greeks may have been early to god creation, but America has produced the most powerful titans ever created, and they are very much in our midst today.