Bending Over Backwards To Bend The Knee

The idiomatic phrase, “bending the knee” is defined something like this:

“To swear fealty or allegiance to another person. To submit to or show reverence toward a divine power.  To show undue deference, obedience, or support for someone or something.”

Focus for a moment on the word “undue” above. It’s the key.

“Undue” is defined as not appropriate, warranted, or justified; excessive or overextended.

There’s no point really in being duly or unduly outraged any longer by cowardly corporate titans, academic institutions, legal firms, media mavens, and politicians bending the knee to the child rapist and convicted felon Donald Trump. Capitulation and public humiliation has become the name of the game for those who’ve lost any sense of honor and dignity. It appears now that the game has moved into a different quarter, to see who can be the most unduly outrageous in bootlicking and ass kissing.

When CEOs like Apple’s Tim Cook start bearing ostentatious gifts featuring his company’s treasured and expensively protected branding on a glass plaque, mounted on gold, you have to wonder just how little self-respect these once corporate giants have for themselves, much less their companies.

Sure, they will say it is to protect the business, market share, and their stock holders. That’s largely true. When threatened with a corporate beheading, I’m sure most would prefer keeping their corporate head on their corporate shoulders, shrinking and cowering that they may be. I guess in the circles they travel in, it’s cooler to be a part of the cruel and vulgar crowd that’s grabbed them by the short hairs and made them squeal like so many pigs in a pen, than it is to stand for what’s right.

I’ve given up being shocked, disappointed, and pissed off when things like this happen. It’s become so routine. I look forward to the day when I may run into some of these cowards by chance and laughing in their face, after I spit in it. They may deserver their bonuses after keeping the profits rolling in, but they more than deserve public derision.

I’ve had to swallow some shit in my lifetime catering to donors in the not-for-profit arts game. I get the impulse, and I get the desperation. I’m proud to say I’ve turned away some donations. I’m also ashamed to say I had to accept a few with conditions I didn’t like. So, I get it. I will say that as personally demeaning as the latter instances were, they never jeopardized the image of the company I was working for. I’ll carry my indignity and the tasted of that shit from those instances to my grave.

If this chapter in the decline of humanity ever turns around the only thing certain is that the the shame these corporate, academic, legal, media, and political dwarves have earned will forever stain them and the brands they represent. They will be duly branded.

You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.