I’m a believer, a big fan, and very, very pleased with my shipment of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps. They’re made humanely and sustainably and the company shares its profits with its workers and the poor in a huge way. This is what a corporation should be like: not one obsessed with getting unholy dollars of revenue, but rather filled with a purpose to make an excellent product and to use the profits to benefit the world.

I saw two documentaries recently: one on Dr. Bronner’s and one on Monsanto. Dr. Bronner’s people used their knowledge of chemistry to produce things that are safe and clean, in safe and clean ways. Monsanto has done things to poison the world’s food supply – genes from their corn have gotten into peasant corn stocks in central Mexico, leaving those crops vulnerable to pests, diseases, and weeds unless those peasants buy Monsanto’s chemicals to sustain their crops. The farmers in Mexico have no choice in the matter: Monsanto’s genes made their way through wind-borne pollen. Monsanto is poisoning the world food supply, and that is but one example of it.

Dr. Bronner’s people know we have one world and that we are all one. I love reading the labels because so much of what is on them is true. I don’t go along with all of it, but I’m right there with him when he says we are all together in this and that we have a moral duty in our lives.

I believe in an afterlife, but I’m not sure exactly how it’s organized. I imagine vast halls filled with comfy chairs for the good and the just, where they get to sit and chat with each other and have a wonderful time. Then, there will be school cafeteria tables, complete with hard, backless, immovable stools for all the Nazis, teevee preachers, conservative talk radio hosts with drug habits, crooked politicians, and other “all kinds of mean, nasty, ugly, horrible people” as Arlo Guthrie described the “Group W Bench” in his classic, Alice’s Restaurant.

Which reminds me. I should write something about Alice’s Restaurant. I’ll do that in another article.

So who has to sit at the Nazi table? Monsanto’s executives, because they were just following orders from shareholders, CEOs, and scared men that thought money or power would save their souls.

Who gets to hang out in the comfy chairs with the nice people? Dr. Bronner and the good folks at his soap factory. They were following orders of a different sort, the kinds of orders that we all need to be following.

Time to wash up!