Well, if you’re one of my non-existent readership, this is another too long for social media reply, that with any luck at all I’ll get around to turning into an actual essay at some point, but for now….
(DISCLAIMER: This is not a personal attack, please don’t view it as such 😉 )
$21 trillion has been spent on the perpetual war machine since 1945, a fraction of which would feed, house and clothe the entire planet (see link). How much good will from all these alleged “adversaries” the propaganda machine keeps the populace deluded and living in fear with, do you suppose that kind of charity would bring? As opposed to, say landing 100,000 troops on sovereign soil under the auspices of “bringing democracy” (which they, for the most part, don’t want) to their country.
No, I’m afraid the world is, has been, and continues to be deluded on this, children starve and work themselves to death in sweatshops all over the world,(even here in the states) all so a .01% minority can have nice things, and that’s just a tiny example. Who do you suppose it is packages/harvests our food, who slaughters the animals, breaks them down for consumption, and yet sees very little of that food on their own tables? Who takes the orders in restaurants, mows lawns, cleans toilets, landscapes big industry’s corporate office buildings, drives cabs, works in mines, steel mills, who keeps the streets clean, builds auto-mobiles or builds the plants and equipment those autos are built with?…and etc.
The unskilled, because all of those professions are Taylorized to the nth degree so that the unskilled STAY unskilled, because who wants an *employee* who knows how to actually complete an entire discipline when you can train 10 chimps to do it? (try to imagine being in motion 56 seconds out of every minute of a 10 hour shift, tagging vin plates on cars, for 60 hours a week) the under-educated of society, (most of whom won’t *qualify* for student assistance) of which there are a whole lot more than the educated, people with wives, husbands, children, all of whom deserve better than to be denigrated for everything they lack by people who don’t understand (or understand all too well) how a capitalist economy works.
Everyone can’t be upper class, someone has to do the dirty work, and for doing it, they deserve a modicum of respect, the system is neither equal nor fair, never has been, never will be, it was created by the rich few, for the rich few, at the expense of the many, the vast majority of whom, will ALWAYS be poor and exploited by the wealthy. For example; even if said single mother does manage to leverage her mind (the only “asset” she possesses btw) and make enough to scrape by, and care for her kids, can she pass that down to those children? Sure, she can provide for them while they’re with her, but what’s her legacy? What does she leave those children when she’s gone, besides what’s left of the debt she owes on that education, or the “soul she owes to the company store”? When people talk about public subsidies/welfare programs, they love to talk about how it’s not “incentive” enough for them to work more, or that it will “make them lazy”, this is absolute, unequivocal bunk, there is absolutely no evidence to support that theory, in fact it’s quite the contrary. Again, these are (generally) unskilled, under-educated manual labourers, many of whom work far more than the average American bitching about entitlements, a poverty level (median income of around $30k) income is simply not enough to support a family of, say four (which I think is average). So generally you have both parents working, keep the kids and subtract one of those incomes, it gets a little tougher, not to mention expenses for childcare while the single parent is working. It’s such a typical attitude in today’s society, to say it’s all fine and dandy with unicorns farting rainbows as long as the misery is someone else’s, we all tend to change our tunes when the defecation hits the rotary oscillator in our own worlds however…
There’s a reason they teach you to do quadratic equations, but not how to compound interest on a loan/credit card in high school, because if they did, most kids would tell them to shove that government student loan straight up their ass. I don’t know about anyone else, but my pell grant paid for 1/2 a semester of a VERY light course load, the rest I borrowed at interest, so can you blame anyone for thinking “free” education might actually be a good thing? The truth is, the system doesn’t want the masses educated, because if the majority were capable of critical thinking they’d see what a colossal scam the whole thing is to keep the wealthy/powerful where they are, and THEM down, it’s in the best interest of the elite to keep the populace ignorant and sated with cheap Chinese consumer goods (most of which are bought with credit) so they can continue to exploit their labor power to generate even more wealth and power (because power is like drinking sea water, the more you drink, the thirstier you get). The deck is firmly stacked in favour of an elite, corporate minority, none (virtually, this is a generalisation, I realise there are exceptions, but they are very few) of the people I mentioned will be able to catch up, EVER, they will ALWAYS be, more or less, poor and so, will most probably, be their offspring.
On the other hand, we have hedge fund managers making $30,000 A MINUTE, I don’t care how hard they worked to get there, do you honestly believe they’re working harder (i.e. being more productive) than the guy slinging hash in the fancy restaurants in which they eat (that is, the “line cooks” who didn’t go to culinary school, chefs actually make a decent buck, but again, they’ve leveraged their mind, it’s vastly different from a physical asset, stocks, bonds, fine art, real estate etc, it can’t be passed down)? How do we even know that their “station in life” was not (as it is for most of us) simply an accident of birth? Yet there he is, not only making 30k a minute, but using that wealth to affect the rules and laws ALL OF US have to live by, (because that kind of wealth comes with massive amounts of political leverage) why should any of us have to live by his “ideals” simply because he was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time? Someone with that kind of wealth would generate $5 billion a year even if they were in a coma and unable to lift a finger. Will his children have to “work” EVER, and if not, how is it that they’re not thought of as *slackers* who just don’t want to better themselves? Because like it or not, whether they ever work a day in their lives or not, is irrelevant, they will still be treated as royalty by most of society, having done not one thing to earn it, in my humble opinion, the person cleaning toilets in a cheap motel deserves more respect, at least she’s had to expend some effort. I’m not saying “the state” should swoop in and take their money (in fact I’m anti-stateist), but the hypocrisy of people assuming someone without elite status, (who probably works far more than 40 hours a week just to stay slightly below the poverty level) is slacking, or would be in better shape if they just worked a little harder/got an education, and then turning around and falling over themselves to give some privileged, never worked a day in his life rich brat respect, is just mind numbing.
My politics is probably a bit farther “left” (if Anarchy can even be put in those terms, or given human beings endless capacity for stupidity, would even be possible without some form of “authority as babysitter”) than Bernie Sanders’, but I get what he’s saying, the gap between rich and poor is widening, has been since the 80s, (note to self; insert all those statistics and numbers -here- at a later date, sorry, too lazy at present 😉 ) and will continue to widen for the foreseeable future, but really, unless the world experiences a radical paradigm shift, and soon, things will get far worse before they get better. Sanders’ answers are a far cry from perfect, but it’s a start and would be a 100% improvement over the continuation of the unchecked, unregulated, oligarchy we have now. I personally don’t believe they go anywhere near far enough, in my opinion, there is nothing honorable or patriotic about exploiting those who have less than you, simply because they do, and you can, nothing at all….
ok /rant…I’m done for now.
…to be continued/edited, whenever I get my lazy ass ’round to it.
….or not, with a fairly consistent, not one fucking view, do I even need to worry about it? Probably not, but at some point I’ll reach critical mass and get my writing in front of actual humans, or simply give it up as a futile gesture drowning in the sea of inanity the world is quickly becoming. The jury’s still out….
Cognitive Dissonance in the Promised Land 