Filed under: Uncategorized
I’ve taken way too long to post something here. I have, however, been working my way through several books recently and I hope to review all of them at once soon.
Grace and peace,
Jared
Filed under: Issues, Libertarianism, Politics, Progressivism, Rants, Society
I don’t really believe that most people who vote Republican in this country support their awful policies. At least they don’t support most of their awful policies. I have friends and family members who will tell you that they believe in little regulation for business and low taxes for the rich so they can give us jobs, but I don’t think they’re married to those points of view. I think the things that make them tolerate economic policies that come from elite rich people are social issues. Things like gay marriage and abortion are the glue that hold working class religious conservatives in place in this conservative coalition.
If that glue were somehow removed, then I think we’ll see people moving toward third parties. Which would be good on two fronts:
1. It would create a more diverse environment in our legislatures.
2. It would also make our Presidential elections a lot more interesting.
More importantly it would expose the super rich for the disgusting, self-centered, dishonest, entitled assholes that they are. anything that gets the people of this country closer to supporting policies that solve problem regardless of ideology is probably something good. As it stands though, there are millions of people who are suckered into believing that it really matters what a candidate for office thinks about gay marriage, gays openly serving in the military, legalization of drugs or any other issue that politicians create to make things seem scarier than they really are. To be fair though, abortion is not an issue that can so easily be written off as the other issues that pulls conservative in line by inflaming their prejudices against things that other people are doing.
At its core the pro-life movement centers its understanding of the issue around the idea that life begins at conception, and that terminating a pregnancy is tantamount to murder. I don’t know that I would use the same language now that I did when I was still firmly planted in the conservative movement, but I have to say that I personally have issues with abortion. But I don’t think that making a medical procedure illegal is wise, either morally or with regard to its enforceability. It doesn’t make sense to tell women whose pregnancies may kill them that must carry a baby to term.
In fact this does not mesh well with the small government ideology that Republicans typically espouse, nor does it directly effect the economic policies of their party. The only reason that abortion has influenced public debate is because the pro-life voting bloc is large enough to merit the Republicans attention to make up for the fact that their policies are antithetical to the needs of poor, working and middle class people.
But who has time to think about economics when there are babies being murdered?
Another thing that needs to be taken into consideration is that criminalizing abortion doesn’t eliminate abortions or even fundamentally undercut the secondary issues that lead to abortions, like poverty and sexual assault. The carrot that is being dangled in front of the pro-life demographic in this country is keeping them from realizing that there are solutions to the secondary issues that lead to unwanted or unstable pregnancies. The problem is that right now they’re being encouraged to seek ideological responses to problems that are, in fact, solvable. And considering how well pro-lifers organize, these problems seem that much more solvable.
I think that taking the moral concerns of anyone with a legitimate case is of the utmost importance in a democratic society. And right now millions of our neighbors are being held hostage by people for whom they should not have to knock on doors. I would like to see my pro-life brothers and sister come to see that choice isn’t the antithesis to life.
Grace and Peace,
Jared
A balanced budget, smaller federal government, honesty and transparency in government, strong military policies, a strong aversion to immigrants and overall fiscal responsibility. These are the things I grew up hearing were the things left behind by the fortieth President of the United States. Unfortunately, as I grew up I learned that they were all bullshit. To be fair, they make for good rhetoric, and it is nice to remember the people we like as being like us. Liberals do it with JFK, a President who accomplished nowhere near what people ascribe to him.
Conservatives wanted their chance to make a myth. Lincoln screwed everything up by exerting too much federal power over the all-important states. And who else were they going to look to Hoover, Nixon, Bush 43; losers. Everyone already liked Eisenhower, and you can’t get energized over someone who only governed responsible and then left. All that was left was Reagan. So in the early 90s a campaign began to recreate Reagan in the image of Grover Norquist, or whoever else it took to get a Republican elected. And that’s what Will Bunch’s book is all about, the distortion of history for political gain.
In all honesty Will Bunch is not too critical of Ronald Reagan, at least not in the way that liberals are “supposed” to these days. In fact, I think that this book is intended to take away one of the tools that Reagan’s myth makers rely on as a sign of success for the false narrative that they have crafted for a man silent in the public sphere almost as soon as he left office. The tool I’m referring to is the anger of liberals that fuels pro-Reagan rhetoric because it makes conservatives feel validated to hear liberals malign them and someone they believe to share their values. Bunch sees that the architects of Reagan’s legacy are attempting to take advantage of the fact that ideology can sometimes rewrite history from two sides. For instance, on the issue of tax cuts, conservatives believe that Ronald Reagan only cut taxes and the response that comes from liberals has been to say that this devotion to tax cuts is what made him a bad President. The same thing happens when conservatives are told that Reagan shrank the federal government, which is untrue. But still the fight rages over these artificial facts. Bunch is bringing to light a Reagan who compromised and didn’t get everything he said he wanted. A man who spoke rhetorically in a way that was vastly different from the way he governed. I think this book puts the lie to the idea floating around out there right now that people are more conservative or more liberal than they have been in the past. It’s easy to look back and see that people were more reasonable in the past, but only when the standard against which they are judged is your ideology.
Filed under: Books
Books like this make me wish I had established some type of rubric for assigning a quantitative representation of my feelings about a book. But alas, I have no such rubric, at least not yet anyway.
But when I say, ‘books like this,’ what I mean is well-written, engaging, emotion charged, socially conscious novels that keep me reading and make me think at the same time. If the next two books in the trilogy are anywhere near as good as this one, this series will be up there with the Harry Potter books, C. S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy and (so far) Andrew Peterson’s Wingfeather Saga. All of these series are, it seems, are written for children. But, in spite of my not being totally what they intended demographically, I am really excited about this novel and the series it begins.
Hunger Games is told from the perspective a sixteen year-old girl who lives in what used to be North America, but is now known as Panema. The country of Pnema consists of twelve districts encircling the capital city, aptly called the Capitol. All of these districts exist in subservience to the Capitol. The children of Panema, we’re told, are taught that at one point Panema was the Capitol and thirteen districts that lived in supposed harmony, until the districts rebelled. As a consequence district thirteen was destroyed and a new set of policies were put in place to ensure that the remaining twelve never attempted something like that again. First of all, there is no travel permitted between the districts. Second, each district exists to supply the rest of Panema (read, the Capitol) with a specific resource or a specific type of resource. Third, food and other resources are made very scarce outside of the Capitol. And fourth, every year a lottery is held in which every child over the age of twelve must be entered at least once for every year of eligibility. Any entry made over the required number results in additional food for the child entering. The result of the lottery is participation in the Hunger Games, a modern version of the gladiatorial games of ancient Rome.
So, two children from each district (known as tributes) enter the arena where they must fight to the death until one of them is victorious over the other twenty-three. The point of these games seems twofold: first, it appears that the Capitol wants to foment enmity between the districts and second to atone for the sins of their forebears who attempted to overthrow the Capitol, hence the title tribute.
The references to ancient Rome are pretty obvious. In addition to the imitation of the gladiatorial games of ancient Rome is the constant use of Roman names for characters in the Capitol, but the most intriguing thing that Suzanne Collins has included in her novel that mirrors ancient Rome is the imperialistic use of resources as a tool of power. The Romans, much like the leaders in the Capitol in Panema, utilized resources taken from subject peoples to fuel an economic system that furthers the subjugation of those people. But why would Collins reference the negative side of Roman imperialism in a novel for children? Could there be some contemporary entity, or entities that deserves the negative characterization that Collins paints here? It appears that the intent of this novel is to expose children to specifics of the conditions of poverty. Broadly speaking, this novels paints the picture of mismanaged resources that pass by the people who are responsible for anyone’s access to those resources. It personalized poverty and yet exposes the system that has caused it, and endears to the readers someone who is being established as a rebel to this system.
At any rate, the district focused on in this novel is district twelve. The young girl narrating the story is Katniss Everdeen. She volunteers to take her twelve-year-old sister Prim, who was chosen in the lottery. In spite of Katniss’ being the provider for her family, she must go to the Capitol in her sister’s place because the risk of Prim’s dying there is far greater and far worse than not knowing what will happen if Prim has to live without Katniss providing. So Katniss goes to the Capitol to face tributes that, for the most part, come from districts where the tributes are better fed and formally trained to fight in the Hunger Games. There is an unbelievable amount of action in this novel, but it has the feel of just being a precursor to the bigger things to come in future novels.
I’m not sure if the author’s intention was to write three novels that follow this story arc, or if the publisher encouraged Collins to split up a larger story. Either way, if the first novel is any indication of the caliber of the two to follow, this series will be an exciting foray into subverting power.
Grace and Peace,
Jared
I went to lunch with some friends the other day and on the way back to class, I noticed a book in the backseat of one of my friend’s car. I believe it was Atlas Shrugged, it doesn’t really matter which Ayn Rand book it was, I knew it was poorly written because her name showed up on the cover. So I made fun of it.
I feel I need to say, in the interest of full disclosure, that I have never liked Ayn Rand. When I was in high school I tried to read Anthem, because some friends had recommended it to me. At the time I was a hardcore conservative with libertarian leanings. But when I started reading this book it seemed to me like a thinly veiled attempt to propagate an ideology. Granted this was an ideology I was almost completely sympathetic to, but I had a problem with bad literature representing my thoughts. It was more offensive than if I had read something with which I disagreed. In fact, disagreements aren’t that offensive to me, I rather debate than preach to the choir. So anyway, this poorly written immature bit of propaganda was the catalyst for our conversation.
The meat of our conversation was centered around the role of nation-states in the global economy. My contention was, and is, that individual nations need to be strengthened so as to properly regulate international commerce. My friend’s disagreement with this centered around the idea that government regulations impede the freedom of markets to do their thing. My contention with his contention is twofold: first, the notion that regulation unnecessarily hampers markets is spurious. I would say that there is little more to unregulated markets than ultra powerful people dictating to others what is or what ought to be, but bear in mind that this is really a hypothetical assessment. We’ve never really seen unfettered markets, but the closer we come the more powerful people who are already incredibly powerful become. Second, that markets are a force of nature similar to physics. Markets don’t exist in a state of nature, they are fictional cultural artifacts used to articulate a number of human activities. Markets don’t do anything, people do. And then people use markets as an aggregate of that human activity.
So, that said, we then got into a debate about 1) what a country is and 2) whether it is appropriate to use the simplest definition of a country, or even a word so crude as country.
When I explained to my friend that the ideal purpose of nation-states is that they should function as tools to ensure justice for the people who live within their borders. I would describe nation-states as fictional aggregates of human activity, similar to markets. Nation-states including, but are not limited to, such factors as cultural identity and geographical borders. These characteristics have been both a hinderance and a boon to protecting people all over the world from all kinds of injustice. But in the face of corporations gaining more and more power over a growing number of people’s lives. For example, Jeremy Scahill exposed the use of contractors from companies like Blackwater in a capacity that has been reserved for agents of the state in representing the state in a war. This use of contractors in the “kill chain” directly undermines the sovereignty of the people from whom the state derives its power.
It is possible that given the proper motive and circumstances a large enough corporation could abandon the pursuit of simply attempting to control the current governments of certain nations, and just pay a private military to overthrow it and secure their own puppets. Admittedly I have no reason to believe that this will happen in the near future. But the potential for such an event makes me uncomfortable, to say the least. In Jihad vs. McWorld Benjamin Barber suggests that democracy must be safeguarded against unfettered corporate capitalism and reactionary nationalism that threaten it all over the world by strengthening the framework of international law intended to secure nation-states and their citizens. I don’t know what specifically needs to be done to safeguard democratic nation-states from a capitalism run amok.
Now, this is not to say that capitalism is the problem. In fact I think that when democracy is at its strongest we see the best representation of the aforementioned market as aggregate of human activity. But those markets need to be subordinate to the civic responsibilities and freedoms that the nation-state exists to ensure. In short, the accumulation of wealth is much less important than the need for justice in civic life. In fact we ought to be able to ensure that the wealth that is created is used in the interests of the common good. Wealth is first and foremost a representation of resources and productivity. These resources are derived from the commons, and the productivity is directly effected by the strength and empowerment of citizens. For example, I worked for a company that sold, among other things, tweezers. At first the tweezers they sold were made in Pakistan out of steel from, I believe, Pakistan. The failure rate of these tweezers that were of complete Pakistani origins were astronomically high. The cheap price of Pakistan’s labor and materials was thought to offset the cost of disposing of so many inferior sets of tweezers. Later on the lesson was learned and, while still being manufactured in Pakistan, the tweezers were made from German steel. The quality of the tweezers was visibly better with higher quality steel. It seems that this higher quality can be attributed to the quality of the steel used and the skill of the workers employed to refine it. These factor are the result of a comprehensive set of education and labor standards laws that have helped strengthen the commercial success of Germany and other western nations for decades.
If it were possible to ensure that the products produced anywhere in the world would be of the same quality as those produced in western nations, the labor market would be a much better place to be. But in order to create those conditions the wealth accumulated from production everywhere needs to be reinvested into the public sector to ensure that no nation is left behind others. Taiwanese children should not be used as manufacturing machines any more than should children in the United States. But it is the responsibility of the people of Taiwan to ensure that their children are well prepared for life and work, but they can’t do that if nations everywhere allow the very existence of the nation-state derided and undermined in the interests of short-term wealth.
What will we do?
Grace and Peace,
Jared
In a never ending attempt to bring as many suckers into the fold, Republicans are scrambling to collect as many libertarians into the fold as possible. In spite of their unreliable relationship to what has become a nonnegotiable conservative orthodoxy, libertarians are an invaluable resource. At least they are for now.
As much as I disagree with libertarians on a lot of their views on economic policy, I do not believe that they are merely shills for the rich. In fact, I don’t think that their belligerence on certain social issues (see Barry Goldwater and Rand Paul, resistance to the Civil Rights Act of 1964) makes them similar or even sympathetic to fascists or racists, they’re merely in agreement with those twisted idiots on a few select issues.
Be that as it may, they are being taken advantage of right now. In very much the same way as social conservatives, libertarians are being forced to put up with people who loudly proclaim their principles, but don’t really mean it. Now, it am by no means a conspiracy theorist, but it seems that the very wealthy people who benefit most from tax cuts and other nonsense “economic stimuli” have put together a patchwork of ideologically dissimilar people to act as a coalition in keeping what are ultimately policies that do not benefit the public at large.
To illustrate my point, I would like to turn your attention to the electoral results of the 1964 presidential election:
Lyndon Johnson was not the most thoroughly liberal President that we have ever had. He was an opportunist who grabbed at any chance he could to gain the support he needed to achieve his goals. In this case his goal was being elected President in his own right, not on the coat tails of some other man’s win. So how did he do that?
He listened to the outcry of the poor and the downtrodden. He pushed through the most progressive set of laws ever seen in the history of this nation. This legislative agenda was not the reason for Johnson’s having to back out of the 1968 Presidential election, Vietnam was. So it seems safe to say that the public rejected conservatism and not liberalism. In fact when they did accept a Republican it was under the circumstances that they rejected Johnson under, the war. Since then we have seen no authenticate candidates from either side of the ideological spectrum. Vietnam seems to have left us with the empty shells that we’ve elected for nearly thirty years.
That said, what we’re getting is just enough frustration and anger for people to listen to a candidate who appeals to their anger, and makes them look away from what they believe and toward their emotions. This has created just enough momentum for Republicans that Democrats have to sell themselves out the same corporate interests.
So where do the ideologues go? Do you hold your nose and vote for this set of corporate whores, or that one? Or do you just vote for parties that have no chance of winning any time soon?
Right now the libertarians are starting to march in step with the conservatives in this country and those who don’t are being removed. I think the libertarians see a way to get some credibility where they’ve had trouble before. But that credibility comes at a price. They’ll have to watch civil liberties go as they see the wealthy individuals and corporations who fund the big parties use them to get what they want and throw their ideals in the garbage.
I’d like to look into this more soon, because I’m not happy with the way I’m leaving it, but I’m leaving it just the same.
Grace and Peace,
Jared
I’d have started hating Fox News today. I accidentally came across this video:
This is the obituary that Fox News ran for Kurt Vonnegut on 12 April, 2007, the day after he died.
Kurt Vonnegut was an American hero and a literary giant. To sum up his life by saying that he was a washed-up has-been who even failed at suicide is to denigrate one of our national treasures. Forget journalistic integrity, Fox News has time and again displayed a complete and utter lack of respect for this nation, its history and foundational principles for short-term political gain for elitist conservatives who want to undermine anyone who disagrees with them.
Kurt Vonnegut is the Mark Twain of our time, and I will be damned if I will stand by silently and hear this brilliant, compassionate man run down by a piece of shit propaganda effort by devious assholes who don’t care about any one or any thing but pushing an agenda. Disrespecting this man is putting Fox on the wrong side of history. This is more proof that you can almost draw a straight line from the people who argued against abolishing slavery, women’s suffrage, civil rights for blacks, etc. Regardless of conservatives support of all of those things that their forebears fought, they are the inheritors of ignorance and thoughtlessness. Everyone’s a liberal when it’s safe, progressivism is appealing after the fight.
Here’s a much better way to remember this giant, this legend, this saint:
I loved this disheveled old man, and even though I never met him I miss him. We’re worse off without him. It makes me sad that my son will grow up in a word without this man.
Grace and Peace,
Jared
Filed under: Rants
The other day I posted the following status on my Facebook account:
Question: Who’s dumber, Fox News viewers or people who believe the chain e-mails they forward?
I thought it was funny, and kind of true, so I put it up there. I received the following reply from a friend of mine:
Yeah… They’re almost as annoying as the people who spend all their time making ignorant blanket statements on facebook about the folks who don’t think like they do.
I shrugged it off and made another joke, and didn’t think about it again until that night when it occurred to me that my friend had missed the point. I wasn’t upset because someone didn’t agree with me. I was upset because as time goes on I see people around me seeming to lose a grip on reality. I have relatives and friends who do not believe that President Obama was born in the United States. The best example of what inspired my tongue in cheek post on Facebook is the e-mail I’d received just prior to my posting it.
This was forwarded to me under the subject FWD:Should Christians respect Obama, by a family member:
This guy was on Dr. Charles Stanley’s program “In Touch” as a guest speaker. I almost shouted “HALLELUJAH” when I finished reading.
Forward or discard….it’s your choice.
Dr. David Barton is more of a historian than a Biblical speaker, but very famous for his knowledge of historical facts as well as Biblical truths.
Dr. David Barton – on Obama
Respect the
Office? Yes.
Respect the Man in the Office? No, I am sorry to say.
I have noted that many elected officials, both Democrats and Republicans, called upon America to unite behind Obama.
Well, I want to make it clear to all who will listen that I AM NOT uniting behind Obama !
I will respect the Office which he holds, and I will acknowledge his abilities as an orator and wordsmith and pray for him, BUT that is it.
I have begun today to see what I can do to make sure that he is a one-term President !
Why am I doing this ?
It is because:
– I do not share Obama’s vision or value system for America ;
– I do not share his Abortion beliefs;
– I do not share his radical Marxist’s concept of re-distributing wealth;
– I do not share his stated views on raising taxes on those who make $150,000+ (the ceiling has been changed three times since August);
– I do not share his view that America is Arrogant;
– I do not share his view that America is not a Christian Nation;
– I do not share his view that the military should be reduced by 25%;
– I do not share his view of amnesty and giving more to illegals than our American Citizens who need help;
– I do not share his views on homosexuality and his definition of marriage;
– I do not share his views that Radical Islam is our friend and Israel is our enemy who should give up any land;
– I do not share his spiritual beliefs (at least the ones he has made public);
– I do not share his
beliefs on how to re-work the healthcare system in America ;
– I do not share his Strategic views of the Middle East ; and
– I certainly do not share his plan to sit down with terrorist regimes such as Iran ..
Bottom line: my America is vastly different from Obama’s, and I have a higher obligation to my Country and my GOD to do what is Right !
For eight (8) years, the Liberals in our Society, led by numerous entertainers who would have no platform and no real credibility but for their celebrity status, have attacked President Bush, his family, and his spiritual beliefs !
They have not moved toward the center in their beliefs and their philosophies, and they never came together nor compromised their personal beliefs for the betterment of our Country!
They have portrayed my America as a land where everything is tolerated except being intolerant !
They have been a vocal and irreverent minority for years !
They have mocked and attacked the very core values so important to the founding and growth of our Country !
They have made every effort to remove the name of GOD or Jesus Christ from our Society !
They have challenged capital punishment, the right to
bear firearms, and the most basic principles of our criminal code !
They have attacked one of the most fundamental of all Freedoms, the right of free speech !
Unite behind Obama? Never ! ! !
I am sure many of you who read this think that I am going overboard, but I refuse to retreat one more inch in favor of those whom I believe are the embodiment of Evil!
PRESIDENT BUSH made many mistakes during his
Presidency, and I am not sure how history will judge him. However, I believe that he weighed his decisions in light of the long established Judeo-Christian principles of our Founding Fathers!!!
Majority rules in America , and I will honor the concept; however, I will fight with all of my power to be a voice in opposition to Obama and his “goals for America .”
I am going to be a thorn in the side of those who, if left unchecked, will destroy our Country ! ! Any more compromise is more defeat !
I pray that the results of this election will wake up many who have sat on the sidelines and allowed the Socialist-Marxist anti-GOD crowd to slowly change so much of what has been good in America !
“Error of Opinion may be tolerated where Reason is left free to combat it.” – Thomas Jefferson
GOD bless you and GOD bless our Country ! ! !
(Please, please, please, pass this on if you agree. If you don’t agree, just delete it.)
Thanks for your time, be safe.
“In GOD We Trust”
For those of you who don’t know who David Barton is; he is a conservative Christian historical revisionist who claims that the founder of the United States wanted the US to be a Christian nation over and above every other religion but without one specific denomination of Christianity being considered superior to another. That said, it’s strange indeed to see the Jefferson quote at the end there, when so many of the things that Barton says here are not simply inflammatory but factually inaccurate. And these false statements aren’t just something that Barton has said first that still need to be corrected. It’s clear that the President is not a Marxist, this statement was made by Barton and subsequently spread via e-mail specifically to scare people and drown out any competing messages.
If you watch Fox News for a day you’ll see some of the same points made over and over. This is because the management at this network circulates talking points that the regular folks all talk up until they become part of nearly everyone’s approach to that specific issue. For example the hot button issue is the “ground zero mosque” debate. This didn’t just become an issue on its own. we’re not seeing a new Bonus Army being mobilized by word of mouth to demand justice. This is a concerted effort by a very sophisticated right-wing propaganda machine to gin up controversy over something to help gain a victory for Republican candidates this November.
Today I was involved in a conversation about said “mosque” controversy, and I asked why it was an improper memorial. I never received and answered, in fact I was called a “leftist media worshipper” (whatever the hell that means). When I pointed out to the master of ad hominem who gave me an inscrutable mantle that this may be counterproductive to his making a case. After that he deleted his comments and left the conversation. My wife suggested that these people are walking into a room, saying something controversial and then walking out so no one can respond. NOt only is this intolerant of nearly any disagreement, in fact that should be the least of our concerns. When people do that they are disengaging from the rest of us and actually depriving themselves and us of a valuable education in public debate and policy, things that citizens are supposed to be familiar with. Instead we’re getting a nation of people so worried that there will be trouble from any kind of disagreement.
Oddly enough, in my experience, the people who have shut down conversation for fear of offending are the people who complain the loudest about how touchy people are. They tread the lightest for what seems to be concern over some type of authority figure stepping in to penalize someone for being candid. Which, in most cases is an exaggeration of what the worst case scenario actually is. It almost seems like they want the worst to be real, so they can throw the baby out with the too tolerant bath water out the window. But this just pulls them farther from the rest of the world around them, in the end they make decisions with no regard for or input from their fellow citizens. And this hurts society as a whole, it makes us more fearful and quicker to make bad decisions that don’t consider the long-term.
So maybe shutting down an argument isn’t a good idea.
Grace and Peace,
Jared
A lot of liberals like to point out that the working and middle class vote against their economic interests. But Benjamin Barber points out that the consequence of the working and middle class’ voting against their own interests is that the wealthy have removed themselves from the public sector.
If you’ve heard talk of tax cuts for the wealthy, that is a reference to the way in which we have cut taxes. While it is true that income taxes have decreased, Social Security and Medicare taxes are unchanged. This places a burden for those systems disproportionately on the working and middle classes. Which is fine because those are the people who use it the most, and that is the way that these systems were designed. The people who use them pay for them, that’s always been the beauty of the system. And that system has worked. It’s worked so well that it has yielded surpluses that make up for the lack of revenue from the tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the wealthy.
Now, when I say ‘wealthy’ I do not mean people who make good money in careers that require a high degree of education or give them a lot of responsibility. Those people are typically referred to as professionals, and they aren’t really that rich. At least they’re not that compared to the wealthiest people in this country.
At any rate, right now we see our social safety net is in jeopardy. They’re on the chopping block, we’re told, because deficits are bad and raising taxes will just hurt the economy. We’re being told that we need the rich, they’re our Obi Wan Kenobi. The problem is that Obi Wan didn’t win in the end, Luke did. So we don’t need the wealthy, we need the thing they bring. We need their money.
And now this gets us into some very far-reaching problems. We have seen artificial success in this country for quite a long time. We have benefited economically from our disregard for the state of other nations’ well-being. Now, a globalized economy has exploited the lower cost of labor in other parts of the world, and that lower cost has begun to hurt the artificially high wages that we have enjoyed since the end of World War II. It seems that there is no going back, because that would just be jump-starting an unsustainable system that would bring us right back to where we are in years to come.
I think the answer is to let this happen. To stop worrying about growth as an indicator of economic health and establish a system that grantees security for everyone and values social goods more than the accumulation of money and excess assets. If wages are not going to rise with our level of productivity, which is the typical way things work, we need to ensure that, as a body of citizens we provide for one another. If we ensure that things like transportation, healthcare, education and affordable housing are accessible to everyone, I believe that we will see our lot as a whole improve.
The lie that nations with strong public social assistance programs are all going bankrupt is false. Germany’s economy is doing quite well. We need to see through the nonsense of Supply Side (voodoo economics), and practice some reasonable, public solutions to the problems that the vast majority of us face.
Grace and Peace,
Jared
Anglopressy 