It has been a great while since i have written a post. I figured most of you have categorized me into your little mental boxes, and for the most part written me off as that “type” of person with those “type” of views. That’s okay as we are all entitled to our opinions, but remember this; a tree that bends in the wind will survive for a very long time. In other words, being inflexible and unable to accept any notion from someone who’s views are opposed to your own belief structure will only allow for no synthesis in the discussion process. Therefore, no change in the real world.
At any rate, i wanted to touch on the subject matter of income inequality and the “demagoguery” of the 1%. To be fair i did just slap the 1% in the face with Immortal Technique, and it is important to state that i do not condone generalization in any way. Poking fun is a way to lighten up the subject matter.
I was watching CNN the other day, while enjoying a cup of joe. The discussion of $FB buying WhatsApp for $19 billion was touted as the benefit of the American dream where a foreigner could go from food stamps in his teenage years to being a gazillionaire in a very short period of time. The deal was used as an excuse to escape the negative connotations of people becoming incredibly wealthy and subconsciously implying that being wealthy is all copacetic.
Being and becoming wealthy is in its own right not the issue at hand. What is important is how that wealth is attained. We should never discard ingenuity and business acumen to attain insane amounts of wealth. What we should focus on is the unspoken path to attaining wealth for some people.
You would agree, that attaining wealth through theft, fraud, and or price gouging is unacceptable. But this is precisely what we have in many, not all, but many cases in our society. Lately, i have wondered why something that cost pennies to make is sold for many if not ten’s of dollars. Most will point to a “free market” system and say that the price is based upon supply, demand, and what the market will bear. But is that really the case? I think not when we exploit and pay people a quarter a day to make sneakers. The world is mostly 3rd World born and they are taking notes.
We seem to live in a world where monopolies are all the rage and those monopolies on top of the market place use their wealth to lobby for favorable tax, business, and regulatory conditions. These conditions only serve the few, they actually do away with competition in some instances, and insure that the fraud, theft, and price gouging stays constant. Constant at least for a while.
As an example, during war time as we have witnessed, over the past ten years we are all too familiar with no bid contracts and watching the military waste oodles of money. Example here , and here. For the record, leasing a vehicle for $40k per year, in some cases $40k per year for 4-7 year minimum contracts, is asinine as they could be bought for that amount of money.
As the saying goes, “the apple does not fall far from the tree,” it is no wonder that when some business leaders and some government officials and or agencies act in a certain way we have individuals running a muck destroying the once respected American reputation. Yet i digress from the main topic.
I recently posted some videos / articles that display some corporate attitudes and the viability of our economic model. This type of behavior is truly disgusting. More importantly, the issue at hand is that corporations are only beholden to shareholders and maximizing profits. In some cases these attitudes have no regard for humanity, ethics, and what made our country the envy of the world. Given this reality how can we say a corporation is a person? Most persons or citizens are kind, thoughtful, and generous to their fellow citizen. We the people are what makes this country great, but in some cases we the corporation defiles any resemblance to what it means to be human.
It needs to be mentioned that a world fashioned out of a myopic view by the “Bernays effect” and the idea that Darwin’s theories are a perfect model for our economy is…well a sad result of the dark side of man. Darwin mentions competition and survival of the fittest a few times while he mentions love and community nearly 100 times.
Getting back to the subject one again, the intrinsic value of Gekko’s famous quote “that greed is good” is not inherently bad in and of itself. What becomes unacceptable, is the lengths to which some will go to attain profits through their justified statement. The problem lies with our fearless leaders both in government and corporate America.
If you want the demagoguery and hatred to disappear then you need to promote a healthy model of business and governing that considers the entire world as your community and brethren. Until then, we will forever remain in a state of “Us and Them” and we will suffer the fate of our disgusting, inhumane, and criminal way of life. This continuance IMO can not and will not end well. If you want to change the future then we must leave the past behind!
On a closing note, i would hate to think that George Carlin could be right. Hopefully, time will prove us not to be a surface annoyance to the planet. I would hope that we survive the wrath of Gaia and ourselves for that matter. Respecting the ideas of the Yin and Yang principle i hope that this article describing the seed of dark blackness is a necessary process to living in the white light.
[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLXnuMjx-A8 450 300]
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