title credit: Jackson Browne
Showing posts with label consumerism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label consumerism. Show all posts
7/26/13
11/16/12
9/8/11
Alien Among Countrymen
Who ARE these people anyway?...
Most people who know me in person, online or read my blog know I grew up on Bermuda around Britains and Americans. My mother is British and my father was American and he and my aunt made a point of teaching us American speech and culture since they knew that by high school we would be in the U.S. It prepared us somewhat but it was fragments of American culture. Additionally the Americans we knew on the island tended to be highly educated and associated mostly with oceanic research or NASA.
When my cousin, my sister and I arrived in this country we could easily fool most people but we still had to work at being assimilated and "Americanized." There were many gaps in our knowledge, the rituals of high school such as American football, pep rallies, yearbooks, homecoming, graduation ceremonies. Since we were kids it didn't take long to fit in and adopt and adapt to the culture. I went on obliviously for decades thinking I was thoroughly American but in recent years I realize that a lot of what I thought of America was actually is what this country once was. My father, aunt and uncle were from a previous generation, one of "spend and invest" while there was disquiet within me about my generation of boomers who I now recognize as "borrow and spend" consumers. It was the previous generations America that I had been coached and raised on.
Sometimes I feel like an immigrant to a country I don't understand.
My uneasiness really started bubbling beneath the surface when in the aftermath of the events of September 11, 2001 I was bothered that after the tributes, the songs had stopped playing on the radio, people then went on the biggest borrowing and spending spree that I could have imagined. I was breathing from a straw air from above the surface and didn't fully comprehend why I felt the way I did. I was asking myself "Who ARE these people? They aren't what I thought they were."
Since the economic crisis began in 2007-2008 I began to slowly understand. Many of my friends, natural born Americans, felt a similar disquietude and many hours of discussion revolved around feeling out of place. Recently Mike, writer of the blog rockandconfusion, made a comment that I instantly recognized: "Sometimes I feel like an immigrant to a country I don't understand." It was a relief to be able to put a phrase to what was really bothering me and it came from a red-blooded, born in the USA, natural born American in the heartland. Ah ha!
This sense of being an alien among countrymen has nothing to do with not being born here or that I went to British schools until I was in high school. It is about values of worth, chroma of beliefs and position in the spectrum of what life is about and it's deeper meaning. It has nothing to do with whether I was trained how to appear American. It revolves around the core merits of the American Way that most of my generation strayed from to their detriment. There is no question now who these people are nor even why they have become the way they have because it no longer matters.
What is relevant is that many people feel the same sense of discomfort about how many people in this country have become. The good part is there are still more than enough people who have the values of previous generations to be able to pick up the pieces and put the country back again no matter how long it takes. That is the true America that has never totally disappeared but lays just beneath the surface waiting to break through for fresh air and rebirth.
Most people who know me in person, online or read my blog know I grew up on Bermuda around Britains and Americans. My mother is British and my father was American and he and my aunt made a point of teaching us American speech and culture since they knew that by high school we would be in the U.S. It prepared us somewhat but it was fragments of American culture. Additionally the Americans we knew on the island tended to be highly educated and associated mostly with oceanic research or NASA.
When my cousin, my sister and I arrived in this country we could easily fool most people but we still had to work at being assimilated and "Americanized." There were many gaps in our knowledge, the rituals of high school such as American football, pep rallies, yearbooks, homecoming, graduation ceremonies. Since we were kids it didn't take long to fit in and adopt and adapt to the culture. I went on obliviously for decades thinking I was thoroughly American but in recent years I realize that a lot of what I thought of America was actually is what this country once was. My father, aunt and uncle were from a previous generation, one of "spend and invest" while there was disquiet within me about my generation of boomers who I now recognize as "borrow and spend" consumers. It was the previous generations America that I had been coached and raised on.
Sometimes I feel like an immigrant to a country I don't understand.
Since the economic crisis began in 2007-2008 I began to slowly understand. Many of my friends, natural born Americans, felt a similar disquietude and many hours of discussion revolved around feeling out of place. Recently Mike, writer of the blog rockandconfusion, made a comment that I instantly recognized: "Sometimes I feel like an immigrant to a country I don't understand." It was a relief to be able to put a phrase to what was really bothering me and it came from a red-blooded, born in the USA, natural born American in the heartland. Ah ha!
What is relevant is that many people feel the same sense of discomfort about how many people in this country have become. The good part is there are still more than enough people who have the values of previous generations to be able to pick up the pieces and put the country back again no matter how long it takes. That is the true America that has never totally disappeared but lays just beneath the surface waiting to break through for fresh air and rebirth.
8/24/11
Restoring Ourselves
Reconstructing America as a shining city on a hill...
When I was a kid growing up on Bermuda, a British island about 700 miles off the coast of North Carolina, there were symbols that were emblematic of America. It was a different world in the fifties and sixties than it is now. There was another view of the United States then and with the island's unique history of being British but having played some role in the American Revolution generally the British and American population got along. There were certain hallmarks that represented America for reasons that made sense at the time. Pan American Airways, American Express, the Stars and Stripes at the US Consulate and Coca-Cola. Those symbols also represented ideals that America stood for just as much as the Statue of Liberty does.
Sometimes I wonder now what the perception of our country is to the rest of the globe. My gut tells me it's McDonalds, Mickey Mouse and Reality TV shows and rampant consumerism. This is disappointing to me but not a surprise. The global view of "America as a shining city on a hill" is already tarnishing to some but not to others who want to immigrate here because they still see the gleam of American Exceptionalism. Those are people who will help us help ourselves just as immigrants have from the beginning. When I emigrated here in 1968 the country was rife with strife but that is not what I was looking for or saw. It was the chance for reinvention, opportunity to be who I wanted to be, liberate myself from the tiny limited, although paradise-like, island I came from and invigorate my life.
We are a country now of several generations that have never known a really bad time economically, socially and politically. We are not prepared for what is going to happen to us psychologically due to the disruption of our way of life. The death of consumerism, personal financial problems, troops returning from war, structural unemployment, lack of social and medical services, alcohol and drug abuse are a few things that come to mind. We are in desperate need of reconstructing ourselves. In The Sense of Beauty Santayana wrote "The only kind of reform usually possible is the kind from within; a more intimate study and intelligent use of the traditional reforms." He also noted "Nothing enhances a good so much as to make sacrifices for it." Our problems, individually and as a country will not be solved by politicians and bureaucrats in government nor medical doctors and scientists with medicinal cures. They will only be resolved by recalling our ideals and working from within ourselves and reaching outward to help each other.
When I was a kid growing up on Bermuda, a British island about 700 miles off the coast of North Carolina, there were symbols that were emblematic of America. It was a different world in the fifties and sixties than it is now. There was another view of the United States then and with the island's unique history of being British but having played some role in the American Revolution generally the British and American population got along. There were certain hallmarks that represented America for reasons that made sense at the time. Pan American Airways, American Express, the Stars and Stripes at the US Consulate and Coca-Cola. Those symbols also represented ideals that America stood for just as much as the Statue of Liberty does.
Sometimes I wonder now what the perception of our country is to the rest of the globe. My gut tells me it's McDonalds, Mickey Mouse and Reality TV shows and rampant consumerism. This is disappointing to me but not a surprise. The global view of "America as a shining city on a hill" is already tarnishing to some but not to others who want to immigrate here because they still see the gleam of American Exceptionalism. Those are people who will help us help ourselves just as immigrants have from the beginning. When I emigrated here in 1968 the country was rife with strife but that is not what I was looking for or saw. It was the chance for reinvention, opportunity to be who I wanted to be, liberate myself from the tiny limited, although paradise-like, island I came from and invigorate my life.
We are a country now of several generations that have never known a really bad time economically, socially and politically. We are not prepared for what is going to happen to us psychologically due to the disruption of our way of life. The death of consumerism, personal financial problems, troops returning from war, structural unemployment, lack of social and medical services, alcohol and drug abuse are a few things that come to mind. We are in desperate need of reconstructing ourselves. In The Sense of Beauty Santayana wrote "The only kind of reform usually possible is the kind from within; a more intimate study and intelligent use of the traditional reforms." He also noted "Nothing enhances a good so much as to make sacrifices for it." Our problems, individually and as a country will not be solved by politicians and bureaucrats in government nor medical doctors and scientists with medicinal cures. They will only be resolved by recalling our ideals and working from within ourselves and reaching outward to help each other.
8/5/11
6/17/11
5/29/11
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
The first change takes place in your mind...
Gil Scott-Heron died yesterday and his spoken word poetry pioneered political rap and influenced hip-hop music although he was somewhat critical of hip hop artists. He was quoted in the nineties:
"They need to study music. I played in several bands before I began my career as a poet. There's a big difference between putting words over some music and blending those same words into music. There's not a lot of humor. They use a lot of slang and colloquialisms and you don't really see inside the person. Instead, you just get a lot of posturing." [italics mine]
One of my favorite GSH lines is the famous one from "Let Me See Your I.D."
"The first time I heard there was trouble in the Middle East, I thought they were talking about Pittsburgh."
It appeals to me since it reminds me of how self-centered many Americans are regarding the rest of the world in the sense the world begins, ends and revolves around the United States.
In his earlier years he was aware of and foreshadowed the inevitable crash of our consumer culture. One of the most important concepts is his statement in an interview in the nineties with Scott Blumberg "The first change that takes place is in your mind, you have to change your mind before you change the way you live and the way you move."
Like all great artists, his work stands the test of time and is both prescient and relevant today. In that same interview he referred to how Black Americans have been "the only real die-hard Americans here because we're the only ones who carried the process through the process, that everyone else has skipped stages, we're the only ones who marched, carried the Bible, carried the flag, were the ones who tried to go through the courts and being born American didn't seem to matter because we were born American but we had to fight for what we were looking for..."
In his latest work in 2010 "I'm New Here" he refers to coming full circle and is classic in it's beautiful lyricism and simplicity of a solo guitarist as accompanist.
http://youtu.be/eV_astp3BjM
Gil Scott-Heron died yesterday and his spoken word poetry pioneered political rap and influenced hip-hop music although he was somewhat critical of hip hop artists. He was quoted in the nineties:
"They need to study music. I played in several bands before I began my career as a poet. There's a big difference between putting words over some music and blending those same words into music. There's not a lot of humor. They use a lot of slang and colloquialisms and you don't really see inside the person. Instead, you just get a lot of posturing." [italics mine]
One of my favorite GSH lines is the famous one from "Let Me See Your I.D."
"The first time I heard there was trouble in the Middle East, I thought they were talking about Pittsburgh."
It appeals to me since it reminds me of how self-centered many Americans are regarding the rest of the world in the sense the world begins, ends and revolves around the United States.
In his earlier years he was aware of and foreshadowed the inevitable crash of our consumer culture. One of the most important concepts is his statement in an interview in the nineties with Scott Blumberg "The first change that takes place is in your mind, you have to change your mind before you change the way you live and the way you move."
Like all great artists, his work stands the test of time and is both prescient and relevant today. In that same interview he referred to how Black Americans have been "the only real die-hard Americans here because we're the only ones who carried the process through the process, that everyone else has skipped stages, we're the only ones who marched, carried the Bible, carried the flag, were the ones who tried to go through the courts and being born American didn't seem to matter because we were born American but we had to fight for what we were looking for..."
In his latest work in 2010 "I'm New Here" he refers to coming full circle and is classic in it's beautiful lyricism and simplicity of a solo guitarist as accompanist.
http://youtu.be/eV_astp3BjM
4/20/11
3/28/11
A Head of My Time
On earning your keep...
The battle lines are being drawn between the entitlement mentality crowd and the legion fed up with them.
When I was young my mother would say in her inimitable British way, that I certainly had endurance and stamina. Depending on the situation, if she was referring out of pride or dismay, she would add that "I had a good English backbone" or "you certainly have your father's American grit." My father's response was always a sanguine "I wonder where he got that from..."
My parents where a unique combination. My mother grew up on the coast of southeastern England during the Second World War with bombs literally dropping around her. My father was a Western American who grew up in a dried up Arizona hard hit by the Great Depression and inherited real true grit. They were rich only in that they were fortunate to come from educated middle class families, who managed to persevere by their ability to work through difficult times, with ingenuity and making the best of bad situations. Humility and humor were both necessary attributes. In that sense, although their childhoods and adolescence occurred during an arduous time period, they did not want for anything they needed. They also grew up knowing that they got a break, since they witnessed firsthand the devastation and destitution of others and were not shielded from it. That does not mean they had excess of anything, only they were not wounded or hungry, everyone was affected by the Great Depression and WWII in some way.
I tend to think that a lot of the skills required to overcome adversity and rise above, persevere through tough times, anxiety and depression, physical pain, deprivation and isolation is largely inherited through some genetic coding as well as parenting, along with acquiring coping skills through hard lessons in life. Almost everyone I know who has the character to endure burdens that others can't, have one or all those factors, regardless if they grew up rich, poor or somewhere in between. All races, both genders, either sexuality.
Large segments of the US population lack staying power and are looking for the easy way out.
When my family moved to this country when I was 14, although we were not without some means we were starting out all over again. We left where we were with the minimum of goods, the money we were allowed to take out of there, sorry to go but knowing it had become a hostile place with a limited future and happy to come to the US. I had always wanted to move to this country and for me the goal was to make the best out of my life in the way of education, achieving by work and effort. My hopes were for a happy, comfortable life with the ability to obtain things I wanted. That didn't necessarily include having a big house, a luxury car or expensive fashionable clothes, although I did like and want nice things. It also didn't matter to me if that was the goal of others, as long as it didn't trample on me or anyone else in our goals.
That is where in the late eighties and early nineties my values and goals started to really clash with many natural born Americans. It was not only that they seemed to want more and more big and flashier things. It was that I was seeing how a mentality of entitlement was insidiously creeping into the culture of a large segment of the population. Additionally they didn't care how they got it or what harm they may be causing to everything from values to economics, to society or to the environment. It was their right to have more stuff and bigger things without any regard to how they got it or if they had worked for it. It came to be a dominant theme in the social conduct of America, turning having more than you earn a virtue instead of a vice.
On account of where I live, the work I do and the sheer numbers of people I am exposed to, I am well aware of a lot of people whose lives were built on this type of entitlement consumerism and are crashing and burning. I take no pleasure in it but I have no empathy for the whining and crying of the disappointment these people feel. As far as I'm concerned their anger is misplaced about losing their "right" to conspicuous consumption and misdirected in the wrong trajectory. They should be redirecting it to themselves and placing the blame on their own shoulders. I see trouble ahead for society from these people.
We are already getting the signals from unhappy adults with childlike cries for their rattles back. They're expecting the government and other citizens to bail them out to continue their "right" to a lifestyle they didn't truly earn and those that whine "you promised us." Wisconsin is just a small sampler of the backfire from that camp that is on its way to pitching tents of fits all over the country. On the other side there are those fed up with subsidizing the life of others, especially since most of them have weathered this economic storm without much assistance from the government, unions or social services agencies. My bet is on them, they're even angrier and are beginning to marshal their troops to repudiate both the entrenched political class and arming to counter-demonstrate against the entitlement hordes. It's a matter of time.
This is where I also see the worth in the values I inherited, the parenting I received and learning from the mistakes I made with money, relationships and employment. There is a price when you take the effortless way out by accepting easy money, ditching relationships at the drop of a hat without resolving personal problems, for taking easy jobs that pay too well for really doing very little. There are no rights except those outlined in the US Constitution and I find nothing in that document that addresses the desire to have goodies is a right or to live off public money. There is no "we promised you" clause or mention of an implied contract that you would get what you want.
There is a storm gathering that is going to blow out and wash down everything and everyone that does not have the wherewithal to hold on tightly. Endurance and stamina will be required as well as the knowledge of what you really need and that you don't always get what you want.
The battle lines are being drawn between the entitlement mentality crowd and the legion fed up with them.
When I was young my mother would say in her inimitable British way, that I certainly had endurance and stamina. Depending on the situation, if she was referring out of pride or dismay, she would add that "I had a good English backbone" or "you certainly have your father's American grit." My father's response was always a sanguine "I wonder where he got that from..."
My parents where a unique combination. My mother grew up on the coast of southeastern England during the Second World War with bombs literally dropping around her. My father was a Western American who grew up in a dried up Arizona hard hit by the Great Depression and inherited real true grit. They were rich only in that they were fortunate to come from educated middle class families, who managed to persevere by their ability to work through difficult times, with ingenuity and making the best of bad situations. Humility and humor were both necessary attributes. In that sense, although their childhoods and adolescence occurred during an arduous time period, they did not want for anything they needed. They also grew up knowing that they got a break, since they witnessed firsthand the devastation and destitution of others and were not shielded from it. That does not mean they had excess of anything, only they were not wounded or hungry, everyone was affected by the Great Depression and WWII in some way.
I tend to think that a lot of the skills required to overcome adversity and rise above, persevere through tough times, anxiety and depression, physical pain, deprivation and isolation is largely inherited through some genetic coding as well as parenting, along with acquiring coping skills through hard lessons in life. Almost everyone I know who has the character to endure burdens that others can't, have one or all those factors, regardless if they grew up rich, poor or somewhere in between. All races, both genders, either sexuality.
Large segments of the US population lack staying power and are looking for the easy way out.
When my family moved to this country when I was 14, although we were not without some means we were starting out all over again. We left where we were with the minimum of goods, the money we were allowed to take out of there, sorry to go but knowing it had become a hostile place with a limited future and happy to come to the US. I had always wanted to move to this country and for me the goal was to make the best out of my life in the way of education, achieving by work and effort. My hopes were for a happy, comfortable life with the ability to obtain things I wanted. That didn't necessarily include having a big house, a luxury car or expensive fashionable clothes, although I did like and want nice things. It also didn't matter to me if that was the goal of others, as long as it didn't trample on me or anyone else in our goals.
That is where in the late eighties and early nineties my values and goals started to really clash with many natural born Americans. It was not only that they seemed to want more and more big and flashier things. It was that I was seeing how a mentality of entitlement was insidiously creeping into the culture of a large segment of the population. Additionally they didn't care how they got it or what harm they may be causing to everything from values to economics, to society or to the environment. It was their right to have more stuff and bigger things without any regard to how they got it or if they had worked for it. It came to be a dominant theme in the social conduct of America, turning having more than you earn a virtue instead of a vice.
On account of where I live, the work I do and the sheer numbers of people I am exposed to, I am well aware of a lot of people whose lives were built on this type of entitlement consumerism and are crashing and burning. I take no pleasure in it but I have no empathy for the whining and crying of the disappointment these people feel. As far as I'm concerned their anger is misplaced about losing their "right" to conspicuous consumption and misdirected in the wrong trajectory. They should be redirecting it to themselves and placing the blame on their own shoulders. I see trouble ahead for society from these people.
We are already getting the signals from unhappy adults with childlike cries for their rattles back. They're expecting the government and other citizens to bail them out to continue their "right" to a lifestyle they didn't truly earn and those that whine "you promised us." Wisconsin is just a small sampler of the backfire from that camp that is on its way to pitching tents of fits all over the country. On the other side there are those fed up with subsidizing the life of others, especially since most of them have weathered this economic storm without much assistance from the government, unions or social services agencies. My bet is on them, they're even angrier and are beginning to marshal their troops to repudiate both the entrenched political class and arming to counter-demonstrate against the entitlement hordes. It's a matter of time.
This is where I also see the worth in the values I inherited, the parenting I received and learning from the mistakes I made with money, relationships and employment. There is a price when you take the effortless way out by accepting easy money, ditching relationships at the drop of a hat without resolving personal problems, for taking easy jobs that pay too well for really doing very little. There are no rights except those outlined in the US Constitution and I find nothing in that document that addresses the desire to have goodies is a right or to live off public money. There is no "we promised you" clause or mention of an implied contract that you would get what you want.
There is a storm gathering that is going to blow out and wash down everything and everyone that does not have the wherewithal to hold on tightly. Endurance and stamina will be required as well as the knowledge of what you really need and that you don't always get what you want.
3/10/11
Economic, Social and Geopolitical
A brief history of the Federal government and unionism run amuck...
Or how we got into this mess now and why the country is divisive.
America is a big country with wide opinions as large as the population. We are at a moment in our history where our judgment and reasoning is diverse and our opinions are also divisive. In my lifetime the last time we were at this point was in the late sixties and early seventies in the "love it or leave it" period. In it's simplest form today it takes on the debate of libertarian conservative versus progressive liberal ideals.
Progressive Liberalism (as opposed to Classical Liberalism) as a movement started to take hold over a hundred years ago before the First World War. Theodore Roosevelt was the first President to push Progressivism. The consumerism of today is a result of the shift, at that time, in emphasis of managing the national economy from free market business to the regulation of business in favor of the consumer. The idea was that the consumer was more important than the producer. Consumers were the driver of the economy rather than the producers of goods and their rights to products were more important than those who invented, created, manufactured and marketed them.
In 1927 a group of elite academics, unionists, peace activists and radical leftists took a cruise to the then unrecognized Soviet Union to meet Stalin and tour Russia. Their mission was to be self-appointed unofficial envoys of the United States to document the marvels of the collectivist economy of the Soviets. They were given lavish guided tours to selected places that were successful planned economic enterprises and shielded from anything else. They documented their experiences and wrote papers, books and newspaper and magazine articles extolling the virtues of the collectivist society they witnessed. The importance of the trip and passengers is that many of these people become prominent in Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal administrations.
When the legacy became entrenched.
FDR tired of these people and their experiments by 1937 when the second wave of Depression hit from 1937 to 1939. He had been re-elected in 1936 in a landslide but it was becoming clear that the collectivists and their programs had not solved the problems of the economy. In fact, they made it worse, but the damage was done. The established major institutions we are stuck with today including Social Security and liberalized unionism. After the Second World War, the answer to converting from a wartime economy to a peaceful one was in promoting mass produced cookie cutter housing and consumer goods. The remnants of both Roosevelts, regulated monopolies, Social Security, federal government economic planning and unionism were accepted and tolerated as necessary evils.
Those were the seeds planted that the federal government and programs, as we know it today, mushroomed out of control. President Johnson exacerbated the situation by his Great Society programs. Later the Justice Department in law suits started in his administration resulted in Affirmative Action quotas forced onto private employers by consent decree. Public employee unionism also dramatically increased in this era.
To fully understand the consumerism mindset and sense of entitlement many Americans hold today it is important to see how long it took us to get here and how. In order to unravel it, which we must if we are to recover from our current economic crisis, cannot take a hundred years but must be unwound relatively quickly. If we are to recover from it, otherwise we really will spiral downward, a proposition I don't think most Americans are willing to accept.
Why we're divided today.
Due to the current administration, the ineffective political class of both parties in Washington, the divisiveness we are seeing today is a result of a growing movement that is getting stronger. The loose coalition of the Tea Party is the tip of the iceberg. The sentiment they represent is growing stronger among average Americans who don't necessarily align themselves with any political party of movement. The reason the unionists and supporters resistance, especially in the public sector, is so virulently strong (witness Wisconsin as an example) is they recognize the threat to their status quo. Whether they publicly acknowledge this or not, the Progressive Liberals of today realize they are losing the hearts and minds of the American people. In one election three years ago they won their last major victory and gradually they are losing more and more battles.
Some states, Arizona and Montana among them, are taking steps to buck the Federal government and loosen the grip. The process is called "nullification" and refers to state legislatures and elected officials passing bills and declaring that certain federal government edicts are "null and void" because these mandates violate the limits of authority as stated in the US Constitution. Some of their actions seem extreme to a number of people but they don't realize that some of these actions are literal and others are symbolic. Regardless, the trend is there and it is growing.
In Montana a state legislator, Krayton Kerns, is proposing a bill that would nullify the federal Endangered Species Act "null and void" in his state. According to an article in the Great Falls Tribune he argues that the federal government is in serious debt and the opponents to his bill, countering that this legislation would cost the state federal dollars, are arguing over money that isn't there.
"We may as well be arguing over pixie dust. It has as much intrinsic value, the federal government is going down, and you know when a republic dies, it's kind of an ugly thing. There will be no money in the future. Whether we argue about it or not is a nonissue."
On the federal level, Congressman Ron Paul is making the same argument he has for years. Since the US ended the convertibility of the dollar to gold we are using fiat money. Fiat money only has value because the government has laws that say it does. In other words, we keep printing more and more money that has no real intrinsic value to dig ourselves out of debt. Instead we are digging ourselves into a deeper hole.
What is going to happen.
Fear is a powerful thing and many people operate out of fear. The divisiveness of opinion today is driven by the fear of those who depend on the federal government to continue printing money, versus those who recognize that money has no real value and is leading to the inevitable collapse of the monetary system. Sides are forming up and soon there will be no middle of the road dilly dallying around it. The debate revolves around a number of issues but a few serve as focal points.
On the one side, are those who want to see the federal government get its grip off state and local governments and on the other side are those that want more federal control. There are many who want to be free of government interference in our personal lives and some who want the security of entitlement. It is not easily divided up by political parties but each side has organized representation. They are symbolized by the Tea Party movement and organized labor because they are the most visible. They are by no means the only brokers in this divisive war of opinions but it is becoming clearer, as our economic and social fabric dissolves, that we cannot go on this way.
My thought is that we will survive the increasing fights over how much federal government interference people will allow. At the core will be those who are against the status quo of a so-called planned economy and those who are proponents of it. To me the resolution, which will be a revolution in itself, will come when the bottom line is finally tallied. The government really has no money and we may as well be arguing over pixie dust. The system will break and fall and we the people, will have to pick up the pieces and put it back together.
When it's all over and the dust settles, we will be stronger people less dependent on a consumer economy, achievement oriented where accomplishing something matters, knowing things that are important, such as reading, writing, history, geography and math, working hard results in real reward. Above all we will be proud of our country all over again and what it stands for and what we have done for it and ourselves.
Or how we got into this mess now and why the country is divisive.
America is a big country with wide opinions as large as the population. We are at a moment in our history where our judgment and reasoning is diverse and our opinions are also divisive. In my lifetime the last time we were at this point was in the late sixties and early seventies in the "love it or leave it" period. In it's simplest form today it takes on the debate of libertarian conservative versus progressive liberal ideals.
Progressive Liberalism (as opposed to Classical Liberalism) as a movement started to take hold over a hundred years ago before the First World War. Theodore Roosevelt was the first President to push Progressivism. The consumerism of today is a result of the shift, at that time, in emphasis of managing the national economy from free market business to the regulation of business in favor of the consumer. The idea was that the consumer was more important than the producer. Consumers were the driver of the economy rather than the producers of goods and their rights to products were more important than those who invented, created, manufactured and marketed them.
In 1927 a group of elite academics, unionists, peace activists and radical leftists took a cruise to the then unrecognized Soviet Union to meet Stalin and tour Russia. Their mission was to be self-appointed unofficial envoys of the United States to document the marvels of the collectivist economy of the Soviets. They were given lavish guided tours to selected places that were successful planned economic enterprises and shielded from anything else. They documented their experiences and wrote papers, books and newspaper and magazine articles extolling the virtues of the collectivist society they witnessed. The importance of the trip and passengers is that many of these people become prominent in Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal administrations.
When the legacy became entrenched.
FDR tired of these people and their experiments by 1937 when the second wave of Depression hit from 1937 to 1939. He had been re-elected in 1936 in a landslide but it was becoming clear that the collectivists and their programs had not solved the problems of the economy. In fact, they made it worse, but the damage was done. The established major institutions we are stuck with today including Social Security and liberalized unionism. After the Second World War, the answer to converting from a wartime economy to a peaceful one was in promoting mass produced cookie cutter housing and consumer goods. The remnants of both Roosevelts, regulated monopolies, Social Security, federal government economic planning and unionism were accepted and tolerated as necessary evils.
Those were the seeds planted that the federal government and programs, as we know it today, mushroomed out of control. President Johnson exacerbated the situation by his Great Society programs. Later the Justice Department in law suits started in his administration resulted in Affirmative Action quotas forced onto private employers by consent decree. Public employee unionism also dramatically increased in this era.
To fully understand the consumerism mindset and sense of entitlement many Americans hold today it is important to see how long it took us to get here and how. In order to unravel it, which we must if we are to recover from our current economic crisis, cannot take a hundred years but must be unwound relatively quickly. If we are to recover from it, otherwise we really will spiral downward, a proposition I don't think most Americans are willing to accept.
Why we're divided today.
Due to the current administration, the ineffective political class of both parties in Washington, the divisiveness we are seeing today is a result of a growing movement that is getting stronger. The loose coalition of the Tea Party is the tip of the iceberg. The sentiment they represent is growing stronger among average Americans who don't necessarily align themselves with any political party of movement. The reason the unionists and supporters resistance, especially in the public sector, is so virulently strong (witness Wisconsin as an example) is they recognize the threat to their status quo. Whether they publicly acknowledge this or not, the Progressive Liberals of today realize they are losing the hearts and minds of the American people. In one election three years ago they won their last major victory and gradually they are losing more and more battles.
Some states, Arizona and Montana among them, are taking steps to buck the Federal government and loosen the grip. The process is called "nullification" and refers to state legislatures and elected officials passing bills and declaring that certain federal government edicts are "null and void" because these mandates violate the limits of authority as stated in the US Constitution. Some of their actions seem extreme to a number of people but they don't realize that some of these actions are literal and others are symbolic. Regardless, the trend is there and it is growing.
In Montana a state legislator, Krayton Kerns, is proposing a bill that would nullify the federal Endangered Species Act "null and void" in his state. According to an article in the Great Falls Tribune he argues that the federal government is in serious debt and the opponents to his bill, countering that this legislation would cost the state federal dollars, are arguing over money that isn't there.
"We may as well be arguing over pixie dust. It has as much intrinsic value, the federal government is going down, and you know when a republic dies, it's kind of an ugly thing. There will be no money in the future. Whether we argue about it or not is a nonissue."
On the federal level, Congressman Ron Paul is making the same argument he has for years. Since the US ended the convertibility of the dollar to gold we are using fiat money. Fiat money only has value because the government has laws that say it does. In other words, we keep printing more and more money that has no real intrinsic value to dig ourselves out of debt. Instead we are digging ourselves into a deeper hole.
What is going to happen.
Fear is a powerful thing and many people operate out of fear. The divisiveness of opinion today is driven by the fear of those who depend on the federal government to continue printing money, versus those who recognize that money has no real value and is leading to the inevitable collapse of the monetary system. Sides are forming up and soon there will be no middle of the road dilly dallying around it. The debate revolves around a number of issues but a few serve as focal points.
On the one side, are those who want to see the federal government get its grip off state and local governments and on the other side are those that want more federal control. There are many who want to be free of government interference in our personal lives and some who want the security of entitlement. It is not easily divided up by political parties but each side has organized representation. They are symbolized by the Tea Party movement and organized labor because they are the most visible. They are by no means the only brokers in this divisive war of opinions but it is becoming clearer, as our economic and social fabric dissolves, that we cannot go on this way.
My thought is that we will survive the increasing fights over how much federal government interference people will allow. At the core will be those who are against the status quo of a so-called planned economy and those who are proponents of it. To me the resolution, which will be a revolution in itself, will come when the bottom line is finally tallied. The government really has no money and we may as well be arguing over pixie dust. The system will break and fall and we the people, will have to pick up the pieces and put it back together.
When it's all over and the dust settles, we will be stronger people less dependent on a consumer economy, achievement oriented where accomplishing something matters, knowing things that are important, such as reading, writing, history, geography and math, working hard results in real reward. Above all we will be proud of our country all over again and what it stands for and what we have done for it and ourselves.
12/23/10
Thinking Out Loud
Fast Food Head vs Good Food Mind...
You Are What You Eat
A diet of fast food and prepared chow is basically junk and nutritionally vacant, full of clogging fats, salts, starches, phosphates, dyes, colorings, hydrologized compounds and unpronounceable chemicals, to mention a few. Not only does it lack much nutritive value but it also has a lot of harmful constituents that are bad for your body and overall health. It stands to reason that an intake of this as food is not only bad for the body but cannot feed the brain what it needs to reckon even ordinary stuff out.
My conclusion, completely unscientific and from mere observation, is most people who survive on fast food and junk live their daily lives the same way they consume food, in an inert head that lacks control. Fast and full of junk time, wasting energy on trivial pursuits and not really thinking about what they are doing, how they live their lives and thinking ahead. This is a generalization but it seems to me, that if you don't think about what you are putting in your body, not considering how you eat, it's an indication of a general lack of concern about personal well-being. It's difficult to tell which comes first, a lack of ability to have a strategy and a purpose or the lack of good nutrition that creates a toxic body and dull head that can't think well because it's undernourished.
On the other hand, eating healthy food, basic unadulterated stuff that provides protein, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, minerals and other nutrients in proportional balance, is good for you. It doesn't have to be organic, vegetarian or vegan, sparse or dull and can be obtained in a regular grocery store for reasonable cost. It requires thoughtful shopping and most prepared freezer, prepackaged box and canned foods should be counted out. A lot of basic good food doesn't require much preparation and can be fixed relatively simply for a wholesome meal or "grazing" during the day. It provides the building blocks for a healthy body and simultaneously nourishes the mind.
Thinking about how you treat your body by considering what you eat with a modicum of exercise, is a sign of having control over your life and how you live it. It's an indication that you plan ahead, consider the consequences of bad choices, deliberate on important decisions and overall think relatively clearly. There's also a high probability that your moods are better or if you have mood problems you are better able to deal with them. My completely unscientific conclusion is that because you eat better, you also have a better mind.
You Are What You Eat
A diet of fast food and prepared chow is basically junk and nutritionally vacant, full of clogging fats, salts, starches, phosphates, dyes, colorings, hydrologized compounds and unpronounceable chemicals, to mention a few. Not only does it lack much nutritive value but it also has a lot of harmful constituents that are bad for your body and overall health. It stands to reason that an intake of this as food is not only bad for the body but cannot feed the brain what it needs to reckon even ordinary stuff out.
My conclusion, completely unscientific and from mere observation, is most people who survive on fast food and junk live their daily lives the same way they consume food, in an inert head that lacks control. Fast and full of junk time, wasting energy on trivial pursuits and not really thinking about what they are doing, how they live their lives and thinking ahead. This is a generalization but it seems to me, that if you don't think about what you are putting in your body, not considering how you eat, it's an indication of a general lack of concern about personal well-being. It's difficult to tell which comes first, a lack of ability to have a strategy and a purpose or the lack of good nutrition that creates a toxic body and dull head that can't think well because it's undernourished.
On the other hand, eating healthy food, basic unadulterated stuff that provides protein, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, minerals and other nutrients in proportional balance, is good for you. It doesn't have to be organic, vegetarian or vegan, sparse or dull and can be obtained in a regular grocery store for reasonable cost. It requires thoughtful shopping and most prepared freezer, prepackaged box and canned foods should be counted out. A lot of basic good food doesn't require much preparation and can be fixed relatively simply for a wholesome meal or "grazing" during the day. It provides the building blocks for a healthy body and simultaneously nourishes the mind.
Thinking about how you treat your body by considering what you eat with a modicum of exercise, is a sign of having control over your life and how you live it. It's an indication that you plan ahead, consider the consequences of bad choices, deliberate on important decisions and overall think relatively clearly. There's also a high probability that your moods are better or if you have mood problems you are better able to deal with them. My completely unscientific conclusion is that because you eat better, you also have a better mind.
11/10/10
Quality
Teach the children well...
The outcry about public schools, all schools for that matter, is wrong on all accounts. Those who bemoan public school cuts by making children out to be victims deprived of a mediocre education system are as misguided as proponents of cutting school funding. The claims of those who want to cut school funding are uninformed that schools need to get back to more rigid "three R's" and regimented schoolroom structures for a good quality education.
Neither of these views is well thought out and doesn't take into account the real need that all schools, public, charter or private, must provide for the future. The current public system does waste money and doesn't teach basic reading, writing and math skills, nor does it level the playing field for all kids to get a good job, advance in the ranks of employment, business and so on.
That is actually the real problem. Our school systems are modeled on turning children into commodities for the corporate society to make them low cost, high production cogs in the wheels of commerce, spend money as consumers to distract them and then be put on the shelf in hypnotic retirement to consume some more. If some schools do teach subjects on a high functioning level, it is at great cost to creative thinking, unfettered ways of approaching things differently and stifling free association and individualism. They are conforming obedience factories to churn employees out for the corporate and financial complex.
Our society is no longer going in that direction, a throw back to the Industrial Age, in the short or long term.
We need kids to learn how to read, write and do math creatively with a depth of thinking that allows them to imagine using these skills in unique ways. Who also learn other subjects in the categories of science, history, the arts and much more, so they envisage how to apply them with uncommon methods. Above all else real education means allowing children to grow as individuals in their own inimitable right and not as grinding gears for some mass market employer.
The outcry about public schools, all schools for that matter, is wrong on all accounts. Those who bemoan public school cuts by making children out to be victims deprived of a mediocre education system are as misguided as proponents of cutting school funding. The claims of those who want to cut school funding are uninformed that schools need to get back to more rigid "three R's" and regimented schoolroom structures for a good quality education.
Neither of these views is well thought out and doesn't take into account the real need that all schools, public, charter or private, must provide for the future. The current public system does waste money and doesn't teach basic reading, writing and math skills, nor does it level the playing field for all kids to get a good job, advance in the ranks of employment, business and so on.
That is actually the real problem. Our school systems are modeled on turning children into commodities for the corporate society to make them low cost, high production cogs in the wheels of commerce, spend money as consumers to distract them and then be put on the shelf in hypnotic retirement to consume some more. If some schools do teach subjects on a high functioning level, it is at great cost to creative thinking, unfettered ways of approaching things differently and stifling free association and individualism. They are conforming obedience factories to churn employees out for the corporate and financial complex.
Our society is no longer going in that direction, a throw back to the Industrial Age, in the short or long term.
We need kids to learn how to read, write and do math creatively with a depth of thinking that allows them to imagine using these skills in unique ways. Who also learn other subjects in the categories of science, history, the arts and much more, so they envisage how to apply them with uncommon methods. Above all else real education means allowing children to grow as individuals in their own inimitable right and not as grinding gears for some mass market employer.
9/28/10
We Bought It
Therefore we own it...
and if not paid off, still also owe it
It strikes me as indicative of how the American character has changed the last 30 years or so when after the attacks of 09-11-01, we listened to "Where Were You When The World Stopped Turning" for a few weeks, then carried on with our daily lives as President George W. Bush urged. There was very little reflection on the monumental historical event that had just happened. Contrary to popular belief, Bush did not tell us to "go shopping," as has been mythically repeated.
We did that all on our own.
...and wow, we sure went on a binge of a shopping spree.
Even if he did say it, when did we become such followers as to do exactly what our leaders say without thinking or questioning? That's antithetical to American thinking. No, we own our buyer's remorse, our leaders don't.
and if not paid off, still also owe it
It strikes me as indicative of how the American character has changed the last 30 years or so when after the attacks of 09-11-01, we listened to "Where Were You When The World Stopped Turning" for a few weeks, then carried on with our daily lives as President George W. Bush urged. There was very little reflection on the monumental historical event that had just happened. Contrary to popular belief, Bush did not tell us to "go shopping," as has been mythically repeated.
We did that all on our own.
...and wow, we sure went on a binge of a shopping spree.
Even if he did say it, when did we become such followers as to do exactly what our leaders say without thinking or questioning? That's antithetical to American thinking. No, we own our buyer's remorse, our leaders don't.
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