Either we protect the wealth of the ultra rich who trash the economy to satisfy their mindless greed, or we concentrate our energies on empowering ourselves, investing in opportunities for us all. It is a matter of vision.
The “trickle down” theory has a major flaw in it, other than it being an absolute joke; it necessitates that we center our society totally on the whims of the psycho greedy. Even now, after these criminals raped our economy in 2008, they demand that they call the shots. They hold “jobs” over our heads as if they had any intention of creating them. They are in effect saying, “We won’t even start to think about creating jobs until we are in complete control”. The truth is that they have no intention of creating any jobs. Their only concern is the control.
“If we just take the regulations and taxes off of the rich then jobs will come flying out of their asses!” Is that correct? Do I have that right? I admit you have the better of me here. Keep in mind that I was indoctrinated by evil liberal professors who taught me that the job market also has a supply and demand curve that defines it. What I can’t see is how the demand for skilled labor increases because you give the psycho greedy carte blanche. The usual answer is, “Because then they will spend that money and thus create jobs."
Spend it on what?
Building things.
Where?
We’ve just extended the Bush tax cuts and got nothing. You only buy something if you have or feel a need. What do the rich need that they are not already getting…other than a conscience? There is no need to create jobs if you have no need for anything. So there will be no jobs created this way. This only inflates the coffers of the psycho greedy which means less money that can be used for real job programs. Giving tax cuts to the greedy does not address our economic needs; it just appeases greed…temporarily.
Greed is an act of ignorance. Instead of living in a society where we help build a sustainable economy, creating necessary projects that create necessary jobs, investing in technologies that will make us stronger and more competitive thus raising the standard of living for everyone, developing an atmosphere that encourages the arts, that tells the story of our times, our personal dramas as well as our shared encounters, but instead of all this, the conservative mindset is dedicated to making sure the kings and queens of our democracy get everything their very little hearts desire.
If you want to practice greed you should know the costs. Christians, for example, could no longer support you as greed is a sign of you worshipping Mammon. The dharmic religions, like Buddhism, would see you as creating destructive karma by causing grief and hardship, the loss of people’s homes and savings, the loss of life from not having proper medical care, artificially inflating your importance in the universe, and the like are just a few things that will be coming back to haunt you. You are not the lord our god. Your ego is the false god you put before the real One.
Then there are the people that support the “kings” and “queens” of our
[*If based on a traditional 40 hours a week job, that’s over $11,000 an hour!]
If we concern ourselves with building strong communities with the energy of our lives, instead of centering our lives on the whims of a small group of dickheads, we would witness an altogether different vision than what is offered by the conservatives. Those components of society that give a culture its definition like literature, art, music, cuisine, architecture and design are just part of what cultures develop when they are left unfettered by the taxation (demands) of blind corporate greed. The corporate mindset, however, has no other maxim than profit. This tells us that greed is dictating the way these people see the world. It does not speak to the reality of the world, but only to the greed monger’s vision of the world.
The reason why these people are convinced that their “greed way” is the right way is because it is the only mindset they know. How does one explain blue to someone who does not see? When greed goes to church, it interprets everything it sees to conform to the greed vision…then they utter “mine is the true religion” with no other possible explanation considered. When driving a car…it is greed that cuts in front of others…parks in the handicap space…does not yield for others, “Me first! Everyone else can fight it out for second,” etc. Greed is convinced that it knows who the real patriots are…they are people who think like me! Greed teaches that who or whatever wants you to experience any other way of understanding the world, is necessarily evil; evil not because it would be the end of the world, but because it would be the end of their “world”.
Blind corporate greed has already sacrificed the quality of their products and has increased their corporate “tax” on us in other ways as well. Why is what used to be a 1lb can of beans only 14.5oz now? Why is a roll of toilet paper getting narrower? Why does lunch meat have “water added” if not to increase its weight, which has us buying water at the price of, say, ham? They are raising their prices (corporate taxes) when they do these things, but they’re trying to sneak the price hike past us…why? Why not keep the quality and portion size of the product the same and raise the price when necessary…or is it that without the dickishness it just wouldn’t be as much “fun”?
This speaks directly to the mindset, the attitude, these people have for the rest of us. Another example: if you purchase something on line, you are often put on a list of people who responded to the company’s sales efforts. That list is seen as a resource which the company could sell on the information market. On top of this being an invasion of our privacy, they insult us by referring to this list as a “sucker list”. That’s their idea of customer respect. All these examples give us an idea of the “vision” driving the leadership of the conservative movement: pure contempt for the middle class. They would sacrifice the quality of their products and their moral worth for profit. They would (and have) sacrificed human lives if they could make money in the process. Profit is their only vision, their only commandment, their only religion, and it is their only god. They worship Mammon.
What if our society was dedicated to recognizing and advancing those who actually create a higher quality of living for everyone? What if that is what earned someone wealth? What if inventors were to get support from his or her community and were helped in setting up manufacturing to create more jobs for that community? How about direct connection with doctors without going through corporate regulations, and to establish the actual status of our health rather than maximizing the profit for a 12 minute visit? How about supporting our local talents, like farmers and chefs, the small cheese shops and local wineries, micro breweries and bakeries, instead of shipping, say, white bread from a bakery 1,000 miles away or thinking that international fast food chains are a good idea? These are small things but they are all part of what makes up our local cultures. Of course there is room for quality imports just as there is room for quality exports.
Advancements in science have created massive opportunities for humanity. Health, green energy, communications and transportation are just a few of the advancements that hold great potential for our future. Have you seen what the rest of the world is doing with high speed rail? High speed rail service does not only help rein in our energy consumption, airport congestion, etc, but it’s a trip (sorry, I couldn’t resist):
I am talking about a quality based society, a quality based existence…not just existence.
There is so much wonder and possibility missing from the conservative vision that it raises real suspicions about their mental health. They always say we can’t afford it, but we can afford to give tax cuts to the psycho greedy. What we can’t afford is a system that rewards the manipulating our economy for the personal gain of a few, and the accompanying cronyism, at the cost of every other aspect of the human endeavor.
The Tea Party advocates are devoid of any heart or soul. This fact is on display in the Republican fiscal budget plan. It is utterly oblivious to the enormous pain it will cause even to its supporters own families. Yet it makes the pig pinker. Rep Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin, and an apprentice crony) proposes a budget plan that is so one sided and deplorable that he may as well stick his tongue directly into the ass of every member of the top 2%...right on national television…at high tea…on the capital steps. The Tea Party consists of puppets of the rich and until they can reclaim their humanity, empathy and sense of fairness, I don’t know how we can trust any of them. Indeed, I agree with those elements of the Tea Party who want to form their own country. I have ideas in regard to that myself…see, we can agree on some things.
The Tea Party wants to destroy Medicare and Medicaid so they can pay for these expenses on their own, shifting more money out of the middle class and into the coffers of the already rich, making the pig yet pinker. Then when it becomes impossible for grandma to pay for her health care, she’s out of luck. No death panel, just a death sentence…and pinker still, the pig remains. This is why I consider the members of the Tea Party insane. The Tea Party will endanger their own future and drag ours with it just so they will be seen as good human pets by the rich. Humans aren’t pets…so either gather up some self-respect, courage and dignity or get the hell out of the way.
Capitalism died in the fall of 2008. It was in all the papers. This crash was calculated, planned, and premeditated to have the effect it had and to benefit those who planned it. Everyone else in the world was told, in effect, to “piss off” and if we wanted a financial system at all, we are going to have to fill the coffers with what money remains, and give control of that to the very same goons. The money in the 2008 crash did not disappear, these assholes stole it. Now they want their taxes reduced (if not obliterated) as well or they will create no jobs. It is no longer capitalism these people are practicing, it is institutionalized extortion.
However, there are alternative plans going around in places like “post-Walker” Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and our other sister states who are actually suffering under the very real fascism the Tea Party has foisted upon us. The idea is to freeze the assets of the psycho greedy and bring them up on charges of economic terrorism, and after being found guilty, will be forced to work the rest of their lives at a Wisconsin teacher’s salary and benefit package. Their earnings above that as well as their amassed wealth previous to conviction would be used to pay down the deficit. They will not have any bargaining rights and will not be allowed to organize for better working conditions.
The truth is that our country is dying in front of our eyes and the eyes of the rest of the world. For proof all you have to do is look around as you’re living your life. Our democracy is fast becoming a plutocracy because that is what the rich want. Our roads and bridges are crumbling, but the rich don’t use them so it’s of no concern. Our health care sucks, but it is a major source of income for some of the elite and, of course their healthcare plan is excellent (they’re rich), so a bit of hard cheese for us there as well. Our power grid is extremely wasteful at a time when efficient use of energy is demanded. Salmonella and E coli outbreaks in our food supply are no longer uncommon. Some of the Tea Party governors are trying to pass tax increases on the poor and the elderly to pay for tax cuts for big business and the private wealth of the already rich, and the list goes on. All of this is allowed to happen because some assholes want to make even more money than they already make and at any cost, as long as the cost is ours.
It is time to end this insanity. It is time to stop praising greed and protecting the greedy. It is time for us to end mindless Tea Party excitement as they rush to fulfill their dream of becoming slaves. Take them to task now. Demand that they prove that they are not fascists in light of the evidence now before us. They are destroying their lives and ours.
It is also time for people to realize the difference between God and Mammon. The psycho greedy are controlling many of us by bastardizing our cultural religion, Christianity. Many Christians think the Republican Party best represents God in our political arena, this even though Jesus charged Christians with feeding the hungry, giving shelter to the homeless, and educating and caring for our children. The Republican Party is constantly killing these programs because the psycho greedy do not gain by their implementation. The Republican Party is the party of Mammon, not of God.
What we center our life’s energy on is what we will accomplish. I wouldn’t care one damn bit if Tea Party members wanted to run head first into slavery except that they would be dragging us along with them. I, for one, am not going that way. If one doesn’t want to study what we have endured in the past, doesn’t want to learn all the nuances of the present day social/political debate, does not contribute original thought to that debate, then why would one want to speak at all?
If, however, you do feel you are qualified to join the debate, welcome! If you want to dive in the deep end right away, you can try your hand at cracking this one:
“…You can not serve both God and Mammon.”
—Matthew 6:24
Mammon defined: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammon
Our future will be determined by our vision. If you want to continue to be dominated by the rich, yours is the conservative vision. This is a world where the psycho greedy are at the center of everyone’s lives, with the rest of us and our dreams utterly expendable. What’s left of our democracy will become a total plutocracy. We will become the serfs of the corporate aristocracy.
If, instead, you see that the investment of time and resources made by the people must benefit all the people then your vision is liberal in scope. This is a world where our time and energy is centered on investing in all human endeavors, where those who actually make our lives better see financial excesses. These are the people who would actually spend their excesses because they are internally motivated to make things better…for everyone…not just themselves.
The conservatives are willing to destroy this country to satisfy the whims of the psycho greedy. Many of them are willing to let our country crash into the debt ceiling unless we give the psycho greedy everything they want. They have sabotaged all efforts to create a better country, world, because it does not favor the ultra rich.
The ultra rich are not hurting, we are. And we are hurting because of the criminal acts of greed by the ultra rich. It is time to bury the Tea Party in its own lies. It is time to expose the conservative view as the shallow, unimaginative and dim witted vision that it is. They are “loyalists” and should be trusted accordingly.
Our Revolutionary War was not fought over taxation; it was fought because we had no representation in the government that our taxes supported. We demanded to be represented, that our voices be heard in “our” government.
The beauty that is Paris was paid for by the French serfs. The nobility was not taxed. The serfs built the palaces and paid for the palaces but did not stay in the palaces because that was reserved for the people that did not pay and did not work. This was happening all over the world. The disparity was too mindless to allow. Tension was so high it was destined to burst wide open on its own. After everything that was endured by the colonist, including the upper class smugness, a shot was fired. The serfs could take no more. Our Revolution and the French Revolution were key events in the painful and bloody rise of the middle class. World War II and the Cold War were fought to protect the middle class from being stripped of its will, thus ceasing to exist except in appearance.
We are now being threatened by unbridled greed. Our freedom equates to choices. Without choices freedom doesn’t mean much. Our government, the House of the People, exists to create opportunities for all of us and protect us from loosing our ability to choose. We are the government of the people and if we allow the rich to keep buying the government, that is, if we keep electing people we know who have sold out to the psycho greedy, in reality we will have all of the tax burden but no representation acting on our behalf, only on behalf of the rich. We will be surfs…again.
Look at the evidence. The conservative view has the rich getting richer at our expense. The liberal view is investing in stable competitive growth for our entire country at the expense of the psycho greedy. They will still be richer than we will ever be but only 1,000 times richer, not 10,000 times richer. There is being rich, responsible and proud of it, and then there’s gluttony…
Really…a gold plated Ferrari? Couldn’t just have a cool jet black or a Ferrari red Ferrari? No it’s not illegal, nor should it be. Oh, it does indeed make a statement…but not as much as it raises questions. Questions like, “Why would you add weight to a ‘balls out’ sports car, especially if it didn’t inch you closer to the speed of light?”
OR
You could use your wealth and power to assemble some serious scientific and design talent and develop the fastest, trippiest, most futuristic hybrid (or better) car in this sector of the known universe. Something the middle-class can afford, that the middle class can build. And I mean give it some serious sack too, compris? You will be creating good paying jobs, as well as being responsible for using the profits from oil to help make the transition to the next generation of transportation thus continuing your own wealth and the wealth of your country…and help the environment heal. Yes, this makes a statement too. And if you’re prone to tripping, it will also guarantee you a positive place in history, which is also a statement, don't you think?
Please look at this graph again. Everyone knows, from rich to poor, this is not going to last. It depends on how we transition out of this state of imbalance that will determine whether that transition will be characterized by unity or bloodshed.
Innovation must replace greed.
Sentience must replace ego.
Awareness must replace belief.
“Innovation, sentience and awareness” versus “greed, ego and belief”, it is a matter of vision.
Greed is not the answer to our problem, greed IS the problem (…and it always has been).
