I agree

The major candidates don't even talk about the real economic issues.  And they're all part of the corporate party.

The broken system that keeps 1% of the nation, the ownership class, sucking up the wealth (efforts) of the entire working class has never been addressed.  How do we create a new form of democratic capitalism.  One that creates a societal bottom that includes an end to poverty, health care for all, and free unlimited education.  

We have a class of monarchs - the ownership class - that reap in profits simply by "owning" the efforts of others.  

Seems to me we haven't come too far from slavery.  We just export it, change the name and call it free enterprise and slap a few rules of conduct around it to make it appear that people have freedom and choice.

But for most, having a mortgage, needing health insurance, student loan debt, and the encouraged consumer debts eliminates any "choice" in employment.  

"You can always quit your job" means that most people would be on the street in 3 pay checks.  Nice system for the owners that keep "worker insecurity" alive and well.   

by August Adams (10 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 442 comments) on Sunday, March 9, 2008 at 12:12:09 PM
 

August

I wrote a piece a while back that stated Middle America replaced the slaves and China replaced Middle America. As you know, in my book I have a chapter titled "Modern Colonialism."

As far as salvaging our current system, the math says it won't happen. The poor will get poorer and Middle America will get poor.

In the end (not that far away) the entire world system will begin to come undone as we use the final resources of our planet. Yuck!

At this point, I continue to embrace simplicity as a hedge.

Thanks for your good comments.

by Mike Folkerth (120 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 566 comments) on Sunday, March 9, 2008 at 12:22:54 PM
 

The right and the wrong

This is not the place, nor do I expect that it is productive, to engage in a discussion of the relative merits of libertarianism or the doomed candidacy of  Dr. Ron Paul. I suspect that the author already knows many of my views on that subject anyway.

The point of this piece that I find interesting is the commonality of our view that no candidate out there will grapple with the issues we find important, though those issues are not always the same for the two of us. The three involved in the race for the Presidency are all of a same face regarding corporate control of our legislative process, the very thing I find most problematic about libertarianism. If we have learned nothing since Reagan we should have come to the understanding that, regardless of ones feelings about capitalism, the unrestricted version thereof is anathema to both the economy and the futures of the middle and working classes here in America.

We desperately need our electorate to come to the understanding that government exists to serve the wishes of the people and not those of the CEO's. Whether or not you see merit or peril in globalism you must see the harm it is doing to the American worker. If, as do I, you see the globalist movement as an inevitable sharing of the means of production with a long suffering third world, perverted as it is by the wringing of every ounce of profit by the transnational corporations who sustain its progress, or as a stealing of the rightful pervue of the worker here, the need for assistance to that worker is a necesity.

I believe that the future of this nation's economy lies with the exporting of technology, the growth of which has always brought fabulous wealth with it. However, the abandonment of the mill worker and factory worker is simply not an acceptable reaction to those lost jobs. No candidate today speaks to the need to retrain those workers to compete in the new economy here, not a one.

by ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2377 comments) on Sunday, March 9, 2008 at 12:41:17 PM
 

Outcome Won't Matter When Self-Responsibility is Rare

Quite right, the candidates for President are all 3 merely slight variations of each other - no matter which political party, gender or race. Ron Paul was a bit different; but since the vast majority of those who vote in elections do so because they think that government should continue to be a 3rd party in most human interactions, his candidacy was doomed from the beginning.

Far too many, like most here at OEN, view government as a desired entity, which of course never remains small but grows continuously. Those in power seek more power but when it is done with legalized force - which is the monopoly of government, there is no controlling feedback mechanism as there would be with a free market. The economy that exists is not and never has been a free market - not in the US or anywhere in the industrialized world. It has always been interfered with by the existing government - far less so at the beginning of the US (that fact being responsible for the enormous growth and improved standard of living), but enormously more so in the past 100 years and increasingly so since 1933.

The privileges and restrictions enforced by government agencies are and have been for years choking those who cannot or will not pay for the lawyers to find the loopholes and/or lobbyists to influence the legislators. Ordinary people who want only to productively work in the field that they enjoy while staying vigorously healthy and initiating and maintaining satisfying relationships are at a disadvantage in such an environment - the one that exists in most (?all?) of the world, has worsened significantly since 1933 and shows little sign of improving. However, Mike is quite right to point out that self-responsibility is a major method for the individual to improve hir situation - I'd go even further and say that it is essential. (For a somewhat rigorous, but short, article on the subject of self-responsibility - "Self-Responsibility and Social Order")
"Living within one's means" - a frequent reminder in years gone by, is probably not even understood by so very many who seek to have what others possess merely so as not to be different. The trend for the majority has been, and probably continues to be, towards large houses, large vehicles, newest electronics, stylish clothes, frequent dining out, etc. when one's income is insufficient to pay for them and still save for possible emergencies and retirement. The result then is enormous levels of personal debt and an acceptance of a government that is also riddled in debt.

The view that government should and can be the solution to the problems of society is what continues to feed the situation that exists. Whether the next US President is John McCain or either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton will not make any difference towards solving the current problems. In fact, I expect and will predict that they will worsen - unless and until, large numbers of people realize that government is NOT any solution, but rather THE problem.

**Kitty Antonik Wakfer

MoreLife for the rational - http://morelife.org
Reality based tools for more life in quantity and quality
Self-Sovereign Individual Project - http://selfsip.org
Self-sovereignty, rational pursuit of optimal lifetime happiness,
individual responsibility, social preferencing & social contracting

by Kitty Antonik Wakfer (19 articles, 3 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 116 comments) on Sunday, March 9, 2008 at 5:20:17 PM
 

Ardee

I devoted a lot of ink to this subject when I wrote my book.

Had the U.S. set out some 100 years ago to maintain parity with the remainder of the world, the problem that we face today would not exist. But we didn't.

Changing the rules in 1994 and 1995 presented a problem. As you suggested, our once plentiful high paying skilled labor jobs have gone to the lowest bidders in the world.

Unhampered by trade restrictions, the global corporations continue to seek out the lowest cost workers on the planet. Currently that is China with assembly workers earning between 23 and 30 cents per hour.

Disparities of this magnitude cannot be mediated but rather shift totally away from the higher cost worker. This leaves an entire class of people stranded.

We are now witnessing the same shift away from educated highly skilled technical workers, accountants, engineers etc. to India, China, Korea, South Africa, and a host of other emerging educated people.

My great fear is that the U.S. will become completely disenfranchised with the remaining world. With less than 5% of world population in the U.S., the markets of tomorrow may well be the remaining 95%, with the U.S. literally being priced out. That scenario would indeed follow the model of unrestricted capitalism. Hung with our own rope.

by Mike Folkerth (120 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 566 comments) on Sunday, March 9, 2008 at 5:42:51 PM
 

Mike, use the reply button, it is easier to track responses

.

Had the U.S. set out some 100 years ago to maintain parity with the remainder of the world, the problem that we face today would not exist. But we didn't.

I gotta say that I do not understand your meaning here. Are you suggesting we should have played fairer one hundred years ago? If so I quite agree but things were pretty different then.

Changing the rules in 1994 and 1995 presented a problem. As you suggested, our once plentiful high paying skilled labor jobs have gone to the lowest bidders in the world.

The rules never changed only the playing field, captialism seeks always to increase profit. The labor market here, the environmental rules, the saftey issues and expenses all conspired to make those ten cent an hour wages most attractive. Reagan subverting the Sherman Antitrust Act helped enormously as well.

Unhampered by trade restrictions, the global corporations continue to seek out the lowest cost workers on the planet. Currently that is China with assembly workers earning between 23 and 30 cents per hour.

If you read history you will understand, as do I, that the labor struggle that took place in the West will repeat itself in the East, eventually. Already China is seeing their own brand of offshoring, believe it or not....

Disparities of this magnitude cannot be mediated but rather shift totally away from the higher cost worker. This leaves an entire class of people stranded.

We are now witnessing the same shift away from educated highly skilled technical workers, accountants, engineers etc. to India, China, Korea, South Africa, and a host of other emerging educated people.

I am certain that ,once upon a time, the buggy whip manufacturers spoke to similar concerns. The new US economy will be in research and technological development, manufacturing is gone for good. It is, in my opinion, the obligation of a government that bent over backwards to assist that manufacturing bases' exportation to now assist those stranded workers. Education is th ekey and the new jobs that technology brings are begging for labor, trained labor. It is a double edged sword that Bush has done all in his power to wreck our public educatory system just when we need to graduate creative thinkers.

My great fear is that the U.S. will become completely disenfranchised with the remaining world. With less than 5% of world population in the U.S., the markets of tomorrow may well be the remaining 95%, with the U.S. literally being priced out. That scenario would indeed follow the model of unrestricted capitalism. Hung with our own rope.

Our GNP is still over ten trillion dollars is it not, Mike? That means that, should we bring sanity to the expenditure of that revenue, should we reign in the bloated , oh so bloated, military budget, end corruption and costly overruns in government contracting, should we insist upon the reinstitution of the tarrif, there will be plenty of dollars available for the education and placement of the American worker.

I am sorry for th eunderlining,Mike, and hope it allows a clear reading of my responses. Your use of color makes this sort of line byline response difficult nd this was the best of the poor choices. While an ego freak might use caps ( and he does) I chose underlining.....

by ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2377 comments) on Sunday, March 9, 2008 at 6:33:06 PM
 

Don't blame NAFTA

It may be heresy to say this on a progressive board, but I’ll say it anyway: NAFTA is not the main reason autoworker jobs are being lost in the upper Midwest and elsewhere.  The main reason is that autoworkers cost too much.  They have their unions to thank for that.

This is not the first time in our history that this has happened.  In 1967, while still in college, I was working in a Pennsylvania steel mill doing the most unskilled labor imaginable.  My pay back then: $3.05 an hour.  Inflation alone would make that figure $19.29 an hour now.  With benefits, my unskilled job would have cost the company about $40 an hour today.

But there is no today for that steel company.  It was acquired in the 1980s and went out of business in 1994.  Labor costs brought it to its knees and eventually killed it. 

As a former steelworker, nobody needs to tell me about the value of unions.  Without the United Steelworkers of America (“the other USA!”), that mill would have been an intolerable place, a low-paying death trap.  But the union went for too much of a good thing and eventually killed the goose that laid golden eggs for thousands of workers.

A second reason why jobs are being lost is that the US automakers can’t compete on value: what you get for what you pay.  US cars are seen as lower in quality than imports, at a higher price.  If this were not true, then the falling dollar should actually help US automakers.  It isn’t.

Make no mistake: I have my own complaints with NAFTA.  As a consultant working for several Canadian companies, I once got held up for five hours at the border while Canadian immigration officials contacted my clients, then quizzed me, about why no Canadian consultant could do the work I was hired to do.  I could only reply, “Ask them.”

An aside: toward the end of this adventure, the officials said they wanted to verify my credentials.  “You don’t carry your doctor’s degree with you, by any chance?”  “Only in my head,” I had to reply.  At length, they let me pass … after paying $300 for a work permit.  Free trade, my foot.  NAFTA definitely needs to be renegotiated.

My main concern in this election year: none of the presidential candidates is stepping up to the most compelling economic issues facing the country: the $400 billion budget deficit, the $9.2 trillion national debt, and the $6.0 trillion trade deficit.  Together, these obligations put a $60,000 price tag on the head of every single American, from newborn to nonagenarian.  We have danced; now the fiddlers want to be paid.  And it falls to us to pay them.

The candidates’ reluctance to raise these knotty economic issues is probably because they can’t be reduced to feel-good slogans and glib sound bites.  There is no appealing way to say, “It’s morning in America and we’re waking up to one hell of a hangover.”  The autoworkers are already feeling it.  The rest of us will feel it soon enough.

by Richard Wise (23 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 50 comments) on Sunday, March 9, 2008 at 5:47:59 PM
 

Dr. Wise

I was raised in car country and agree that the UAW was in many ways, responsible for their own demise.

But today, the standard of living enjoyed by the average American cannot be maintained in any segment of our society if the employment of that sector is put up for the lowest bid in the remainder of the world.

The demise of the steel and auto workers is a sneak preview of where America is headed. My prediction that our educated sector would meet the same fate seems to be well underway.

This is indeed a fine mess.

by Mike Folkerth (120 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 566 comments) on Sunday, March 9, 2008 at 6:39:17 PM
 

Self-Deceit Self Deception

It is called Self-Deceit, though Self-Deceit comprises the principles of self-deception. 

Self-Deceit means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them as truth.

Neoconvolutionist intellect knows in which direction his memories must be altered; he therefore knows that he is playing tricks with himself; but by the exercise of self-deception he also satisfies himself that his sense of integrity - his virtue of self - is reassured. 

The process has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt. 

Self-Deceit lies at the very heart of neocorporatism, since the essential act of neoconvolutionism is to use convoluted unconscious deception while self-deception is retaining the firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty of convolution.

To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any (convoluted) fact that has become inconvenient (truth), and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of self-contradiction, and all the while to take account of the contradictory self-convoluted, which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary. 

Even in using the word Self-Deceit it is necessary to exercise self deception. 

For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with Self; by a fresh act of Self-Deceit one erases this knowledge of self-deception; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth.

Ultimately it is by means of self deception that neoconvolutionism has been able—and may, for all we know, continue to be able for thousands of years — to arrest the destiny of history.

All past kakistocracies have fallen from power either because they ossified or because they grew soft; either they became stupid and arrogant, failed to adjust themselves to changing circumstances, and were overthrown; or they became liberal and cowardly, made concessions when they should have used force, and once again, were overthrown. 

They fell, that is to say, either through consciousness or through unconsciousness. 

It is the achievement of neoconvolutionism to have produced a system of thought in which both conditions can exist simultaneously. 

And upon no other intellectual basis could the dominion of neoconvolutionism be made permanent.

If one is to rule by power to control, and to continue control of ruling power, one must be able to dislocate the sense of Self from self-awareness. For the secret of rulership is to combine a belief in one's own infallibility with belief in the right to rule by power to control, desire to eliminate being attached by ego, identified with outcome. Fortunately, with Self-Deceit, the belief is to deserve to enjoy the difference.

It need hardly be said that the subtlest practitioners of Self-Deceit are those who invented Self-Deceit and who know that it is a vast system of deliberate confusion and convoluted collaboration.

In our society, those who have the best knowledge of what is happening are also those who are furthest from seeing the world as it is.

In convolutionism, the greater the understanding, the greater the delusion; the more intelligent, the less sane.

One clear illustration of this is the fact that War on Terror hysteria increases in intensity as one rises in the social scale. Those whose attitude towards the War on Terror is most nearly rational are the Middle Easternists' of the disputed territories. To these people the War on Terror is simply a continuous calamity which sweeps back and forth over their land like a tidal wave. Which side is winning is a matter of complete indifference to them after thousands of years.

They are aware a change of overlordship means simply that they will be doing the same work as before for new masters who treat them in the same manner as the old ones. The slightly more favored we call ‘the Saudi's’ are only intermittently conscious of the War on Terror. When it is necessary they can be prodded into frenzies of fear and hatred, but when left to themselves they are capable of forgetting for long periods that the War on Terror is happening. 

If the power to control is by rules created for convoluted division, neoconvolutionism is constant convoluted division; and above all, above neoconvolution, is the true enthusiasm, for constant re-convolution of military, industrial, congressional, commercial & municipal convoluted division.

World-conquest is totally believed most of all by those who also know it to be impossible. This peculiar linking together of opposites — knowledge with ignorance, cynicism with fascism — is one of the chief distinguishing marks of North Americana Society. 

The official ideology abounds with contradictions even when there is no practical reason for them. Thus, neoconvolutionism rejects and vilifies every principle for which the neofascisocialist movement originally stood, and it chooses to do this in the name of neocommunosocialism.

It preaches a contempt for the working class unexampled for centuries past, and it dresses its members in a uniform which was at one time peculiar to manual workers and was adopted for that reason. 

It systematically calls its leader by a name which is a direct appeal to the sentiment of family loyalty. Even the names of the four Departments by which we are governed exhibit a sort of impudence in their deliberate reversal of the facts. 

The Department of Commerce concerns itself with perpetuation of poverty, the Department of Justice with history, the Department of Homeland Security with torture and the Department of Treasury with starvation of raw materials and capital for industry to produce and consume as careless and wasteful obscene inefficiency, to use capacity and generate shortages to the inputs. 

These contradictions are not accidental, nor do they result from ordinary hypocrisy; they are deliberate exercises in Self-Deceit. 

For it is only by reconciling contradictions that power can be retained indefinitely. In no other way could the ancient cycle be broken. 

If human equality is to be forever averted—if the High, as we have called them, are to keep their places permanently—then the prevailing mental condition must be controlled insanity. But there is one question which until this moment we have almost ignored. 

It is: WHY should human equality be averted? 

Supposing that the mechanics of the process have been rightly described, what is the motive for this huge, accurately planned effort to freeze history at a particular moment of time? 

by Drew Terry (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 27 diaries, 124 comments) on Sunday, March 9, 2008 at 9:22:22 PM
 

Self deceit mischaracterised

" The test of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." F. Scott Fitzgerald

"For every difficult question there is an answer that is clear and simple and wrong." George Bernard Shaw

by ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2377 comments) on Monday, March 10, 2008 at 7:47:23 AM
 

Self-Deceit Misunderstood

The essential difference is believing two opposing ideas to both be true, when one or both are clearly anything but true; clearly, that is, to the outside observer.

The most insidious aspect of self deception is that if we knew we were deceiving ourselves, would we continue to deceive our selves? 

by Drew Terry (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 27 diaries, 124 comments) on Monday, March 10, 2008 at 8:30:06 AM
 

KISS

 "Keep It Simple Stupid", and if you live by this code, when things change you are not effected, after living on a sailboat for 25+ years, and learning to do without, and using this code on land has made life great.  the want want want, get get get, is about to come to and end, and this is a good thing for humanity and earth, and life goes on.

by RICHARD SHADE (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 460 comments) on Monday, March 10, 2008 at 5:05:54 AM
 

Richard

KISS ditto. I have often made this point to my wife, not to any great avail, but made it all the same. We lived in a 24' travel trailer during the entire summer on several remote real estate projects that I was working on.

Everything we required was inside the trailer or in the little cabin next to it. No one died, we did a lot more talking and reading and life was simple.

Live simple, live well, live long. Thank all of you for your comments.

by Mike Folkerth (120 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 566 comments) on Monday, March 10, 2008 at 8:43:16 PM