Monday 1/16

     My dear  "friend" Rush was again defending capitalism on his show today, saying that capitalism wasn't involved in our latest melt down.  I don't think that this guy actually believes what he says. Ok, I'll give him that the bail outs of the wall street banks wasn't capitalism at it finest, but that was after the collapse. It was  unregulated capitalism that caused this mess.  Unmitigated greed  is at the heart of capitalism.  Only with laws to protect those at the bottom of the pile does it work for all.  Of course there will always be poor people as there will always be rich.  But as the bell curve shows us the most will be in the middle.  With unbridled  capitalism the curve is skewed toward the bottom as those with the capital take full advantage of the workers.  All we have to do is look back at our history.  Tobacco help save the colonies based on slave labor, then it was cotton in the south and textile mills in the north with child labor. Sugar and slaves, coal mines and railroads built on the backs and deaths of indentured servitude. Capitalism is great for those who have the capital, no so much anyone else.  It wasn't until those pesky "progressives" around the turn of the 20th century that things started to get a little better.  But it took the Great Depression and the New Deal that broke the back of pure capitalism and tempered it with a little socialism that ushered in the middle class rise to it's zenith during the mid-century.  But sense the late 70s, it's been down hill.   With the end of the cold war and with no other enemies, real or imagined, and the shift from production to financing brought about the rise of the  lenders.  Wall street is now the robber baron of the past.  I'm guessing that this semi-great depression is the kindling that will start a conflagration that will bring socialism to our shores....Finally!

todays thoughts

I've been thinking alot about fear in the media and in society in general.  Fear sells, more than sex or anything else.  Politicians and Madison Ave. types know this very well.  We were sold the "war on terror" by selling the fear of another Twin Towers type of attack.  We were sold on the corporate bailouts by the fear of economic collapse.  Our culture is built on fear.  Child abductions, sexual abuse, car theft, home invasions, muggings, assaults. All matter of crime.  We lock ourselves up in voluntary solitary confinement behind barred windows and alarmed locked doors.  "Everyone is out to get me" seems to be our mental state for every decision we make. We trust no one and fear every one. Just what are the odds that something bad will happen to us?  In our lifetime, sure, some bad things will happen.  But that is part of living.  What are the odds that something good will happen? The odds are nil if we don't live. Just as a turtle cannot move ahead without sticking its head out of his shell, we also cannot live without entering into some level of risk. The greater the risk we are willing to take, the greater the rewards.  We can't live without fear. But that fear must be based on facts and not imagined threats or threats made for political and economic reasons.
     It seems that with all the information out there thru the net, news outlets, cnbc, nbc,msnbc, foxnews, there is just so much emphasis on the negative aspects of daily life.  Crime stories are always put at the top of the list and hashed and re-hashed again and again, trying to get the most viewers and therefor the most advertising dollars.  The unintended consequences of this is driving other-wise normal thinking people to do strange things. Most people are only concerned with their own existence and well being.  Most people do not want to steal your identity or your TV.  We can't let fear drive our lives.  "Don't give in to the FEAR!"