All day, every day, I meet people with virtual blinders on. Last week, in order to help out desperate family members against government reprisals (the details are private) I accepted a menial job in a sweatshop for which I am totally overqualified in terms of education and professional experience but physically underqualified due to bad health. The task is to de-staple, de-eyelet, de-booklet thousands of paper sheets each day to make them scannable. The papers are banking files. It’s unbelievable how many inches of papers are put together for a single person’s single credit by bank clerks many of whom also plaster them with countless staples, metal eyelets, and so forth only for other people to get paid a minimum wage to remove all those troublesome metal pieces again prior to digital scanning. The hand-breaking job reminds me of the movie scene of two guys digging and tossing the dirt into each other’s holes. This dumb job is quite symbolic of the socio-economic system of today in which we modern humans waste away our lifetimes.
One of my colleagues told a local bank branch director that his workers place way too many staples and such on their paperwork requiring a lot of work to remove them again. The director’s only response was laughter. Rather than musing about instructing his clerks not to waste so much time and metal that only raises the banks’ costs for scan preparation he just laughed. Continue reading “We Need a Considerate Compassionate Culture”→
Some people, when they begin to realize how long and deeply the cruel corruption of our socio-economic and political system has been entrenched, feel like there is no more hope.
My response to that is this declaration:
Manifesto of the Elders
When you have been crushed as much as many of us, there is no point in giving up. We have one thing left to do on our way out of this hell called “life”, and that is to do our part so that future generations won’t have to suffer like us. While the millennials are beginning to revolt because they see no viable future ahead of them unless they upturn the insanity of the system, those of us who were broken decades earlier and robbed of all hope for ourselves have one last thing to do.
Here is the spillover from yesterday’s political video weekend which just had no room for more clips. So many great videos piled up for sharing this week. Here is the rest, the gist of which we might conclude is that we are on a course of self-destruction and must change course. And luckily, people are waking up to it. Especially uplifting in this respect: our youth.
I. Reconsidering Believes
Capitalism may be gutting us but is not the whole U.S. economy:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for Thom Hartmann and the title: “Dear Conservative Alternet Trolls: America is NOT a Capitalist Country “)
Comment: Worker-owned co-ops are actually a form of socialism (which you could call an evenly-property-shared capitalism if you wished).
II. Socialism/Communism
Historic Review of Socialism and Communism until today, and why to take an interest:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for Jamarl Thomas, The Progressive Soapbox, and the title: “Jason Unruhe, Communist Perspective Of Ocasio-Cortez & Sanders,Revolution & More! Fascinating Convo!”)
Quotes: “The richer you are, the more power you have.” … And: “They all are on the side of capitalism” [because it is what makes them so rich and powerful].
“Fascism is capitalism in decay.” “[In Weimar Germany], the capitalist class did whatever it took to protect [itself], and that meant funneling money to the Nazis.”
1:06: “There’s never an honest conversation about wealth. You have one group of the population that brutally suffers and another part of the population that pretends that all the wealth gain it has accrued is purely of its own making.” Continuation on the latter: “That’s not honest. You were able to use a ton of labor from [other] people without necessarily giving any reparations for the labor that you were able to get.” (Comment: “any” seems exaggerated; “sufficient” or “much” would seem more accurate, since at least tiny portions are returned to the laborers to keep them alive and working, whether as terribly low pay or – slave plantation style – room and board) Continued: “and then turn around and say, ‘You people need to pull yourselves up by your bootstraps.’”)
Comment: “Radicals” who call for radical change are still being feared and seen as fringe by many. Also, they often get dragged into mud slinging fights (such as family-feud-style wars among progressives, among “leftists”, and so on) by people who self-identify with similar labels as the “radicals” do. The “radicals” themselves frequently attack those who water down or misrepresent their labels (such as socialism). All this infighting then leads to division among ourselves which keeps the corrupt establishment safe. My suggestion: wanting true and lasting change for the better instead of temporary band aids which will soon be peeled off again, is not radical in any sense other than the etymological one (that radical is a synonym for fundamental). We need to learn to stay rational and united around our widely shared most important goals.
And since this is emerging as a theme, here a light-spirited clip about socialism (which I shared before, but it seems suitable to share again in this context, especially since Newsbroke makes no more new videos):
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for Newsbroke, Francesca Fiorentini, and the title: “The Biggest Myths About Socialism”)
And if you should want to dig deeper into the topic of socialism and haven’t watched this video I shared before, I warmly recommend this rich review of a number of meanings and flavors of traditional socialism, just to clear the establishment-polluted air a little with a bit of realism: Debunked: “Socialism Has Never Worked”
III. Mentality for Change
Backs against the wall and the legacy of our lives. As Tim Black says, what you live for matters a lot more than how you live, because you will be dead a lot longer than you will be alive. Also, other people matter too, and when we support each other, rather than push each other down, we will do better (maximizing our energies for the best effect rather than neutralizing them against each other), if you care to consider my scientific way of thinking…:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for Tim Black and the title: “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez How To Win Democratic Elections “)
Reminder: We cannot afford to make ourselves dependent on political candidates. We ourselves must drive for the changes we want until we get them. And we must make sure to create lasting change that won’t be rolled back like the New Deal has been.
IV. Young America Awakening
This is truly amazing. So much awareness, understanding, and commitment to responsible politics from a sixteen year-old (not to forget the 26-year old I can imagine as the future president of an America changed from hell to heaven, at least in terms of the American spirit and economic-political justice, although those of us still alive may by then be struggling heavily with a lethal climate):
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for Nick Brana, Movement for a People’s Party, Jamie Margolin, and the title: “MPP-TV Episode Seven Interview With Jamie Margolin of Zero Hour Youth Climate March”)
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As a follow-up to Monday’s sharing of Chris Hedges’s and Richard Wolff’s great recent conversation and yesterday’s sharing of late Ed Schultz’s Swan Song Speech (less far along but perhaps the exactly right stepping stone for some people who have still a little to catch up), here is another speech by Chris Hedges, a short one this time (only 16 minutes!) but still packing a big punch. Enjoy:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for ChrisSmileyMedia and the title: “Chris Hedges Revolutionary Speech”)
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Ending Note:To get the word out, please widely share links to these posts. You can alsohelp in other ways(including much needed financial support).Only together can we change this messed-up world. And remember: signing up for notifications is the best way not to miss new articles and shared videos from this corner of awakened independent media.
Economist Richard Wolff discusses the coming economic collapse with Chris Hedges. They touch upon both past & present of the top destroying everything and the people fighting for life. This came out too late to make it into my weekend video compilation. But now here it is:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “The Coming Collapse of the American Economic System with Richard Wolff”)
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Ending Note:To get the word out, please widely share links to these posts. You can alsohelp in other ways(including much needed financial support). Only together can we change this messed-up world
Hooray! She did it! She won, and thus we the people won… in New York for now. There are many more places where we must and can win. If you missed it, here is last night’s election coverage of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (about whom I shared again on Sunday) running against one of our top corruptitians (by TYT, the only good coverage I could find so far… sure, TYT has its issues often still being stuck in old-fashioned party politics, but they still do good work with some regularity, better than the big corporate networks for certain):
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for TYT and the title: “JUSTICE DEMOCRAT ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ DEFEATS JOE CROWLEY “)
Note: Remember, NY has public campaign financing making victories of people’s candidates running against the establishment so much more possible. Alexandria described it in a video clip shared on here last November. Here it is again, the part on Public Campaign Financing at 13:52 – 15:45 minutes: Continue reading “Yeah! Bravo, New York! The Candidate for the People Won!”→
Last March, one of our most amazing scientists died after miraculously battling the crippling and lethal Lou Gehrig’s disease for most of his life. Through sheer force of will, it seems, Hawking managed to survive for many decades a horrible disease that normally kills in a few years, and he still managed to maintain an illustrious position in science while being helplessly tied to a wheelchair and hardly able to move. Whenever I think “mind over body” I think of Stephen Hawking. He is mostly known for his famous work in theoretical physics, and to some degree for his atheism (so much for the health miracles alleged to result from prayers and religious faith), but he was also quite aware of humanity’s socio-economic problems, and before he died left us with a moving statement, a swan song so to speak:
“If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality.”
I agree with him that machines won’t bring about the economic robot apocalypse. Greedy humans will, if we don’t stop them. Economic inequality will continue to skyrocket as more and more jobs become automated and the rich owners of the robots and software systems refuse to share their fast-growing wealth. Remember: the “owners” neither invent nor build the robots and pieces of software that drive us out of our jobs without any compensation. We do. And who keeps the system running that shafts us? We do.
Time for us to rethink what we do.
By the way, I just managed to squeeze in some time to visit The Revolution Continues. So much new good stuff has accumulated since my last visit, it’d take too long to list it all. You may want to pay a visit yourself. 😉
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Ending Note: It takes me at least 100 hours a month of “spare time” to research and write news updates and analyses and work on my book. Please widely share links to these articles, so this work is not for naught. You can alsohelp in other ways(including much neededfinancial support). Only together can we change this messed-up world. Let’s do it! 🙂
