Corporations & Government Exist for Us!
Surely you noticed how much better the economy has gotten in the last 15 months.
Happy days are here again! Break out the bubbly!
You haven’t?
Well, neither have I. But the National Bureau of Economic Research, the august body charged with officially declaring when recessions start & stop, has officially declared that our latest recession ended in June 2009. An expansion started in July 2009.
Yes, I know, like you my first inclination was to almost fall out of my chair laughing. But in its report the NBER reminds us that they “…did not conclude that economic conditions since that month have been favorable or that the economy has returned to operating at normal capacity. Rather…the recession ended and a recovery began in that month.” Then they caution that business activity sometimes lags well into an economic expansion.
Sure, I think we all understand that the economy doesn’t instantly return to normal after a downturn. But 15 MONTHS should be more than enough time for the ground to stop falling out from under the feet of the bottom 90% of the country! And out here in the real world, that is the world outside D.C. & NYC, the ground is continuing to fall. Businesses are still closing, houses are still foreclosing, & jobs are still evaporating. And yet the NBER declares we are in a 15 month economic expansion & the politicians will happily grab onto that declaration as an excuse to keep ignoring the disaster they have brought upon the nation. After all, why help the jobless & poor when the rising tide is again lifting all boats?
Well, I think it is obvious that if the measurements show this is an economic expansion then THERE IS SOMETHING VERY WRONG WITH THE MEASUREMENTS! I do not pretend to know how the books are being cooked, do you? I suspect that all those bailouts to banksters & Wall Street con-artists & increased profits for offshoring our jobs is now being falsely measured as rising GDP (Gross Domestic Product). When a large portion, perhaps a majority, of a nation’s citizens can be on the financial ropes but the statistics show things getting better & the experts believe it, then the wrong things are being measured & the experts are fools.
One last thing. I keep hearing the “leaders” & “experts” telling us that we are in a long-term “jobless recovery.” They better keep in mind that for 300 or so million Americans it doesn’t matter how great corporate profits are or how high the Dow average or even how much the GDP grows. If all those things don’t translate into prosperity & a good quality of life for the citizens, then to Hell with the corporations, the government, & the few people who are doing great for themselves. That is why the corporations & government exist in the first place… to bring a good life to our communities!
Get Out Of Our House!
The group Get Out Of Our House bills itself as “a non-partisan plan to evict the career politicians from the U.S. House of Representatives. With all my heart I believe the only way to save our nation from further ruin is to unseat our uncaring, unresponsive, elite “rulers” and replace them with sensible, compassionate citizen representatives.
The GOOOH home page video shows a more conservative slant than I support. But I think their overall approach makes sense, so I plan to join and participate. Here is an excerpt from the “learn” section of their website; read it and see what you think:
The GOOOH process allows Americans of every political leaning to participate in the selection of their District’s Representative while being considered themselves. Through GOOOH’s Candidate Selection Sessions you and your peers will select the candidate in your district who best represents your district’s views. Even if you do not wish to become your district’s representative you will want to participate in the process and have a direct say in who is chosen to represent your district. GOOOH will fund a single national campaign to promote the 435 candidates (one from each district) who are selected to run against the party politicians. Because GOOOH is a process for selecting representatives (not a “party”) we expect a person left of center to be selected in San Francisco and one right of center in Colorado Springs — but it will be up to the GOOOH members in each district to decide.
Originally, the founder of GOOOH proposed excluding lawyers, members of political families, and individuals with more than $11.5 million in assets (250 times the median income). They were not to be excluded because they are bad people, but because they are overly represented in government today and, generally speaking, no longer seem to represent the common man. However, based on input from our members, the Question Committee has voted to remove the exclusion of lawyers and the wealthy. Instead, it has been decided that members of these two groups must simply declare that they are a lawyer or have more than $11.5m in assets in each Selection Session in which they participate. It will be up to the participants in each pool to decide whether or not that is of concern. We believe this change is indicative of the continuing evolution of the GOOOH system.
I am completely fed-up with the antics of both political parties. If you are too, then I encourage you to visit the GOOOH website. You’ll find them in a column to your right, under this blog’s “your public servants” links.
Ragamuffin Nation
Today, I accompanied a friend of mine to a court hearing. He was charged with “maliciously voting” (a form of vote fraud), because he went to the polls using what was once his home address – after the city had used “Imminent Domain” to seize the trailerpark in which he lived, throw out all 200 residents, and bulldoze the whole shebang to make way for a Yuppie-style housing development. He was, you see, technically homeless not a resident and, therefore, not entitled to a say in how things are run. He argued that the law allows him to vote at his former address if he intends to return to that address, which he does. However, the judge knows my friend is deluded, that he will never return because the very street where he lived no longer exists. My friend was found guilty and now has something he never had before, a criminal record.
But that isn’t the real subject of this blog posting. Instead, I want to talk about something I realized today. As we waited in the courthouse hallway and then as we sat in the courtroom I noticed this, specifically: All the court officials and myself were, what for lack of a better term I would call “dressed-up” in business-like clothes (ties, suit jackets, solid-soled shoes), while all the people being processed by the court wore clothes that made them look like urchins in an old ” Little Rascals” comedy.
I takes me back about ten years, to when I worked as airport limousine-driver for the city’s largest hotel. The head of the hotel’s valet department (which encompassed my job, the bellhops, and the parking valets) was an older black gentleman named Dwight, who was always immaculately dressed in the finest suits. He was constantly infuriated by the propensity of the younger employees to dress as what he referred to as “ragamuffins.” Time and again he tried to explain how droopy pants, backward hats, oversize shirts, and all other accoutrement of modern youth fashion served to undermine the wearer’s career. “Nobody’s gonna respect you when you look like that!” he’d try to tell them.
Dwight was correct. Wardrobe has a tremendous effect upon how we are perceived by others. Few persons in authority will take seriously the opinions of one who looks like a five-year-old who did a bad job dressing himself. And even more importantly, and I think Dwight knew this on an unconscious level, few persons who dress like said five-year-old would be able to look into a mirror and take himself seriously. In other words, dressing like an adolescent fresh off the sandlot baseball field will likely undermine one’s deep-down self-esteem, self-limit one’s thought processes, and cause one to settle for less in life.
And now to the paranoid part of my discourse: I wonder, is it possible that the powers-that-be in our society, what we would have once called “the establishment,” have purposely sold the lower class youth on these ridiculous fashions in order to further marginalize them? It would be a pretty neat way to keep the poor in their place.
Please note – In this essay, I am speaking of the males looking like urchins. I haven’t addressed the females, who all looked like streetwalkers. Everything I say about the effect of the males’ clothes goes for the females’ clothes, with the addition of causing the females to be “sexually objectified,” which leads to a host of other problems.
