Just When You Thought You Were Informed. Plus, a rant against rich people.
Dang. They are wordy, and need more pictures. But they're worth a look.#1. Over One Million Iraqi Deaths Caused by US Occupation
# 2 Security and Prosperity Partnership: Militarized NAFTA
# 3 InfraGard: The FBI Deputizes Business
# 4 ILEA: Is the US Restarting Dirty Wars in Latin America?
# 5 Seizing War Protesters’ Assets
# 6 The Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act
# 7 Guest Workers Inc.: Fraud and Human Trafficking
# 8 Executive Orders Can Be Changed Secretly
# 9 Iraq and Afghanistan Vets Testify
# 10 APA Complicit in CIA Torture
# 11 El Salvador’s Water Privatization and the Global War on Terror
# 12 Bush Profiteers Collect Billions From No Child Left Behind
# 13 Tracking Billions of Dollars Lost in Iraq
# 14 Mainstreaming Nuclear Waste
# 15 Worldwide Slavery
# 16 Annual Survey on Trade Union Rights
# 17 UN’s Empty Declaration of Indigenous Rights
# 18 Cruelty and Death in Juvenile Detention Centers
# 19 Indigenous Herders and Small Farmers Fight Livestock Extinction
# 20 Marijuana Arrests Set New Record
# 21 NATO Considers “First Strike” Nuclear Option
# 22 CARE Rejects US Food Aid
# 23 FDA Complicit in Pushing Pharmaceutical Drugs
# 24 Japan Questions 9/11 and the Global War on Terror
# 25 Bush’s Real Problem with Eliot Spitzer
I think this is why the movie The Matrix resonated with so many people. It wasn't Keanu Reeve's acting :(. We have this feeling that we're being duped. We are kept happily ignorant.We are owned by corporations.
Even those of us who conquer the system and become millionaires, in doing so, propagate the system.
I toured a food factory today. Those people work hard, to make money for someone else. Why does the owner get the money from their labor? Because he has more money (capital) than they do. Because he laid down that capital to buy that factory, so that all the work done in that factory belongs to him. He doesn't have to do a stitch of work anymore, because he's the owner.
It's like someone who owns a mine. The mine workers work their lives out for some guy who claims he owns the land. Why does he own it? He laid down a bunch of money (paper) in exchange for another piece of paper that says he owns it, and he also owns any resources that come from it and any labor that is done on it. He doesn't have to do another stitch of work, or if he does, his work is more highly compensated, because he owns it.It might not be the best system, but it is the system that has won. It confused the heck out of the Native Americans, who didn't understand how you could be crazy enough, or proud enough, to claim to own the land. And their system made them healthier and happier than Europeans until they contracted diseases from the filthy immigrants.
No wonder Christ said most rich people are going to hell.Some rich may say they've earned what they have, and poor people are lazy. Earned it? Earned it how? They assume that dollars are somehow a tally for how hard they have worked. But the world isn't fair like that. Dollars do not translate into how hard and long you've worked and how smart you are. Plenty of people are slaving away in the mines and factories, who are plenty smarter than you, but who were born in poorer circumstances.
We all have 24 hours, and about 100 years. No one can put in more time than that. Why do others get compensated more? Because this world is owned by The Master of Lies who has convinced himself that he owns this world and every soul on it, and he uses money as the exchange medium for switching temporary ownership around with people he's suckered.I'll probably die a poor man—fail economically. But I will not consider my life a failure, for what I have you cannot buy with money.
so is my dad a bad person because he was one of the top three executives at wendy's? because the burger flippers were only making minimum wage? his ridiculously long hours, years of training, gobs of brainpower and people skills kept that company going and customers coming so the burger flippers would have burgers to flip and money to earn. buying a factory doesn't make you rich....having the skills to produce and sell a money-making product that creates jobs makes you rich and helps the people you employ.
ReplyDeletei may be a democrat, but i'm probably the most capitalist one you'll ever meet. teach a man to fish...
And if the incentive to get rich wasn't there, such companies wouldn't even exist, and we'd still be scrapping the dirt with sticks and eating rock soup. Good point. I'm just tired of people who think all poor people are lazy.
ReplyDeletepart of the problem might be that some poor people ARE lazy...just like a lot of rich people are. but i think most of them are in so deep, they can't climb out (children to take care of, no education, can't go back to school because of all those children to take care of...) it's a mess, and we're responsible to help them.
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