Not This Time

[filkertom]

Barack Obama's incredible speech last week touched on and brought together a number of subjects, but the actual underlying theme was once again glossed over by the media. I noticed the theme at the time, but I (and, frankly, a lot of other people) lost track of it in the ongoing racial noise. I think that was deliberate.

So does Tocqueville at Daily Kos. And it's out in the open now, and we cannot let it go, because it is at the heart of many of the problems we face right this minute. And when I say we, I mean we as Democrats, as Republicans, as Independents, as Americans, as humans on the planet Earth. Sorry to break out that hoary eyerolling chestnut, but We The People.

Here's the thing: Greed is not good. Not unfettered, unrestricted, unregulated greed.

I want to be rich. Hell, yes, I want to be rich. But I do not want to become rich by taking advantage of other people. (Like the rotten bastards in the pay-day-loan business.) And there is a limit past which the only thing you are doing is getting more wealth for the sake of getting even more wealth. What the hell are you going to do with it? All I can think of that makes any sense is to help people who need it. Which is not what most corporations are doing.

More to the point, all these years of deregulation have come home to roost. Along with BushCo's psychotic tax cuts and even more psychotic off-the-books war, our economy is coming apart at the seams. Their solution? Bail out the crooks and shmucks who so boldly touted the free market. Hey, guys! What's the problem? The "magic of the free market" should save you now, right? Right?

But no. Not in Bush's America. Not with Bush's media. Obama is relentlessly attacked because of something someone else said, and when he takes the highest road possible to defend himself and change the dialogue to something that might possibly be important, the media drag it right back to, literally, Black and White issues, and gloss over the underlying problem.

After all, they're all rich.

Not this time.

This time, the problem -- the greed of BushCo and their friends and supporters and cronies and cohorts in Corporate America -- threatens to bring down the entire goddamn country. And we cannot let them change the dialogue to cover their asses.

Not this time.

Comments

So what are we supposed to do?

[palenoue.livejournal.com]

I agree with you, and have agreed with this sentiment ever since the Reagan years when I observed what "greed for greed's sake" really accomplished. But what can we do about this? We've protested (and been ignored), we've voted (and been ignored), we've signed petitions (which were ignored), we went door to door (and were sometimes yelled at, then ignored), we've held rallies (which, except for those attending, were ignored), we've put up web sites (which are dissed and belittled before being ignored), and we've blogged (Lord how we've blogged!), but is it making any real difference? All of our efforts sure haven't brought any White House lawbreakers to justice (if only they'd _all_ have an orgy in an airport toilet, then we'd have them!)

So what can we do to make a difference this time?

I don't know, I'm all out of ideas.

Re: So what are we supposed to do?

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

Launder, rinse, repeat.
Ask any of the war-weary Vietnam protesters who are still out there trying, still teaching youngsters orderly, safe, and legal civil disobedience. For that matter, many of them Viet vets. Still more, now, Desert Storm vets.
They *have* have orgies in public toilets. But if it's Rethuglican right wing nutjob Religious Authority person, somehow it gets ignored.

The problem is that the threat of bringing down the country is very real.
It's just as real as global climate instability.
Covering their asses makes no difference to either case.
So they won't be in jail.
So none of their buddies will be in jail.
Big whoop.
What I don't understand is why Big Money isn't staring this in the eye and going, Sheet, fix it, and fix it now!
Because, by every economic measure known to us, other countries' economics are not decoupled enough from our own to survive it very well if we tank, and we may be doing it really, really bigtime. China and India are getting the heebies about us not buying from them as well as we were just six months ago, and they should be. We're 40 per cent of export market, or more (given under-table dealls all over), *for China*.
Tell me the guys writing for the Wall Street Journal can't do the numbers?
Okay, maybe they're staring in despair at those kinda numbers, and they *still* can't say anything, because the short term rules so fiercely.
Anybody with money invested in real estate or insurance in this country knows dam' well it don't matter whose fault it was.
In this case, our economic engines in the national car, going 120 mph, meet cliff.
Going nowhere.
Boom.

Re: So what are we supposed to do?

[salkryn.livejournal.com]

"So what can we do to make a difference this time?"

Fight. Keep fighting. Keep blogging, keep protesting, keep voting, keep petitioning. Do not let up. The moment that the massive inertia of our system causes us to just throw up our hands in despair is the moment that the lawbreakers win. It may take years, and god knows we can't do it alone, but if we ever let up, who will come to take our place? I'm twenty years old, and most of the men and women of my generation have already given in to apathy, to the belief that we DO NOT MATTER. We can't rely on coming generations to get over their apathy and change things, we have to be the ones who start it. Bloggers like us can't do much alone, but together we can make a hell of a lot of noise. Will it be enough to make things better? I don't know. But we have to keep at it, keep reminding people that what the corporations and special interest groups are pushing on us is not the only way, that what the media reports is not the only truth, and that while individually we are powerless, as a whole we can crush them.

...

...erm, sorry about the rant. Once I got started, the momentum kept me going.

[baphnedia.livejournal.com]

A few things:

1: The whole of everything is coming apart at the seams (the effect will be felt more globally as the US falters, fails); the mere mention that the US deals with 'Rogue States' means that Someone Up There thinks that we run the world.

2: The people who fight wind up treated no better than terrorists. The way the US Gov't treats it's customers (it's voters) is a lot like the way it treats Iraqis and Iranians). Call it corporate culture.

3: If you want to make a change in that world, there are three ways to play:
A: Identify symptoms and problems causing symptoms and take part on a grassroots level (tutoring, mentoring public school students whose schools are entertainment venues instead of centers of education, for example)
B: Learn to play their game. Acquire their skills. I know a couple places to begin learning executive skill sets, and who to learn them from (those who've both made billions using different philosophies). Be very successful in your field, then perhaps, run for office like Arnold did. I don't agree with everything he's done, but overall, I think he's done a knock-up job as Governor.
C: Take charge of their government (run for office yourself, or find the lobbyist groups that make a difference). In my case, I participate in the Army Family Action Program annually, which over the past 20 years has made over one hundred changes to Federal Law and many hundreds of changes to Department of Defense and US Army regulations, policies and procedures to make the life of Army Families... livable and survivable.

As for the media, don't know how to fix that one.

[jmthane.livejournal.com]

Add to that today's news (in the NYTimes) that JP Morgan Chase is working to quintuple it's original offer to buy Bear Stearns because "the Bear stockholders were very angry about the low price first offered".

W.T.F.?

Stock is a risk, Bear Stearns lost a shitload of money, but the stockholders *still* expect good money for it?

Greed. As you said. Unbridled greed.

[dan-ad-nauseam.livejournal.com]

Actually, $10 is still lousy money. $2 added up to less than the physical assets were worth.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting this, and pointing me at this. I think I'll post about it myself in a bit.

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

Our state attorney general has thrown down the gauntlet on payday loan centers- telling them that they either have to adhere to our state's maximum finance charge, or close down. (http://www.myeyewitnessnews.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=9306fe5d-b9a9-4fd1-8d0a-4186a6269703)

Our state's maximum finance charge is 17%. Some of these places charge about 300%.

[dan-ad-nauseam.livejournal.com]

Oregon took eight years before the legislature acted.

[poltr1]

This is a honkin' big shadow our country has, that no one's owning up to yet. And I wonder of they ever will.

"Never underestimate the power of human greed."

[bayushisan.livejournal.com]

For the love of money is the root of all evil.

I agree greed is a bad thing. It causes no end of human suffering and grief. It's not having money that's the bad thing though, it's the pursuit of profit to the exclusion of all other things.

We shouldn't punish people who've worked hard to attain the place they are, the trick is knowing the difference between the greedy and the people who just want to be successful.

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

Well, here's a little litmus test I like to use:

The people who have more farging money than they, their children, or their grandchildren could possibly spend, but want more?
They would be "the greedy".

The people who work multiple jobs to feed their children but still cannot afford health care?
They would be "the people who just want to be successful".

[bayushisan.livejournal.com]

I have to disagree there a bit. There are a lot of people who have that kind of money who have worked hard to get it.

I admit that I do tend to be a mostly free market kind of person. In most cases I do think that, mostly, while necessity is the mother of invention, competition for advancement is the father.

Are there excesses? Absolutely. The trick is finding the balance. Which is where the people come in by talking about the entirty of the situation.

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes, there are shades of grey between the two extremes.

I just find it difficult to dredge up any sympathy for someone who might only make $600 million this year, instead of an even billion, when there are a great many people with far worse problems.

And I maintain that "having more money than God, but wanting more" is pretty much the definition of greed.

[bayushisan.livejournal.com]

That's your right and I fully support it. I might not completely agree but I do see and understand your point.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Actually, I'd think that the people who work multiple jobs to feed their children but still cannot afford health care are "the screwed". Remember that Dubya is the chimp who called working three jobs "uniquely American (http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/000392.html)" and then asked the woman who said she did so if she got much sleep.

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

Pretty much, yeah. I tend to believe that "the screwed" have rather a different idea of what it means to "be successful" than the Chimp Executive.

[ginevra007.livejournal.com]

And why does she have to work three jobs? Why is her time less valuable than say a computer programmer? (I am assuming she works in some sort of menial labor) An hour of her time, is hour out of her life, just like it is a computer programmers, isn't it? (playing devil's advocate)

I'm not going into the health care rant as more articulate folks have done so better.

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

Let me amend that. I'm occasionally a bit more flip than necessary.

No, time taken out of her life to pay the bills is not in and of itself less valuable than time taken from the life of someone with a higher-rating skill set.

But at the same time, there's a question of the qualifications of the jobholder and the difficulty of the job. And, of course, the rarity of the skill set.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

The point is, none of her jobs pays a living wage. Or close to it. I have no problem with people being paid different amounts based on their job -- hey, it only makes sense -- but I do think that a full-time job should pay enough to live on. If it doesn't, there's something wrong with the pay scale, the definition of the job, or both.

[ginevra007.livejournal.com]

Thank you filkertom, you said it so much better than I. (but you are the 'word Smith' after all. grin) Yes, the point I was trying to make was if you have a full time job, you should be able to pay the bills and put food on your table clothes on your children, and have some form of health care.

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

Ah, now I see what you were getting at. Sorry, went off without my coffee this morning. Agreement en toto.

[ginevra007.livejournal.com]

No worries. (grin) I didn't state it as clearly as I should have.

[marcgunn.livejournal.com]

Amen!