Mickey Z
Cool Observer
Saturday, March 03, 2007
Advice from dead presidents
spot on with this.
its all part of the american dream myth… work hard enough and you will be rich and happy.
however, most people work very hard all their lives and never get anywhere near being rich.
the flip side of believing this is of course that those who arent rich are all lazy - and nothing could be further from the truth.
the only genuinely lazy people as far as i can see are the parasitical people with all the money (or indeed with all the fake zeros on all the hard drives)
Posted by michael on from scotland 03/03 at 07:04 AMI thought this fits with today’s post:
Oh, a sleeping drunkard
Up in Central Park,
And a lion-hunter
In the jungle dark,
And a Chinese dentist,
And a British queen -
All fit together
In the same machine.
Nice, nice, very nice;
Nice, nice, very nice;
Nice, nice, very nice -
So many different people
In the same device.
---Kurt VonnegutPosted by Keir on from the hague 03/03 at 07:57 AMPS: Jeremy, from yesterday, have you read much about participatory economics yet? From your writing and your comments you seem too smart, too compassionate, too caring to really be a “capitalist” or embrace the free [sic] market.
Posted by Keir on from the hague 03/03 at 08:02 AMMichael ...Yes, I agree. Have you heard about the latest Oprah fad...she has endorsed a movement which basically says that all anyone has to do to achieve ANYTHING is to think positively about it. If you want a million dollars, just think about it, and it will come to you. There is a book that is the root of this movement. Now there are meetings and “teachers” who are pushing this and making money off it. The title of the book is “The Secret”. The sad thing about this is that this philosophy holds people responsible for what happens to them. It re-victimizes victims of war, crime, poverty, and illness by blaming them. I hope that the book does not sell, but the gullibility level is such that it probably will.
Keir...I think that Capitalism might be the greatest evil facing the planet. The word says it all, CAPITALism vs PEOPLEism.
Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 03/03 at 08:56 AM“Patience and perseverance have a magical effect, through which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish (but only if you are a rich white male landowner).”
Or Oprah...I guess. The power of positive thinking...what a load of shit. I have Oprah in my face every day here in the Chicagoland area, RMJ.
Hi Michael, Keir…
RMJ, I would expand your last comment to:
CAPITALism vs ALLLIFEONTHEPLANETism.
Posted by JOS on from Oak Park 03/03 at 10:40 AM“Inspirational talk and self-help mantras can sometimes have their place but they’re more typically nothing more than luxuries for the bored and the privileged.”
That’s good stuff.
Keir, no I haven’t read much on that. You may be right, I may not be a capitalist (I can only speak as to my own understanding of the word), I’m certainly not a corporatist, but I do believe the free market is the way to go. Again, I can only speak as to my understanding of it all, which may very well be skewed. The alternative to a free market is a highly government-regulated market, which I think is a bad idea.
Thanks for the link. I browsed it a bit, will spend more time with it later. Immediately, I’m not sure I understand how the “means of production” could be “socially ‘owned’”, or why that would be desirable. If farmer Joe worked hard to buy a tractor, why should he allow others to use that tractor without some form of compensation? It’s his tractor, his means of production, his private property, and that is, I think, as it should be.
Perhaps I’m not understanding correctly. I’ll read more later and get back.
Posted by Jeremy on from Taipei, Taiwan 03/03 at 11:24 AMHello Expendables...from a sunny, warm NYC. Feels like spring.
You know, I never feel my blog posts are complete until a handful of you guys add your comments. I really mean that and I hope that visitors here take the time to read the post and the comments to get the full effect.
Thanks, everyone. I’ll be back later. The sunshine is calling.
P.S. I noticed the Empress returned last night and she brought quite a potty mouth with her.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 03/03 at 11:29 AMI was just reading up on John Quincy Adams, and although I agree that the quote from the organic mints is totally meaningless (reminds me for some reason of the title of that asshole Barrack Obama’s new book), Adams himself seems to be one of the better American statesmen. I mean more worthy of some respect. I didn’t know for example that the Monroe Doctrine, which he was the main architect of, was not meant to imply that the Western Hemisphere was the USA’s to influence, but a statement against colonialism. Adams also refused to campaign for public office and represented the Africans destined for slavery who took control of the Amistad.
Jeremy, a major point of Parecon is that economies should not be centrally-planned, so I’m not sure I understand your “government regulation” fears. I don’t think the free market is free, it’s already regulated by national governments and it protects those who are wealthy and own property and the ability to extract resources. But the “resources” cannot “belong” to anyone . . .
What you people call your natural resources our people call our relatives.
---Oren Lyons, faith keeper of the Onondaga, from this book.Posted by Keir on from the hague 03/03 at 12:03 PMWe’re just monkeys with delusions of grandeur... or as I like to say, super-chimps with high-tech toys.
Posted by Buddhamonkeydevil on from USofA 03/03 at 12:56 PMRMJ form yesterday...Outlook has a “find” function in one of the menu options. If you remember some of the wording from your lost aritcle you can use it to search for the email. Just an FYI…
Posted by JOS on from Oak Park 03/03 at 02:43 PMThanks, JOS. I will do that. I am feeling frisky now that I have a new hard drive which seems to be working fine. I wish you had been here to install it for me. The bill will be more than $200 for the hard drive and a fan.
Keir...that Oren Lyons quote is priceless.
I just found out today that I have a connection to Kurt Vonnegut. We both worked at GE in Schenectady at approx the same time.
Jeremy...The way I see it, one of the many problems with Capitalism is that it does NOT give fair and just compensation for work. One person can work a few hours and make millions and the poor farmer would have trouble paying for his tractor. It was Capitalism that caused so many farmers in the mid-west during the 70s to lose the farms that had been in their families for generations. It is Capitalism that allows Monsanto to screw farmers all around the world. It is Capitalism that prevents access to health care. I could go on and on. The Ben & Jerry’s compensation plan made sense to me. The policy was than no one in the company could be paid more than 6 times the lowest paid worker. I DO favor the ownership of private property, within limits. I don’t think that we have evolved enough to jointly own everything. The community bully would wind up with more than his fair share. I also favor a 100% tax on ALL income above a certain amount. It was Capitalism that enriched Donald Trump, or should we believe that he is really just smarter and more hard-working than the rest of us.
Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 03/03 at 04:06 PMOn Adam Smith and ‘free markets’.
I’ve got ‘Wealth of Nations’ and have read it all a couple of times. Since his time and up to ther present day there has never been a ‘free’ market in the utopian sense and there has never been ANY effort to make it that way either.
Smith has as much idea that a ‘free’ market is controlled by an’invisible hand’ as we have about life after death. To really get to grips with the economics of our times we could start by talking about an ‘iron hand’.
What Smith spouting economists actually mean when they talk about freedom of markets is the freedom to keep exploiting unequal trade rules brought about through the colonial era.
Also Smiths ideas of ‘free’ markets is an evoloution of the monetarist system he was critiquing. Not a progression from actual societal or human needs.
I do like the book as a resource on the early colonial period, especially the chapter on the history of the colonies.
Smith sez “In consequence of the representations of Colombus, the council of Castile determined to take possession of countries of which the inhabitants were plainly incapable of defending themselves. The pious purpose of converting them to Christianity sanctified the injustice of the project. But the hope of finding treasures of gold there, was the sole motive which prompted to undertake it and to give this greater weight it was proposed by Colombus that half of all the gold and silver found there should belong to the crown.”
We then goes on to compare this to the Northern colonies who only paid 1/5 to the crown - but outlasted the southern expeditions.
But I ask you all - is this a taxation issue?
Posted by Andy on from Shanghai 03/03 at 05:05 PMTypos, boo hoo.
That second to last paragraph should start with “He then goes on ...”
Posted by Andy on from Shanghai 03/03 at 05:08 PMHello all. I return bearing quotes, courtesy of Information Clearing House:
“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.”
-- Charles Darwin“He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why? Because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust.”
-- Aquinas“I don’t know a more irreligious attitude, one more utterly bankrupt of any human content, than one which permits children to be destroyed.”
-- Daniel Berrigan“I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have: three meals a day for their bodies, - education and culture for their minds - and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits”
-- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 03/03 at 06:32 PMPat Buchanan sez:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17229.htmPosted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 03/03 at 06:35 PMWhat a crazy lefty Pat is! Is he going to be Ralph’s running mate in ‘08?
Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 03/03 at 06:55 PMDon’t talk like that. It might cost Gore the election.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 03/03 at 07:10 PMi have just been watching the most amazing lunar eclipse.
it went on for about 3 hours.
a truly stunning site. and there wont be another like that here for about 3 years
Posted by michael on from scotland 03/03 at 08:36 PMthat should have said a stunning “sight” but well...a stunning “site” works well enough anyway
Posted by michael on from scotland 03/03 at 08:37 PMhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6411991.stm
Posted by michael on from scotland 03/03 at 08:46 PMDamn, I missed it. I’m so caught up in family details here that I forgot. Glad you got to see it, Michael.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 03/03 at 08:59 PMsaw it here in Chicago…
beautiful.
Posted by JOS on from Oak Park 03/03 at 09:57 PMEvenin’ Expendables.
Aye, St. Claire’s mints are great. I’m also partial to Thursday Plantation Tea Tree Sticks http://tinyurl.com/36n6dl
It was a sunny and breezy 50F in Eastern MA today. Great weather for moving. Two friends bought their first mortage ever, and it is a nice place; the price was right and so is the house. The ten of us moved everything in about 3.5 hours - the fastest/smoothest move I’ve been a part of.
About this Adams/Oprah/Etc. self-help nonsense: it is very wearisome. “Think Positively” might be more acceptable if it weren’t consistently targeted on the relatively (or completely) helpless. I wonder how Tony Robbins would have fared at Bergen-Belsen, or Oprah against the beef industry without a pile of cash and lawyers. This is negative thinking, however, and might sabotage my plans and goals.
“I wanna be Jackie Onassis
I wanna wear a pair of dark sunglasses
I wanna be Jackie O
Oh oh oh please don’t die!”
-- “Tire Me” from Rage Against The Machine’s Evil Empire (1996)Cultural Good News: I have learned that Rage will headline a festival in CA at the end of April, with a total of four dates announced. Sweet Jesus in the drunk tank, a sharp and unsheathed Rage would be a breath of fresh political air. They’ve already explained their headlining Coachella as a response to the “right wing purgatory America has slid into” since Bush took office. I saw them on The Battle Of Los Angeles tour, and saw Zack speak at a Mumia rally in Philly.
Posted by Zen Prole on from Urth 03/03 at 10:23 PMOn the other hand, the Police are set to reunite for a tour this spring too…
Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 03/03 at 11:19 PMHello All. Hope you’re well. Any HP Lovecraft fans here? I found this tonight, for the US election in 2008.
Image for Cthulhu campaign poster:
http://tinyurl.com/yawqapSeems like a good choice to me, Mickey you need to spread the word! Better than the two main parties, no?
Capthca says: quality. Ain’t that SO true…
Posted by Paul M on from Scotland 03/03 at 11:26 PMPossible campaign pledges:
-Consuming the souls of mortals (at a constant of 1d10 people per round, apparently)
-Dreaming dark dreams in R’lyeh in his vast crypt outside of time
-Forms of torture so horrific, no human language has words capable of describing them
-Pinochle
-Performing in his garage band “Cthulhu and the Great Old Ones.” They have so far released one album, “Cthulhu and the Great Old Ones Sing the Great Oldies”.
-Acting as the lead role in Japanese Hentai films, doing such things as finding and touching schoolgirls’ unmentionable areas, making them feel ‘good’.
-Sponsoring the Campus Crusade for Cthulhu.
-Avoiding attacks from the albatrosses.
-Staring at you from the other side of the window. Yes, he can see when you are getting jiggy…
-Cake decoration, although he has developed a strange and worrying addiction to dragees. It is because of this that there are subliminal messages in H.P. Lovecraft’s story The Call of Cthulhu, making people consume at least two dragees a day.-
captcha says “enough”. ok then, ruin my fun why don’t you..Posted by Paul M on from Scotland 03/03 at 11:33 PMKeir, when I said I think there should be a free market I wasn’t implying that’s what we had. We don’t have a free market. Like you said, there’s a lot of government regulation. And the “free trade” agreements are not free trade agreements. They are a means of, as you say, protecting the wealthy and allowing foreign resources to be exploited by US corporations at the cost of the people of the other countries. Like you, I’m opposed to that. I’m opposed to what we have, which is not a free market, as far as I’m concerned, as far as my understanding of a free market goes, which I’m primarily basing on my understanding of Adam Smith.
On the other hand, if what we have is a free market, then I would be opposed to it, too. I just don’t think that’s the case.
Parecon looks like another word for socialism to me, but as I said I’ve not been able to spend a lot of time there and will continue to browse the Znet site.
RMJ, I’m not sure I agree that the problems and injustices you mentioned can be attributed to capitalism. For example, the injustices against farmers at the hands of Monsanto has nothing to do with capitalism, as far as I see it. It’s the result of a disfunctional justice system and twisted interpretations of the law and Constitution. Nor do I see capitalism as preventing access to health care. Certainly, it is contrary to any socialist health care system, which I would oppose anyway, but I see no reason why a privatized health care system shouldn’t work. The only reason, I think, it doesn’t work in our country now is because there is no free market in the health care industry. It isn’t capitalism that prevents health care, in other words, but the lack of it.
I’m opposed to the income tax altogether. Income is private property, the fruits of labor, so I can’t agree with you that it should be taxed. I think it’s a travesty that this is so, the result of adopting a fraudulent money system with the passing of the Federal Reserve Act. According to Reagan’s Grace Commission report, 100% of income taxes go towards paying just the interest on the federal debt.
Andy, I also can’t agree with you regarding Smith. If a person cites Smith to justify “the freedom to keep exploiting unequal trade rules brought about through the colonial era” they are twisting and abusing what Smith actually wrote. I don’t remember reading anything in The Wealth of Nations that would justify such a conclusion. Quite the opposite. When he spoke of a free market, he spoke of allowing the law of supply and demand to regulate the market rather than having government control it. I don’t see how anyone could take what he wrote about it and infer anything like what you attributed to them, and if anyone did, then I don’t think they are being honest. So people may use Smith as you’ve said, but I don’t think you can attribute such a thing to Smith himself.
Posted by Jeremy on from Taipei, Taiwan 03/04 at 03:13 AMTo tie Advice From Dead Presidents in with this economics discussion:
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies . . . If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] . . . will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered . . . The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."
That would have been great advice to heed. Too bad we didn’t listen.
Posted by Jeremy on from Taipei, Taiwan 03/04 at 03:16 AMHey Jeremy, good to have more of your thoughts. I’m glad you recognize that the free market isn’t free. This is where my own ignorance takes over: I don’t know if it ever could be free. I do know that the inclusion of markets are a major contention between advocates of Parecon and other visions for socially-just economies.
Is socialism by any other name still socialism? A main difference between Parecon and most socialist economies we know of is that Parecon is not centrally-planned. It also seems to me---and I wish the Derrick Jensen crowd would consider this---that Parecon is the only viable economy for industrial civilization, since environmental sustainability is essentially built into its structure.
Posted by Keir on from the hague 03/04 at 07:47 AM
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