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Oct. 29th, 2017 09:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatHmm...was going to go to church this morning, but, it is pouring and going involves walking about six-seven blocks in the rain. Plus subway wonkiness on the weekends. And I was there on Friday night.
CW once assumed that my joining a church meant I had become "religious", eh no. I have issues with organized religion -- it seems to divide people more than pull them together, ironic that, since it is supposed to do the opposite. Unitarian Universalism is admittedly not that organized nor that religious, but current ministerial staff is trying really hard to make it that way. And I'd prefer they laid back a bit. I liked the church I joined in 2010, this one, I've mixed feelings about. If I were to define myself -- I'd say I'm more spiritual than religious. (I ask too many questions for religion to take root. I believe in a source that unites us all, the oneness of things, that we need to be kind to each other and push past the trappings of egoism and materialism, and that at root we are energy beings inhabiting organic matter. The rest? I think was made up by scared people who wanted to control others and make themselves feel better.)
Anyhow...found this interesting article on my FB page, posted by an old social media friend from the Buffy Boards:
How Sociopathic Capitalism Came to Rule the World.
It expresses many of my own issues with capitalism over the past fifteen years -- living in more or less the epicenter of it. I'm not sure you can understand this unless you live in New York City and have watched it basically make some people insanely rich, and others insanely poor, and trap the middle class in a spiral of never being certain which end they'll land in. Seeing it from a ground level, every single day on my hour and half commute to and from work can over time be mind-numbing.
The US is terrified of any system outside of Capitalism. Growing up, you didn't dare mention that you didn't follow it or believe in it. We'd come off of the McCarthy Era, where Communists and Socialists were black-listed and thrown in prison. Then there was the Korean, Vietnam and Cold War -- all, without exception, about the evils of communism. The US would jump into any conflict that could potentially plunge the world into an evil socialistic or communist state. Movies released from 1950-1990 often depicted these fears. Jack Finney's Invasion of the Body Snatchers was in reality a political allegory of the evils of communism -- if you see the first, 1950s take on it, it's obvious. And of course the popularity of Ayn Rand.
This is a country that fought a war over taxes and associated taxes with tyranny. It valued economic freedom above everything, including human rights and personal freedoms. And that's expressed in multiple science fiction, western, and noir films throughout US history. It's also visible in how POC have been treated in US history. Capitalism endorsed slavery and the slave-state. Human beings were considered commerce. They still are in places in the world. 71% of them are women.
Most Americans think socialism and communism are interchangeable and the boogie man under the bed. That's why Bernie Sanders didn't have a chance. And partly why Trump was elected over those evil Democratic socialists. Many of my co-workers saw Obama and Clinton as socialists. I know I have discussed this with them over the years, and get shut down every time over an angry tirade over economic freedom and their fear of losing their homes and jobs to the evil government machine. When I mentioned to one of my bosses that France had managed to build a cheaper transit system than we had, she immediately blamed our unions and assumed they didn't have the issues with unions that we did. (Hmm, this was France. I'm thinking she doesn't know that France is socialist and basically run by unions. Don't worry, I chose not to correct her.) Ironically, they are now upset about awarding one contractor more work than the others, and I'm thinking...okay, we live in a capitalist system -- that system isn't about the fair distribution of work. It's about giving it to whomever provides the lowest cost for the best product.
Capitalism gone insane is when you remove regulations. So a media company can buy up all the networks. Or a company such as Amazon can buy a grocery store, a pharmaceutical chain, books, etc -- and monopolize the market. And that's happening in the US. Trump -- a businessman and the poster child of free-market capitalism -- has made it his mission in life to deregulate. Get rid of all of those nasty regulations getting in the way of free enterprise.
It's not that I am particularly in love with Socialism or Communism. I'm not. Nor can I be. Since I have seen for myself the pitfalls of both. Socialism seems to work better for smaller countries than large ones, or so I've noticed. It works quite well for Sweden, but seems to have issues in places like France, Australia, Russia, and Great Britain. Also publicizing all the companies and industries pose their own set of problems. I work for a public agency and have worked for private ones...the problem with the public ones is the leadership is basically politicians who care most about pleasing the whiners who support and lobby at them 24/7, and not the folks who are working in their agencies and actually know what is going on. No, they want to please Joe Small out in the boondocks who has a huge house, lives two blocks from the tracks and uses the train maybe two times a week to get into the city. Or XYZ construction company that needs work. And they think they can do it by bullying people to do what they want.
The problems are deeper than just plain economics. Changing economic systems isn't going to do that much. Not when we still have bullies running the show. And as long as that is the case...it doesn't matter all that much which system we're under. They all have problems. I'm not sure how to solve that problem. But I think the people do need a bigger voice -- which the last election proved we don't. The person who won, didn't win the popular vote. And gerrymandering or zoning, silenced many voters. Until that's fixed, we can't really fix the rest.
The depressing bit is I'm not sure we can fix it. At least not within my lifetime. Maybe my neice's. The next generation, the one after the millenials, the one who is in their tween years... seems a bit brighter and kinder than we are. Or so I hope.
I'm hoping someone far brighter than I will find the answers. See that maybe a hybrid of the systems will work, or find a way to convince us all to put our greed, fear, and egos off to one side. But I don't know if that's possible today or tomorrow.
As Halloween approaches, I see more demons than angels flitting about the public and private power spheres. And that is admittedly worrisome. It's why I've backed away from the news, for the most part and social media. As an attempt to find peace. And kindness. Which exists, as long as I ignore politics and refrain from discussing it.
CW once assumed that my joining a church meant I had become "religious", eh no. I have issues with organized religion -- it seems to divide people more than pull them together, ironic that, since it is supposed to do the opposite. Unitarian Universalism is admittedly not that organized nor that religious, but current ministerial staff is trying really hard to make it that way. And I'd prefer they laid back a bit. I liked the church I joined in 2010, this one, I've mixed feelings about. If I were to define myself -- I'd say I'm more spiritual than religious. (I ask too many questions for religion to take root. I believe in a source that unites us all, the oneness of things, that we need to be kind to each other and push past the trappings of egoism and materialism, and that at root we are energy beings inhabiting organic matter. The rest? I think was made up by scared people who wanted to control others and make themselves feel better.)
Anyhow...found this interesting article on my FB page, posted by an old social media friend from the Buffy Boards:
How Sociopathic Capitalism Came to Rule the World.
It expresses many of my own issues with capitalism over the past fifteen years -- living in more or less the epicenter of it. I'm not sure you can understand this unless you live in New York City and have watched it basically make some people insanely rich, and others insanely poor, and trap the middle class in a spiral of never being certain which end they'll land in. Seeing it from a ground level, every single day on my hour and half commute to and from work can over time be mind-numbing.
The US is terrified of any system outside of Capitalism. Growing up, you didn't dare mention that you didn't follow it or believe in it. We'd come off of the McCarthy Era, where Communists and Socialists were black-listed and thrown in prison. Then there was the Korean, Vietnam and Cold War -- all, without exception, about the evils of communism. The US would jump into any conflict that could potentially plunge the world into an evil socialistic or communist state. Movies released from 1950-1990 often depicted these fears. Jack Finney's Invasion of the Body Snatchers was in reality a political allegory of the evils of communism -- if you see the first, 1950s take on it, it's obvious. And of course the popularity of Ayn Rand.
This is a country that fought a war over taxes and associated taxes with tyranny. It valued economic freedom above everything, including human rights and personal freedoms. And that's expressed in multiple science fiction, western, and noir films throughout US history. It's also visible in how POC have been treated in US history. Capitalism endorsed slavery and the slave-state. Human beings were considered commerce. They still are in places in the world. 71% of them are women.
Most Americans think socialism and communism are interchangeable and the boogie man under the bed. That's why Bernie Sanders didn't have a chance. And partly why Trump was elected over those evil Democratic socialists. Many of my co-workers saw Obama and Clinton as socialists. I know I have discussed this with them over the years, and get shut down every time over an angry tirade over economic freedom and their fear of losing their homes and jobs to the evil government machine. When I mentioned to one of my bosses that France had managed to build a cheaper transit system than we had, she immediately blamed our unions and assumed they didn't have the issues with unions that we did. (Hmm, this was France. I'm thinking she doesn't know that France is socialist and basically run by unions. Don't worry, I chose not to correct her.) Ironically, they are now upset about awarding one contractor more work than the others, and I'm thinking...okay, we live in a capitalist system -- that system isn't about the fair distribution of work. It's about giving it to whomever provides the lowest cost for the best product.
Capitalism gone insane is when you remove regulations. So a media company can buy up all the networks. Or a company such as Amazon can buy a grocery store, a pharmaceutical chain, books, etc -- and monopolize the market. And that's happening in the US. Trump -- a businessman and the poster child of free-market capitalism -- has made it his mission in life to deregulate. Get rid of all of those nasty regulations getting in the way of free enterprise.
It's not that I am particularly in love with Socialism or Communism. I'm not. Nor can I be. Since I have seen for myself the pitfalls of both. Socialism seems to work better for smaller countries than large ones, or so I've noticed. It works quite well for Sweden, but seems to have issues in places like France, Australia, Russia, and Great Britain. Also publicizing all the companies and industries pose their own set of problems. I work for a public agency and have worked for private ones...the problem with the public ones is the leadership is basically politicians who care most about pleasing the whiners who support and lobby at them 24/7, and not the folks who are working in their agencies and actually know what is going on. No, they want to please Joe Small out in the boondocks who has a huge house, lives two blocks from the tracks and uses the train maybe two times a week to get into the city. Or XYZ construction company that needs work. And they think they can do it by bullying people to do what they want.
The problems are deeper than just plain economics. Changing economic systems isn't going to do that much. Not when we still have bullies running the show. And as long as that is the case...it doesn't matter all that much which system we're under. They all have problems. I'm not sure how to solve that problem. But I think the people do need a bigger voice -- which the last election proved we don't. The person who won, didn't win the popular vote. And gerrymandering or zoning, silenced many voters. Until that's fixed, we can't really fix the rest.
The depressing bit is I'm not sure we can fix it. At least not within my lifetime. Maybe my neice's. The next generation, the one after the millenials, the one who is in their tween years... seems a bit brighter and kinder than we are. Or so I hope.
I'm hoping someone far brighter than I will find the answers. See that maybe a hybrid of the systems will work, or find a way to convince us all to put our greed, fear, and egos off to one side. But I don't know if that's possible today or tomorrow.
As Halloween approaches, I see more demons than angels flitting about the public and private power spheres. And that is admittedly worrisome. It's why I've backed away from the news, for the most part and social media. As an attempt to find peace. And kindness. Which exists, as long as I ignore politics and refrain from discussing it.