Two questions for the Rich and the Powerful. Plus a comment.
The comment: in case you’ve missed it, there’s a new genre out there…in film, and TV, and books. I call it “Tales of Off-Shoring Blues.”
These are stories of ordinary, average Americans who find themselves without jobs, without hope, and without dignity when suddenly some CEO or corporate executive decides that it will increase his or her bonus by a few cents more if they move the factory or the office to India, or China, or Mexico.
Right now, for instance, there’s a new movie in the theaters. It’s called “Company Men.” It’s all about a bunch of guys who get downsized, and then we watch as they wither, as their self-esteem collapses, their sense of themselves of as men declines, and they struggle to find a place in a new and alien world which holds them in contempt.
It’s supposed to be quite good. The critics all love it. I’m told the men in the story do come to terms with their plights. Or at least some of them do. Sort of. But I don’t think I’ll be able to go see it. It would cut a little close to the bone for me. I’m employed (if somewhat underemployed) at the moment, but I’ve been there. And I know a lot of other people who are there still.
What interests me about this new genre, though, is that it succeeds because it taps into something deep and powerful in the culture. It resonates with people because they know it is saying something true.
Specifically, they know that they are being hurt. They know that they are being stripped of their dignity. They know that their increased rates of suicide and heart attack are not accidental. They know that, in some place, even in middle class suburbs, children are starting to go hungry.
Or, to put it another way, they know they are being murdered. Not with guns and knives. Not quickly. But murdered all the same. Slowly. With a thousand, thousand humiliations and deprivations.
So, now my two questions to the Rich and Powerful.
First, if you continue your present course of action…if you keep downsizing and off-shoring and not making any effort to create jobs for Americans…if you keep letting them die…
What do you think will happen when Americans then quite rationally decide that it is either you or them? That they cannot survive if you continue to rule?
And, second, if that should occur…
How long do you think you can run? How well do you think you can hide?
Material from Politico.com, The Boston Globe, the New York Times, the Washington Post and other news sources may be found on the websites of the respective publishers. It is used here solely for illustrative purposes and is reproduced under the doctrine of fair use.
And while we're on the subject...another New York Times article. This one headlined, "Rep. Giffords Critical After Ariz. Attack."
By this time, you know all the details so I won't go into them. But, what interests me most about this story is that Giffords had been subject to considerable abuse from the Right. If people in the Tea Party and people in GOP didn't exactly call for her to die, they didn't exactly go out of their way to suggest otherwise. They branded her a traitor, and a villain, and a conspirator, and more...
And, as one would expect, eventually, a lunatic took them seriously. And used a gun.
Now, of course, the GOP and others will say, Oh, My, How Terrible. And Extend their Deepest Sympathies. And maybe suggest that the shooter was, in fact, driven mad by growing up in a liberal America.
But, in the end, in the end...
You cannot call for violence, and then act shocked and surprised when it happens.
Fascinating article at New York Times which asks the question "Corporate Profits Are Booming? Why aren't jobs?"
Answer: because it is not in the short term interest of certain members of our national elite to let them bloom.
But the kicker is "short term." In the long...well, that's another story entirely.
The line in this article which says it best, I think, comes near the end. It reads, "Some economists, conservative and liberal, divine forbidding portents in all of this. If profits and employment no longer rise and fall together, they worry, then an already strained social compact will grow yet more frayed."
And everyone seems to have a fix to flog—more money or less, crush teachers unions, merit pay, charter schools, and on, and on, and on. A hundred different solutions battle it out. Some, like the libertarian proposals to abolish the Department of Ed, will probably always remain in the realm of fantasy. Others actually have money behind them. Thus, the Republicans had their "No Child Left Behind." The Democrats have their "Race to the Top."
In theory, all these are very different. However, at least as I read the various proposals, they actually have a lot in common. They hold as an unstated but dominant belief that schools should prepare children to be white-collar employees of some large business entity.
But is that wise?
Let's think about how hiring has changed over time. In the 1950s, the norm was the massive industrial corporation with large numbers of workers on an assembly line and a smaller but still respectable number of white-collar employees in "the office."
Except that's not the way it stayed. All businesses seek to reduce their operating costs. One way to do that is to cut staff. So, in the second half of the twentieth century and the first years of this, American corporations did just that. They automated. Or, they went offshore. And we had a wave of blue-collar layoffs.
But, we reassured ourselves, there'd always be white-collar jobs. Surely, corporations would always hire managers, clerical workers, and accountants.
Except they didn't. Starting in the 1970s, corporate America famously flattened and mid-level staffers became an endangered species. Today we've got far fewer white-collar employees, and those who remain are working much harder.
And now… it's Upper Management's turn.
I predict we'll see the same process there. Some of the functions of top management are going to go offshore, or, believe it or not, be automated. If you don't think that's possible, then consider the following: the majority of trades on Wall Street today are carried out not by brokers, but by computers. It's called "Algorithmic Trading."
I'm not saying that we'll have a business version of the Terminator taking over the world. Corporations will always be run by human beings. But, it is also true that the natural evolution of corporations is away from employees. It is always in their interest to hire as few people as possible.
If so, then teaching our children to be cubicle denizens is idiotic. It is more likely that they will find jobs in small businesses and/or be self-employed. Which means we need to be training young people to be small-scale entrepreneurs. They don't need MBAs. They need basic business skills, like bookkeeping and salesmanship.
And we ought to re-value the trades. Let's face it, right now, it is lot easier for young people to make money repairing cars or fixing plumbing than it is for them to get entry-level positions in big companies.
Finally, maybe most of all, we ought to promote creativity in students—a proven business advantage, and something that will be difficult or impossible to automate or outsource any time soon.
And to make this happen, our schools are going to have to change—root and branch.
But we're going to have to change with them. We've got some major values to shift. We've got to do some re-defining of the word "success." We're going to have to get used to the idea that being a solvent plumber is better than being a bankrupt white-collar worker.
Until we do that, education in America will continue to be a problem. All the reforms proposed by Right, Left, and Center will fall short.
And our Race to the Top? All too likely a mad dash, confused and stumbling, without a goal, without a map…
Into the abyss.
*
Special Note: I'm off to New Mexico in a couple of days. So, I won't be posting an Xcargo next week or the week after. But, in the meanwhile, have a great holiday, and I'll see you in January 2011.
Twenty-eleven? Oy. How did that happen? Wasn't it just yesterday that 1975 was impossibly far away in the future?
So I see that Wikileaks is now under attack from many different vectors. PayPal (among others) is now refusing to work with the group. Meanwhile, its founder, Julian Assange, has arrested for rape.
Not good news for Wikileaks. But, come, let us confess, if that's the worse that happens to the organization and its members, then they will be almost impossibly lucky. The simple fact of the matter is that they have seriously angered governments the world over. Not just the US, but everyone from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe is gunning for them.
If anything, this is a lesson in the realities of great power politics. If Wikileaks had confined itself to embarrassing the United States, and a few other liberal democracies, the group would have been relatively safe. Oh, there is a certain danger in tweeking the nose of Uncle Sam, but you can usually get away with it. Americans (ditto Brits, Scandinavians, Germans, the Swiss, and so on) hate it when you say bad things about them, but they'll tolerate it because of their own traditions of fair play and free speech.
Besides, they are subject to much scrutiny from the world. If they should do anything… shall we say?... untoward, then the globe fairly quickly spots the "made in USA" label on the side of the box. Thus, even if they wanted to take serious action against you, they may think twice just because of the PR angle. (The Bay of Pigs was bad enough the first time around.)
This is not true, however, for most of the rest of the world. Many is the government for whom toleration is a quaint concept, and who can operate much further out of the limelight. And Wikileaks.well, Wikileaks has published American diplomatic cables which contain material dangerous to dozens of different states.
The moral of the story, of course, is that if you are going to take on an Evil Empire, pick one that's well-behaved. The Sheep you can stuff in a wolf's skin, and proclaim a public enemy, is so much easier to deal with than the real thing.
I've been reading a number of articles lately about the growth of anti-immigrant sentiment …not just in the USA, but around the world. From Switzerland to Japan, there are calls for "them" to be sent back where they came from. All too often there's a touch of racism (or a truckload of it) in the appeals.
Note, this is all happening when the economy is down. And here's the dirty secret of human nature: Times are good, we are open and accepting. Times are bad: the recruiting office of the Waffen-SS is around the corner.
So, note to Liberals and Others who'd like to make the world a better place. Want people to be less bigoted? Enrich them.
The task of the Left, everywhere, and, indeed of everyone of good will, is to create jobs, reduce prices, and give people a sense of purpose, dignity, and wellbeing.
I saw the other day that Sarah Palin's reality TV show has been losing viewership in great hordes. People are just not watching it any more.
Well, I'm not terribly fond of Palin. But, discounting that, I wonder if her program wasn't doomed from the beginning.
Reality TV is an odd entity. It seems to be most successful when it shows us people doing things of which we disapprove, but which we secretly wish we could do...like have sex in exotic places, or spend vast amounts of money on things that we don't need, or live the lives of celebs.
And, well, Palin and her crew didn't do any of those things. Or, if they did, they did so off camera.
So, how can the network fix the situation? They can recast. Replace the boring real people with actors. Best bet to play Sarah Palin? Pam Anderson. No connection with anything genuine, of course. But envision her shooting wolves in full "Barbed Wire" get-up.
I read the other day that one of the Democratic party strategists is suggesting that his party take more of a lead from the GOP. They need, he suggests, to be tougher and far less moral.
Not a bad idea. But, really, I'm not sure the Dems can manage it. I mean, who do they have that really match the malice and cunning of, say, a Karl Rove?
Which I suggest they need to bring in outside talent. Someone, say, like Terminator. But with more metal and fewer morals.
After that, it might almost be something like a fair fight.
I'm online and reading an article about how one of the big newspapers has hired a famed blogger to write for it.
Sigh. Grumble. Kvetch.
I've been blogging for years. In fact, I had an ezine (an emailed publication) before there was a Web. My explosive-cargo or Xcargo (now explosive-cargo.blogspot.com has been around in one form or another since 1990.
But, does anyone hire ME to pontificate at major newspapers? Noooooo.
Of course, one might suggest that a slight total lack of talent may play some small role in all this. But we shan't listen to such base canards. Nor malevolent mallards. No. That would be foul. Or fowl. Six of one.
So, instead, I shall simply sit here and whimper. And pout. I do that quite well. It's when my little lower lip trembles that I'm particularly heart-breaking.
Saw the article the other day by Dave Johnson on how the very wealthy caused our current, massive deficit and by extension our current Recession and joblessness. His argument, which is buttressed by an amazing number of statistics, is that the mega-rich (what I call the 1%) forced the government to stop taxing them at anything like reasonable levels.
But, they and everyone else (but mostly them) continued to demand social services. The result was a government that supported itself by borrowing, hoping against hope that when the bill came due there would be money from somewhere to pay it off..
So, now that day is here, but our fairy godmother has declined to show up with magic wand and debit card.
The result? The 1%ers continue to insist on No New Taxes…for them. Meaning the cost of their decades of irresponsibility is shifted to us, the middle class. We pay for it with joblessness, higher prices, and the general decline in our standard of living.
Did the mega-rich cause the deficit?
Well, let's see, they forced the government to stop taxing them at anything like reasonable levels, but then demanded that the government provide them with social services, and so Washington had to borrow like mad, and, now, here we are, with the wolf at the door…
So, did they cause the deficit?
Does a bear sh— …er…seek a moment of solitary contemplation in the woods?
I saw recently that the Republicans have at least temporarily blocked legislation that would have provided hot meals to thousands of needy children. It was to have been part of a program that had the support of, among other people, Michelle Obama.
In a word, cripes. Why doesn't the GOP just hang out a big sign that reads, "Hi, We hate widows, orphans, and small fuzzy puppies" and be done with it?
Ah well. It's a PR disaster but at least it's in time for Christmas. Should make a great factoid for all those op-ed writers doing stories about the season …and Scrooge.
Here's to Tiny Tim, y'all. And God bless us, every one.
So, in light of Thanksgiving, I guess I'll mention one thing I'm thankful for. Specifically, I'm thankful that my family and I are not that bad off. We're employed. Maybe not as well paid as we'd like. But, we've got jobs. And that's not the case for a lot of folks these days.
And, while I'm on that topic, I'd like to ask you a question. Ready? Great. Here it comes:
Do you know anyone…ANYONE at all…who has lost their job because an illegal immigrant was willing to do it cheaper?
Need to think about it a little? Fine. Take your time. One. Two. Three. Okay…pencils down. Do not turn the page.
You haven't, have you? Or, at least, I'd bet that’s the case. I'd bet you don't know a single person who's lost or didn't get a job because some guy named Juan did the frogman routine across the Rio Grande and offered to take that chemical engineering spot (or whatever) for less than minimum wage.
In fact, I'll go further. I'll bet that you have never even MET someone who has lost a job to an illegal immigrant. Ever. I certainly haven't.
But, would you like to know who I HAVE met?
I've met lots, and Lots, and LOTS of people who have lost their jobs because of out-sourcing and off-shoring. I've met them by the score. Men and women whose jobs up and walked away because some MBA in a distant office decided that things could be done cheaper, without regulation, in some place far removed from American shores. I've met them among my friends. Among my former co-workers. Among my students (I teach adult ed). Among my family.
And I'm pretty sure you've met people like that, too. You may be one of them.
But, have you noticed? No one talks about that. Or, at least, very few people in power do.
Oh, we hear an awful lot about those nasty, nasty illegal immigrants. We're going to hear more about them, now that the House is in the hands of its new owners. And we'll probably see new laws written to keep "them" out. Who knows? Maybe we'll even build that Great Wall of Mexico that people like Jan Brewer keep talking about. Maybe it will have fences and guard towers and, someday, land mines. Maybe it will be the great construction project of the century…the one and only public works project that Tea Partiers and Libertarians will support.
But what we won't hear from the new, improved House of Representatives is much talk about the real causes of unemployment—like the fact that American jobs are flowing overseas at a record rate. On that, somehow, our masters and commanders will remain silent.
Why? To answer that, you have to ask another question—i.e., who is to blame for the situation? For the out-sourcing, and off-shoring, and "right-sizing," and all the other reassuring euphemisms for lay-offs and poverty? Who profited from it?
Well, certain members of the American elite, that's who. The people whose profits soared when production was taken offshore to places where wages were tiny and unions non-existent. The corporate managers whose "compensation packages" improved with every layoff and firing. The Wall Street wonders whose portfolios grew yet more morbidly obese each time a plant closed or a city died.
Or, to put it another way, those who benefit from our looming national bankruptcy are the very people who poured vast sums of money into the last election. And who now own the Republicans, manipulate Tea Party activists, have the majority in the House, may soon dominate the Senate, and are already planning to put another George W. into the White House in 2012. (Surely they have already selected the next empty-headed photogenic figure that they shall wheel onstage and automate as our Commander and Chief.)
Is it any wonder that such people are so vocal about "Illegal Immigrants?" It is the classic magician's technique of misdirection. We focus on a few Latinos, and miss the vastly greater harm that our own national elites have inflected upon us. We concentrate obsessively on the paper cuts of illegal immigration, and so don't notice the fact that we are being slowly eviscerated.
And you have to admire their technique. What they are doing is terrible. It may, someday, be classified as treason. But, they do it so very, very well.
But, of course, that brings up yet another question…something else to ponder.
To wit: that Wall? The Great Wall of Mexico that Jan Brewer et al would build? Is it to keep "them" out?
Well, today, I'm going to be posting a number of little odds and ends. They're not quite Depth Charges ("the lowest form of explosive-cargo") but they're close. So, let's call them "Brother Bacon's Squibs And Crackers."
(You'll recall that the thirteenth century monk, Roger Bacon, included in his notes one of the first known recipes for gunpowder.)
So, here we go…
*
I saw in the news this morning that Hillary Clinton has ruled out a run for president.
Sad, but inevitable. She would have made a excellent president. But, circumstances ruled against her. Indeed, her greatness is best evidenced by her principled decision NOT to run in 2010. Doing so would have vastly hurt her party.
So, as some let praise her. As some people claimed that her husband was the first "African-American President," so let us remark that she was the first female president of the nation...
Only, like Tilden a century ago, she was too patriotic to take the White House, knowing it would harm the nation.
*
So, I read in the news that Donald Trump has said that Sarah Palin is a lightweight, that Obama isn't any better, and he's considering running for president in 2012.
Yes. You read that right. Donald ("You're Fired") Trump. For president. That is, of the United States. Running against Sarah ("Moose Killer") Palin.
For some strange reason I'm reminded of a poem. Something about Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
Can't imagine why that image is coming to mind.
Must be 'cause I'm just so dang literary.
"Exclusive: Donald Trump Says Presidential Run 'Could be Fun,' Decision by June" at blogs.abcnews.com/george/2010/11/trump-presidential-run-could-be-fun-decision-by-june.html.
*
Oh, here's another one that's fun.
I've read on the U.S. News and World Report site that Wall Streeters, Investment Bankers, CEOs and big corporate business types are running really scared …because of the election.
No kidding.
You see, here's the thing. The top 1% of the American population which owns pretty everything any more spent a whole heck of a lot of money (much of it secretly) to put "fiscal conservatives," Tea Partiers, Libertarians, Ayn Randers, and Laissez Fairies into office. They've done everything they can to cripple the Obama administration short of violence (and I'm not sure that they didn't consider going beyond even that. Remember all the Gun-totting crackpots that showed up in protest marches right after he was elected?)
So, now, they've got what they want…
Except, they're also starting to realize the price of that. They have basically sold themselves to people who, as God is their witness, want to reduce Washington to a broad spot in the road and "free the economy."
Ah, but as the 1%-ers know perfectly well, a completely unregulated economy, without any management what so ever, leads pretty inevitably to things like hyperinflation, Recessions, Depressions, market crashes, violence in the street and…well, all manner of stuff that can just spoil your whole day. Or several days. Maybe your life.
So, folks, you who looted the public coffers, who out-sourced and downsized and deindustrialized and put into joblessness…this is the government you wanted.
I wonder, will you survive it?
Give me your guess.
Source: 4 Fresh Fears About Washington Wrecking the Economy, finance.yahoo.com/news/4-Fresh-Fears-About-usnews-2195640786.html?x=0
*
What's the line in the Bible? Sow the wind?
But, then, 1%ers probably don't read the Bible. Has all those depressing bits. About eyes of needles. And people who just won't fit through 'em.
*
So I see that now President Obama is now being criticized by the Right for writing a children's book that doesn't say Sitting Bull was a terrorist.
For the Right to say such a thing is ridiculous, of course. But, come, let us confess. It was inevitable. The state of political discourse in this country has become so vicious that Obama could not praise motherhood and Apple pie without Fox News announcing that he had a Oedipal Fruit Fetish.
I say a lot of hard things about the 1%ers, and I mean them.
But, I'm not terribly fond of socialism either. I think it tends to come in two forms: Swedish and Soviet.
The first kind is run by bureaucrats, technocrats, social engineers, and other folks who are just so gawdamn smug your wanna strangle 'em. The second kind, at least in its early stages, is run by intellectuals, would-be intellectuals, wanna be intellectuals, and other beard and sandal-types of the sort that show up in college towns and pontificates a lot.
The worst part about the first sort of socialism is that it is damn dull. But you don't have to worry about dullness when you get the other sort. Its leaders tend to be people like Lenin, and Trotsky, and Mao—-people full of energy, with fascinating intellects and enormous charisma.
Though, they do have the unfortunate habit of thinking of other people as abstractions ("The People," "The Workers," "The Proletariat"). And then, once they're power, millions of such two-legged abstract concepts…die, in the gulag, or the camps, or in the Revolution.
So, here's my advice. If you find yourself in a society that seems to be moving toward the first sort of socialism, invest in Prozac.
If you find yourself in the second…keep shooting until you empty the clip. Then, use the rifle butt to club the body until it stops twitching.
Today I need to apologize. I need to humbly...oh, so humbly...beg for forgiveness. I mean, beg. Because, you see, I've said something really foolish and utterly wrong.
Here it is: as you know, I've been writing a lot about how America is now basically owned by and governed for about 2% of the population, the "mega-rich" who got Ronald Reagan & Co. to transfer vast amounts of the nation's wealth from us to them.
Well, I'm wrong.
I've looked at the numbers and discovered that it isn't 2%. It is more like 1%.
So, to the top 1%...the mega-bankers and mega-lawyers and mega-CEOs who have vacuumed every penny out of the public's pocket...the Wall Street Brokers who "broke" the economy and then used bail-out money to give themselves obscene bonuses...the Off-Shorers and Out-Sourcers who plunged us into a "post-industrial, service-based economy" of mass unemployment and national decline...
I'm sorry.
I'm terribly, terribly sorry I grossly underestimated just how rare and strange you are.
The news is that Lisa Murkowski has won the Alaska Senatorial race as a write-in candidate.
To which I say, Oh, Lord, Thank You, Jesus.
Conservative, Liberal, GOP, or Dem-donkey...you gotta admit that the idea of Joe ("Nuke A News-Reporter For Christ") Miller in the Senate was just about as chilling and slightly less fun than an ice water enema...
While we're at it, here's another fun little news item.
You know how the Fed is bending over backwards (and then some) to make cheap money available to big corporations so that they'll finally start spending and investing and hiring and maybe get Americans back to work?
Well, according to a recent article on Bloomberg, the aforesaid big corporations and are (wanna guess? Huh? Wanna?) investing it outside of the US. The cash is flowing in a major gauge pipe right overseas.
Right.
Is it just me? Or does that feel a little like somebody just shoved a knife between our shoulder blades?
But, of course, it is a well-made knife, with an excellent bone handle, and a blade of the finest Swedish steel.
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