IT TAKES A SELFIE GENERATION TO KILL A PLANET. A SIMPLE PREMISE: THE POOR ARE POOR BECAUSE WE CHEAT THEM “The people live in squalid dens, where there can be no health or hope, but dogged discontent at their own lot, and futile discontent at the wealth which they see possessed by others.” */ ** Thorold Rogers 1. And how is it that we cheat the poor? One of the ugliest phrases in the English language is The working poor. Although it is true some work is more important than other work, it is never true that some people are more important than other people. The person who does cancer research is of no more importance than the person who washes dishes (albeit, the work is) , and, therefore, has no inherent right to live a more decent life than the person washing dishes. We have become conditioned to determining people’s worth mostly though the work they do, then socially and economically pigeonholing them accordingly, thereby, grouping and isolating people into differening segements of the population effectively creating a class-based society. This socio-economic hierarchy forces millions of working people and their families into the depair of poverty. In other words, we cheat them. Our social, economic and political institutions are designed to cheat them and to maintain a deadly hierachy protecting those at the top. We cannot expect any meaningful solution to the terrble inequalities that exist in this hierarchy through our social, economic and political institutions. We must look elsewhere for meainingful change. And that elsewhere is to the individual. The total yearly income in this country is around $13.5 trillion and the total number of employed people is around 195 million. If we divide this income by the number of employed people, we find that each employed person, if all were equitable, would receive a yearly salary of approximately $70,000, not determined by the work they do, but by the simple fact they work. Clearly, a nice balance. It would seem that, even in the current economic environment where the average 1%er yearly income is $1.9 million* while millions work (or should I more appropriately say, slave) for poverty-level wages, there exists an inherent natural balance. As long as we accept our institutions as they are, this balance will remain locked away. How then can we open up our society to this balance? By collapsing the hierarchy. We must first redefine what constitutes a decent life, incorporating into that definition the fundamental idea that no life can be truly decent as long as another life suffers poverty. To “flatten out” the hierarchy, each individual with the economic resources to do so must redirect a part of these resources directly into the hands of the poor. The individual must take responsibity for him/herself as a member of a social group. Being the genetically wired social primates that we are, this is as it should be, the individual working for the good of the whole. This is the only way the individual can experience the well-being of living decently, and the only way the strangle hold that the one percent at the top has on the rest of us can be lossened. Only with this ground-roots sharing can an equitable society be brought about. The institutions, as they now are, are not designed for this work On the contrary, they are designed to destroy such efforts. They must should boycotted. A revolutionary change in society can only come about through a revolutionary change in the individual. * Wherever there is an ascendant class, a large proportion of the morality emanates from its class interests and its class feelings of superiority. John Stuart Mills from: On Liberty ** African American Poverty: https: //youtube/watch? v=s_riTnTZX2A *** in the last five years the income of the one 1%ers has grown 31% while for the rest of us only by.4% which is far below the inflation rate so that, annualized, we are losing economic ground while the 1%ers continue to soar to new heights.. 2. crime against humanity In this country we have laws making slavery a crime, laws embraced by most Americans and yet everyday the middle class American consumer buys products made by children enslaved in sweatshop factories worldwide, wasting away their young lives. Sweatshop factories are death camps. The middle class American consumer, when buying a product made in a sweatshop factory, is most likely condemning a child to an early grave. A crime against humanity. Ours remains a slaved-based economy, only out-sourced. It is time that the middle class consumer is held accountable for their crimes against humanity, crimes they commit, daily, against the 240 million children world-wide trapped in these monstrous factories. Middle class affluence is carried on the backs of these children. Again, is this not a crime against humanity? This system of slavery, this crime against humanity that most of us committ on a daily basis, can only be dismantled by a change in the individual by boycotting his or her own greed for product made by these children. There are three major consequences of middle class buying of products made in sweatshop factories. Firstly, by doing so, the middle class consumer encourages corporate America to continue and to expand its use of sweatshop factories there by keeping approximately 3 billion people working in slave conditions,240 million of them being children the children mentioned above. Secondly, a continuation and increase in global warming from the pollution generated by making products and unregulated sweatshop factories. Thirdly, the continuation of the flow of money, through the grotesque profits coming out of these factories, into the hands of the one percenters” away from earth-sustaining projects and direct economic help for the poor. The middle class American consumer must ask him/herself two questions: Is my money doing more harm than my work does good? And, when looking in the mirror wearing that new set of clothes or those new cool shades made in one of these sweatshop factories, Am I really looking that good? ______________________________________________________ interview with11 year old child laborer: https: //youtube/watch? v=pTIfY9SmJdA _________________________________________ website of the Institute for Labour and Human rights: https: //youtube/user/nlcnet ______________________________________________ Zone for Slavery: https: //youtube/watch? v=1XtYhfcEZ9A&index=13&list=PL23659FF6B7319AD5 part 2: https: //youtube/watch? v=2QOwNHeAqBE&list=PL23659FF6B7319AD5&index=14 part 3: https: //youtube/watch? v=klSngDpTlM4&index=15&list=PL23659FF6B7319AD5 ___________________________________________ Sweatshop factory documentary: (very powerful statement) https: //youtube/watch? v=noL8nFSzsDc&list=PL23659FF6B7319AD5 3. false advertising Give me your tired, your poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door! 4. by our very nature Being genetically wired to be social primates, it is in our nature to work for the good of the group and for the well-being of each member of the group. We are compelled then, by our genetic code, to be socialists. Enlightened self-interest is a myth most have been conditioned to believe in and live by designed to maintain the upper one percent and steer us away from our natural impulse to work for the good of the group. To be a socialist, then, is a return to your roots. 5. the fundamental difference Socialism is designed to support the individual as an equal member of society. Whereas, capitalisim is designed to use the individual as an unequal memember of society. For example, in 2012 the total income in this country was approximately $13.5 trillion and the total number of people employed,195 million. If the total income were shared equally, each working member of society would have received approximately $70,000 per year- - clealy, a nice balance. Yet, as of 2013, the average yearly income for the one percenters was $1.9 million* * see statement by Phil DeLuth at: http: //forbes/sites/phildemuth/2013/11/25/are-you-rich-enough-the-terrible-tragedy-of-income-inequality-among-the-1/ 6. simple economics for every one dollar we spend on products made in off shore sweatshop factories, the worker, often a young teen age girl, receives less than one penny, and we pride ourselves on having abolished slavery. We have simply out-sourced it. This is not a political or economic issue. Its about individual ethics and responsibility. We cannot blame the one percenters since it is our willingness to buy their products made in these sweatshop factories that keeps them in power. They are simply a terrible consequence of our own greed for things. Corporate greed feeds off middle class greed. The ending to this terrible world-wide system of slavery is quite simple and yet is seemly so hard to accomplish. 7. why a socialist must play the market Because in the stock market there is money for the taking which would eventually end up in the hands of the greedy middle class consumer or, more likely, be applied toward the continuation of the one percenters strangle hold over society, moneys which a socialist could otherwise control and redirect into the hands of the poor or into earth-sustaining projects. If the money in the stock market is not redirected in such a way, no movement, no political policy, no visionary economic plan can produce any equitable change. ************** 8. some who said it better You have no soul to be influenced. You are spineless, flacid things. You pompously call yourselves Republicans and Democrats. There is no Republican Party. There is no Democratic Party. There are no Republicans or Democrats.......You are lick-spittlers and panderers, the creatures of the Plutocracy. You talk verbosely in antiquated terminology of your love of liberty, and all the while you wear the scarlet livery of the Iron Heel...........Listen to the bellowing of the well-fed beasts. Jack London from: The Iron Heel The Plutocracy [currently referred to as the one percenters] has all power in its hands today. It today makes the laws, for it owns the Senate, Congress, the courts, and the state legislatures. And not only that. Behind the law must be force to execute the law. Today the Plutocracy makes the laws, and to enforce the law it has at its beck and call the police, the army, the navy, and lastly, the militia [ now referred to as the national guard] which is you and me, and all of us.* Jack London from: the Iron Heel* * Suggests our will participation in a system of self-regulation in which we are willing to punish ourselves when we run a fowl of the laws designed to protect those in power, , ., conditioning can be a very power and destructive tool. A power has risen up in the government greater than the people themselves, consisting of many and various and powerful interests, combined into one mass, and held together by the cohesive power of the vast surplus in the banks. John C. Calhoun I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country......Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, the money-power of the country will endeaver to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the republic is destroyed. Abraham Lincoln Wherever there is an ascendant class, a large proportion of the morality emanates from its class interests and its class feelings of superiority. John Stuart Mills from: On Liberty The Plutocracy [currently referred to as the one percenters] has all power in its hands today. It today makes the laws, for it owns the Senate, Congress, the courts, and the state legislatures. And not only that. Behind the law must be force to execute the law. Today the Plutocracy makes the laws, and to enforce the law it has at its beck and call the police, the army, the navy, and lastly, th... See More the militia [ now referred to as the national guard] which is you and me, and all of us.”* Jack London from: the Iron Heel”* * Suggests our will participation in a system of self-regulation in which we are willing to punish ourselves when we run a fowl of the laws designed to protect those in power,,.,conditioning can be a very power and destructive tool. A power has risen up in the government greater than the people themselves, consisting of many and various and powerful interests, combined into one mass, and held together by the cohesive power of the vast surplus in the banks. John C. Calhoun I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country......Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, the money-power of the country will endeaver to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the republic is destroyed. Abraham Lincoln
Posted on: Wed, 03 Sep 2014 15:52:16 +0000
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