One of the hardest things that I have had to learn about living in the United States is the relationship between the haves and the have-nots. My definition of being wealthy is having enough capital to either a) do nothing productive or b) do something productive on strictly your terms. Everybody else is a working stiff one way or the other. And if you think begging isn't work, maybe you should try, experimentally, before you have to take up that trade in earnest. One way the people in charge keep us consumers in our place is by directing our anger at the shiftless layabouts who do nothing all day, or better yet who live in jail with free meals and television. I always say it's easy enough to join their ranks if you really do think that's a desireable lifestyle. It's much harder to join the ranks of the banksters and political lobbyists and their exclusive lifestyles. And no it is going to get much, much harder to stay in place never mind climb economic ladders.
And yet us working stiffs in the US are never supposed to even feel envy for the lifestyles of the rich and famous. The proper attitude is respect that they made it, tinged with a little bit of guilt that we shiftless masses haven't taken sufficient advantage of our opportunities in this limitless land to join them. The fault lies not with them but in us. If we really wanted to, our leaders tell us, we too could become multimillionaires in business, politics and the arts. When people harangue me on this subject, because apparently my views are radical, I point out that Bill Gates would never have achieved his absolute wealth, had he been building Microsoft in say, Latvia. What has given him untold wealth is we, the US consumers. He produced a product, advertised it, and we, worried about our shiftless image, we the hundreds of millions of US consumers buy it and he makes a personal fortune larger than many nation's annual budgets. But without us consumers there would have been none of that. Don't believe me? Wait and see because now we consumers are no longer spending wildly for two reasons. We've either lost everything or are terrified of being the next pawn to drop off the bottom rung of the ladder of insecurity. Even Microsoft can't make money if we don't buy. And if we don't buy the shiftless leaders of our economy not only get to keep their fortunes, they get to add to them even as one quarter of children in the US live in foodstamps.
That is to me the reason why we have an unspoken social contract in modern civilization, very similar to the feudal relationship between serfs and their lords. We help them make money but they help us to live decent, if undemanding, lives. Most of us after all don't really want that much, a decent job, a home, a family a modest sense of purpose, and now, while our leaders savage our economy to death in front of our very eyes, they still expect us to be grateful. And weirdly enough we lower our eyes from the unsavory spectacle and meet their basest expectations. At least we aren't Haitians, who eat mud pies and are to blame for their own misery for "disrespecting" God, according to Evangelical Christians who speak out on the subject of the recent earthquake.
I wonder how long we will have to decline into being "used-to-haves" before we put the brakes on the wholesale looting of the US economy? How can we? I read that we are going to spend, in official numbers, 103 billion dollars killing Afghans in 2010. I cannot help but ask myself if the charitable thing would not be to pledge that amount to oil-free Haiti to rebuild. Of course not, we are engaged in a life or death struggle to own cheap oil and that is what we will do, no matter how many Americans die to achieve that goal in Iraq, in Yemen, in Oman, and God help us all, in Iran. Because without cheap oil we are doomed to a slow unravelling of the consumer economy, and we shall return to our former status as people, instead of consumers, and that won't do at all.
Turn up the volume on the TV.
19 comments:
Well stated, Conch. I too was appalled upon seeing Pat Robertson say that the Haitian EQ could be a "blessing in disguise" so that they can update their infrastructure - yeah, don't tell that to the loved ones of the 100,000 (possibly more) who died.
Good questions, Conch. The greed of the bankers is particularly heinous. A ground-swell outcry from we "consumers" should be taking place!
Dear Conch:
Part one:
I have a far more direct line to God than Pat Robertson. So the crap that man spouts goes right past me. Actor Danny Glover mentioned that the earthquake in Haiti was caused by global warming, so you can see no one individual has cornered the market on stupidity.
The last eight years of the US economy was based on people buying tons of stuff on credit. Several assumptions were made. These were:
a) The economy was strong and would continue to grow indefinitely.
b) That housing was really worth the utterly unbelievable stupid prices people were paying for things and that real estate values would only go up.
c) That jobs wre secure and salaries would continue to climb as well.
d) That banksters around the world would never bullshit themselves into investing into a stupid Ponzi scheme like credit default swaps — and take everybody else with them.
Now here's is what I think is going to happen.
It is the worst case scenario. Americans will start putting money in the bank and only pay cash for stuff. Their primary spending will go for paying the mortgage, paying health insurance, buying food, and paying for tuitions.
They will make the old car run two more years. They will live with the noisey refridgerator. They'll make the laptop last until it smokes. The washing machine only fucks up occasionally, so they'll live with that too. They'll open the garage door by hand, rather than getting the electric unit fixed. They'll stop going out to eat and pizza will become the romantic dinner of choice. The ski gear they bought five years ago is still good, because they are not going on vacation until they die.
And none of this has anything to do with oil. We are killing Afghans as an extension of the last crusade, in a holy war that no one wants to talk about. The price of oil can only go up. And when Americans were paying $3.89 a gallon, they reduced their driving to the tune of 10 percent. (And the sheiks got a real eye-opener.)
Now there is no easy way out of this. Companies are not in a mad rush to hire people back. And the labor experts are saying that if people are hired back, it will not be at the salaries they are accustomed to making.
Part Two:
Computerization has gone a long way to fucking up a lot things forever. Writers like myself can stick our thumbs up our own asses, because the fucking internet gives everyone every-fucking-thing for free. That sets the price. A friend of mine is a professional photographer. He has lost 80 percent of his business as companies are making due with pictures taken by secretaries with automatic cameras.
Most people rely on the internet for their information, and newspapers are dying because they cannot match online speed or convenience. Yet what newspapers like the New York Times used to do was provide indepth reporting that covered all the bases. The internet will rehash the same shit (called news) over and over again, changing one or two lines, calling the piece a new story. And most Americans are too stupid, as they are barely literate, to know the difference.
Less than two Americans out of 25 million can tell you about "Secure Flight," even though the system will make getting on a plane the equivalent of standing in a police line-up. But every other dope on the street can recite each development that occurred on American Idol (over the last three years) as if it meant something to anyone.
Now if I sold a screenplay to a major studio tomorrow, and got a million bucks for it, the amount of money I'd want the government to take out of it (other than taxes) to help the chronically stupid and those who have learned to sit on their asses as a reflex action, is zero.
I would do my part with one of several charities, but I'd be dipped in shit if I was forced into it.
Part Three:
I met a nice lady from California. She has two kids. Her husband busts his ass as a laborer in construction. She does not work. Her son, now 18, was diagnosed as having ADD years ago. She explained to me how it is the responsibility of the State of California to educate her son, in the special classes he needs. And when the school in the district in which they live could not offer those classes to her satisfaction, they had to provide transportation to another school district... And she spent countless minutes each week screaming about this, until the problem was resolved.
I had just a few questions for her. I wanted to know how many hours she spent with her son doing homework at night. The answer to this question was a prolonged stutter. I asked her about tutoring and other options that I expected she would have explored. This drew a belligerent stare. Then I asked her what arrangements she had looked into for a private school.
You would have thought I asked her for blow job.
Then I asked her why she had kids if she intended to raise them as wards of the state.
I thought of my own mother. The Catholic nuns told her I was retarded when I was in the first grade. (I used to talk to myself - and respond.) I didn't have imaginery friends, but I lived in alternate universe. When my teachers tried to punish me, I would just kill time by disappearing someplace in my own mind. (This technique kept me alive during my second marriage.)
The nuns told her I couldn't communicate, and that I had no fear of them. My mom went out bought a dozen books on phonics, which we did for one hour a night, until I survived the first through third grades. My mother made me pursue every extra credit option in science, and in the boy scouts, with the understanding that if I didn't, she would beat me to death.
When it turned out that I was readng on a high school level in the sixth grade, the good sisters said this was a further example of my retardation.
My mother worked a full 40-week as a stenographer then, and raised two other kids. We all went to parochial elementary schools and high schools. So when I compare my mom to someone else, like this woman, who doesn't work, and who believes her responsibility to her kids stops with demanding the state step in to do what is simply too troublesome for her to do, I get royally pissed.
By the way, the lady I am speaking of was here on VACATION. Vacation from what? I don't want her, nor people like her, to get five cents from my paycheck.
Fondest regards,
Jack
Very well put. Every point was a good one.
Part Four:
Want to end the war in Afghanistan and Iraq?
Raise taxes to pay for it. Require every working American to buy a $200 treasury bond (war bond) once a month.
The troops will be home by next Tuesday.
If the fat-assed woman I described part three of this response was told that she would have to get a job to pay for her share of the "crusade," I guarantee she'll be wearing a burka with an opening in it just big enough so she can watch American Idol. And the troops will be home by next Tuesday.
If I was President, and there is no chance of that happening anytime soon, I would tell citizens of the US that they had to subscribe to at least two daily newspapers a week, and read them (to the point where they could answer twenty random questions posed by anti-stupidity police) if they wanted to get out of the $200 per month war bond purchase.
The first four questions would always be the same:
Who are your elected officials (both state and federal)? What are their phone numbers? How many times did you call them this month; and what was the specific issue you wanted addressed?
Fat people would be targeted first. They have the biggest asses to paint blue. It would also serve as an incentive for them to lose weight. The next targeted group would be very good-looking, wealthy blonds, like Paris Hilton. Not that everyone in the country hasn't already seen her ass on the free internet... But an entire new generation of teenager would learn that having a blue ass meant you were really stupid.
Stupid people with blue asses would not be allowed to own cell phones, to text, or to watch American Idol, until they smartened up. Reaching that point, their text messages would suddenly be about cures for cancer, fusion power, the latest figures on the number of spotted owls, additional ways they could cut their gas consumption, and finding out who wanted to get laid.
This would be the ultimate evolution of social networking, combining social responsibility with the primal drive.
Banksters, who drew a six-figure salary, let alone took a seven-figure bonus, during the great financial debacle of 2008 and 2009, would have their asses permanently dyed blue, and would be put in stocks (the kind that restrain one's neck and arms) so that passers-by could either add a dab of blue paint to their exposed buttocks or even have a go at anal sex. (I think these banksters should have a chance to enjoy a little of what they inflicted on the country and the world.) Setting this up on Wall Street would be the ultimate "stock exchange."
This is what happens when I start to write political essays. My opinions often cost my own blog readers. Tough shit. However, there has been too much coddling of the facts lately. And in another five years, there will be no newspapers to hold the feet of two-faced, tentacled politicians to the public fire.
The host of this blog, Conch (not his real name), has finally imspired me to start a new blog dealing with politics, life, love, politics, kids, newspapers, politics, social change, sex, politics, and practical day-to-day tips for living, like how to buy a politician.
Fondest regards,
Jack
Riepe,
Let us know when & how to find your new blog. I will certainly follow it...
So what is the social contract? Everyone for themselves and devil take the hindmost?
my idea of a social contract is, to my surprise, a return to protectionism-jobs for Americans first, trade barriers, and the active pursuit of energy independence. All things the experts assure us would be terrible economically and unfeasible even if we tried. I'm not convinced.
However you will still be left with the issue of taking care of the stupid. Take yourself: you got treated like shit by the Nuns yet still call yourself a Catholic. Call that smart? I was educated by Benedictine monks and exited the club as soon as I could think for myself.
I mean it's all very well to rant about stupid people but our definitions are all our own. Ride a water cooled BMW=stupid! Ride a Ural? even stupider! Ride a Triumph? Supremely smart.
I want to be out of the country when the stupid labels are being handed around.
I've been following your blog for some time now, having found it because I love Key West... not the touristy party hardy Key West but the Key West you find in the archive room of the library and the Cuban sandwich place on White street and Truman. . . and the Key West I see in your pictures. The pictures you take of out of the way allies and "streets" are terrific and I occasionally see places I saw while I was biking up one street or another. I also appreciate your politicking-- it's refreshing to hear a real progressive voice that takes an interest in politics but also enjoys the life laid out before him.
Your post on this particular day caused me to post because I thought you might enjoy a book recommendation. Barbara Ehrenreich's new book "Bright-sided" is brilliantly done and shines a light on the most stupid aspects of American culture-- particularly the business culture!So, for what it's worth, a book recommendation for you as a little token of my appreciation for your blog.
Happy blogging and...
Drinks! Drinks for all my friends!
Danette
The mother screamed until the school provided the education the state constitution said her child had a right to? Two cheers for her!
Dear Conch:
Two wives and every girlfriend I ever had, including the current one, all came to the same conclusion about me being retarded. The smartest people I ever met were in Catholic schools. Then I went to college. It was the only educational program that had a remedial reading program for students attending on government grants.
If you can't read, how are you going to read Shakespeare?
Darwin had a plan for the stupid. Unfortunately, it's almost everyone who watches Ameeican Idol.
Finally, anonymity best serves those who think the state is totally responsible for the education of children. Nothing matches the example a child gets at home. But don't let me pull you away from the television.
Fondest regards,
Jack
Danette: I always worry about the political posts because in asmall town things get around. But every now and then the pot boils over. I like ehrenreich of course (part time key west resident the literati are fond of pointing out) and I shall hunt it down along with shadow country at voltaire books.
riepe: I can't wait for you to show up in person. My porch, at sunset with two shot glases and a bottle of 18 year old flor de cana. last man awake wins.
Dear Conch:
The K75 has a distinctive sound. If the wind is rattling the palm fronds, you won't hear it. I'll pour the rum with a heavy hand and a generous heart. You'll supply a pitcher of limeade, made with local Key West limes. If the wind is right (blowing away from the open windows in the house), we can light up a couple of classic maduros. Maybe we can get some copies of Panama hats in the neighborhood too.
We'll kill the bottle.
Bobskoot will be wringing his hands in disapproval. When we've toasted your dog, your crocs, the sunset, your bike, the iguanas, my dogs, Bob Skoot's parakeet, and the vast superiority of the water-cooled BMW, I will collapse on your porch. You can cover me with a tarp. I will limp back to my hotel the next day, to recover in private anguish.
It is also my intention to reserve a private car on the Conch train, to savor a planter's punch while getting a lap dance as we tour the town. Do you know a reliable bail bondsman?
Fondest regards,
Jack
Mr. Riepe has adopted the vitriol of a radio talk show host. It's a product of a culture where the well educated and well off blame their unhappiness on the less educated and less fortunate. No doubt, we all await another witty and mean spirited comment.
Dear Conch and Friend Anonymous:
That was a well-phrased and nicely balanced cutting remark. It shows skill, and above all, practice.
I never said I was unhappy. In truth, I am so happy I could just shit.
What I did say was that a series of unregulated banking and investment processes, coupled with unscrupulous mortgage sales, both of which were based on an unrealistic assessment of the US economy, has pitched the country into a worse case scenario, which is likely to endure for a decade, as a total lack of consumer confidence will preclude a return to a massive debt-based economy.
Nothing mean in that.
I also stated that the fastest way to end the war was to openly raise taxes to pay for it. I'd make a wager with you on the outcome of that one.
Nothing mean there.
There is also nothing mean in my contention that the basis of any education, special or otherwise, begins at home. The state, and certainly Congress, is no substitute for a mom, or a dad, and two hours with a book at night, instead of aimless television.
I did say the woman who took the position I initially quoted was fat-assed. She is. I also savagely attacked "fatties," who have a reputation for being slow-moving, dim-witted, and sweaty. I am an authority on this subject.
Finally, I would point out that in many instances, my vitriol matches that of this blog's host — Mr. Conch. Allow me to quote from one of his responses: "However you will still be left with the issue of taking care of the stupid."
See?
In the future, I would prefer to have my sincerity compared to that of a game show host, as opposed to the vitriol of a radio talk show host. It should be noted that I do not listen to radio talk shows.
I respectfully suggest that had my viewpoint been more sympathetic to others, I'd have been hailed as one of the foremost thinkers of our time.
It has been a pleasure, whoever you are.
Fondest regards,
Jack
Jack riepe is pretty funny and very pointed. Step out of the kitchen I always say if you can't stand the heat ( you may copyright that remark if you like- I only just thought of it). Stick with the essays with the pictures and avoid the comments. Turn the TV up.
Responding to a Riepe comment would be the equivalent of running into the kitchen, turning on the broiler and closing all windows. Riepe impugns you when he suggests you're as mean spirited as he. 18 months ago he would have been closer to the truth, but you've mellowed considerably and Riepe keeps raging. All these comments are made in the spirit of one low on Herradura and fresh out of limes.
Dear Anonymous;
Send address. I have limes.
Fondest regards,
Jack • reep • Toad
Twisted Roads
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