Tags
Class Structure, Corporatism, Corporatocracy, Elitism, Gross Inequality, Neoliberal Capitalism, Nick Hanauer, Poor America, Poverty
Continuing on the subject of inequality, or more aptly ‘gross’ inequality, I’d like to post the following documentary which came out a couple of months ago. My reaction to it is the same as it was then… shocking.
It is class warfare, and the 1% are kicking our ass. There’s no other responsible way to frame the debate so as to assuage the delicate sensibilities of those doing the exploiting while they look askance at the devastation from their perch of privileged class status and power. They may say they are just playing by the rules of the game, but they set the rules by controlling legislation and the levers of power under which the rest of us voiceless plebs must live.
For a look into the social destruction this economy of, for, and by the 1% has wrought on the rest of humanity, watch the video:
In reference to my previous post, If Nick Hanauer has the resources to pull strings and get his message out, more power to him. His message is made even more persuasive when it’s coming from someone of the 1%. Additionally, he mentions the moral component of his argument which also adds strength of character to his words. You never hear someone of his class talking about the ethics and morality of our rapacious system.
Paul in the UK, whose side are you on? TED is a Big Boy and he can take care of himself.
If they[TED] don’t want to be seen as a vector for their blue chip CEO delegates to muscle in on new ideas in the hope of preserving their corporate interest and would prefer to be perceived as a force for change rather than a cult, then they need to take themselves in hand.
In all honesty, I don’t see it happening of course. TED events are coming to resemble Old Time Religion revivals more than anything else.
Update:
As you can see from this interactive map at Slate, the number of Americans falling into poverty across the country is increasing, but it’s even worse than what’s depicted(see below):
hat tip: poverty trends
“Slate‘s new map of the week plots the U.S. poverty rate by county with data from 2007 to 2010. At first, it reveals a straightforward story: The Great Recession made poverty worse. Everywhere.
As bad as the picture looks, though, it’s actually a rosy rendition.
Here’s the problem: The way poverty is measured is outdated and based on faulty assumptions…. read more“
Collapse of Industrial Civilization 
Mike,
firstly, the point of writing my reply in your previous article will have no weight to its argument if it can only be seen by you and I. It requires your ‘moderation’ for it to be read by others.
Part of my argument is that no possible headway on any solution in this capitalist system can be resolved without money to repair it as a splice to a future without growth.
Presently, it requires people to gain a wage in bringing forward their ideas as a solution. No one can advertise a point of challenge on any subject without a platform to air it.
In modern society, it takes taxation to create services for fire, police, a postal service or a recogniseable health care system that doesn’t bankrupt paticipants. The nature of complex systems require the input of a majority to add as insurance for the few as well as the many. There as in matters of roads, bridges – the very infrastructure that make life possible – requires complexity in allowing modern life the opportunity to thrive within certain intelligent limits.
Therefore, if taxation were also seen as a fee, and that fee was $6,000 a year in access to an opportunity to witness the tools in the making of modern advancement, then the price is cheap if it offers the platform to make such things happen.
Take Chris Martenson and the web site where we met. The central reason why you’ve takn your blog within a blog out of his forum is because he wouldn’t allow you to write about the central issues that make his argument fail, and that is WAR.
Without allowing a space to discuss where half of yearly American tax payers money is being spent on the military and invasion of other nations for resources, it is a pitiable excuse for his site to warrant the arguments that it has with only half of the picture in sumizing an answer.
In Martensons case, a $360 yearly fee (taxation) is administered to those who wish to gain access to a deeper version of his Crash Course and discussion.
The fact that you stayed to write at the forum long after it was well established the premise of the forum was flawed and moderated toward a bias against you, proves a certain level of hypocracy in attacking Ted Talks, when in effect the platform itself was the place you honed your craft.
The beginning of most every grass roots organisation – such as Chrismartenson.com and Ted Talks – began with a none political stance that was built upon the will of a good idea. When such organisations grow to a certain size – requiring a mainstream standing to adapt and to prosper – here is where the ‘politicization’ of that organization become its societal make or break.
it isn’t the general position that every organisation first sees itself as a politcal stand to an ideal, but that society judges such organisation’ politically, with THIS being the limits of any organisations acceptance in mainstream media.
Mainstream media make the choice to kill or make thrive via either their ommission or support of any organisation, dependent on what corporate backers they have that invest in them.
That TED Talks appears to have suddenly crashed in the public view of late is no more an accident than that the important message that Martenson wants to air mainstream has only gained 5 million views to his on-line seminar in four years, while FOX News can do that figure nightly. The fact that Nick Hanaeur – a multi-millionaire I may add – was given a free ride on TED Talks shirt tails, supported by a dirty tricks public relations firm in promotion of the publishing of his book in November 2011, seems moot.
In this case, it is the best of a collection of worst.
Personally, the only reason I had for dropping by every day at Chris Martenson this year was to read your articles. Now you’re here …
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