The blog of a North Country Swede!

Monday, June 29, 2009

Doesn't anyone get it? It's really the same old story.

Michael Jackson replaces Iran for the attention of we the people? And we wonder why the new elite — the financial services sector gurus — can steal the wealth labor creates right out from under our attention span ... instruments of debt, exchanging our future earnings for immediate consumption of more than we need ... so we can deaden the pain of our dead-end lives as consumers rather than explore the cosmos as doers, creators of the future ... rewarding ourselves fairly.

And when the debt became too big to sustain, it came crashing down around us ... and we gave away any hope of real recovery ... which would have required us to become the doers, the creators of the future ... we gave that away in exchange for rescuing the financial services sector gurus, allowing them to go back to being the current elite, sucking up the wealth our labor creates.

Doesn't anyone get it? It's really the same old story. It just has a different caste of characters. Instead of the citizens of Athens with their slaves, instead of the feudal lord with his estate with vassals and fiefs, instead of the plantation owner and his slaves ... we now have financial services sector gurus and we the people.

The basic political question is "How is the wealth created by human labor to be distributed?"

It is fundamental because all wealth is created by human labor. Even commodities from the ground have to be harvested, mined, pumped, or otherwise processed for consumption. And human labor is all human effort, both mental and physical.

The basic political division is between allowing the greed of the elite to suck up whatever wealth it can regardless of their actual contribution in effort on one hand, and a distribution based on the principles of "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" with rights encoded into law governing everyone equally on the other.

Let's be perfectly clear, greed is never satisfied. If greed is left unchecked, the elite will continue to gorge themselves until they have destroyed their society and themselves in it.

Today that society is our own. And the greedy elite are going to get off virtually unchecked ... and this will virtually ruin any chance we have of real economic recovery — with jobs that produce goods and services that have value — as we sink to a new low level of economic recession or depression.

Thursday, June 04, 2009

Let's face it, Cheney is so bad it's comical ...

It would be comical if it weren't so bad for the rest of us.

Cheney's lies and deceptions are now so obvious only the most blinded ideologue could still believe he is credible.

And think of the damage those lies and that deception have done to our nation. They certainly have diverted us from the path of our greatness guided by the simple principles that all are equal under the law and that we should always be struggling to become what we believe we ought to be — believing we can be better than what we are.

Let's be clear about our history, starting with the Magna Carta, we reined in the elite — the nobles, the barons, and the king — and gave protections to the people. This is the great watershed of Western Civilization, when the idea that the masses were the servants of their rulers, that the wealth the people created accrued to the accounts of the elite — the lord of their castle or domain — was rejected.

And this is the great political divide even today. To whom do we give our allegiance and allow to take our treasure? To ourselves as a great nation, with everyone treated fairly? Or to the elites who govern us in some manner — ordained by a Higher Power to lead, and thereby set apart from the rest of us and treated differently?

The politician decides: "Should I be in service to the people, or to the elites?" The predominate posture during my lifetime has been lip service to the people and real service to the elites.

Yes, President Obama has all the markings of an "elitist". He's just moving more people under that tent, but preserving the special treatment for those who make it there. So Cheney will walk free, spouting his lies, stoking the egomania in his deceptions, at least a little longer.