The blog of a North Country Swede!

Monday, August 31, 2009

What is outragious, Mr. Cheney, is ...

What is outrageous, Mr. Cheney, is your thinking you were above the law on something as morally obscene as torture.

It seems you have the false bravado of despicable cowards. That is my impression after listening to Senator John McCain, a true hero, and then you ... IMHO

Friday, August 28, 2009

On anonymous liberty

I am so very glad that for at least my lifetime, freedom for the ordinary person such as myself has been prevalent enough to let me have the satisfaction and joy of anonymous liberty.
One of the first things that should be said about liberty is the worn cliché that the freedom to swing my arms ends at another person's nose.

And — from what I have observed in my 70+ years — too many "freedom" advocates fail to compensate or even note the impact their actions have on others. Most often we simply seek avoidance of these costs through the accepted anonymity of so much of our public freedom. No one pays attention to most of what we do, as long as it is within the limits of acceptable behavior. A mild "tsk, tsk" is it, if anything, as a negative response within these boundaries.

But when the molehill of the detritus of our individual lives becomes a collective mountain of putrid garbage, fouling the ground on which we nest ...

When the lack of there being a law against it becomes the right to ruin rivers ... and even the oceans become threatened ...

Or, for that matter, mothers and children go without adequate medical care ... or education ... in a wealthy nation?

When do we begin to examine the real cost of what is hidden behind the cloak of "anonymous liberty"?

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

We should have figured it out a long time ago ...

We should have figured it out a long time ago to have a plan for the disposal of anything and everything we create. It's too late now. We are way past the tipping point in stuff like plastics. The biosphere is compromised with no end in sight. In fact we haven't even started to turn around. We are still going deeper into the swamp.

With all these so-called geniuses running things, you would think at least one of them would have been awake enough to ask, "What the hell are we going to do with it after we've made it and we can't use it anymore?" It's pretty damn obvious with nuclear waste ... somebody should have connected the dots on the other toxic stuff.

And that is not the only simple concept that seems to escape these great minds. But why bother? It's all about greed and the power it brings. And if you believe there is an Invisible Hand, a God in charge ... then it's not our responsibility, is it?

What absurd fools these geniuses are. I am so very glad that for at least my lifetime, freedom for the ordinary person such as myself has been prevalent enough to let me have the satisfaction and joy of anonymous liberty.

Friday, August 21, 2009

Learning to use market forces to distribute a fair share to workers - Part I

"Market forces"?

"Distribute a fair share to workers"?

How do we start talking about the issues that affect us, the workers of the world?

And even that brings to mind the negative "issue associations" with a label like "workers of the world".

We have to both clear the decks of false assumptions AND prepare the ground for discussion of the issues of the day.

Let's start with some basics. Just because a discredited historical figure (discredited in our humble opinion, either yours or mine) supported a concept does not make the concept wrong. Like the saying goes, even a broken mechanical clock is right twice a day. So when we attribute the concept "religion is the opiate of the masses" to Karl Marx, we should still examine the concept if for no other reason then current religious beliefs have been used to justify such obvious evils as slavery and the taking of aboriginal peoples' lands. We should at least question the relationship of religion to the fair distribution of the wealth our — the workers — efforts — mental and physical — create. If we can't get past the idea that an all-powerful God has established the lines of authority for this life here on earth and our true reward will be given by "Him" in the "after-this-life" place called "Heaven" ... well ... what can I say? You are already pissed off at me.

In any case, what we are witnessing today is the defining of wages as a cost of doing business in which separating the individual worker from any form of collective bargaining based on the real contribution of his or her labor allows the cost of labor to be reduced below the cost of keeping a slave alive. A living wage is no longer required. Is that an argument for the return of slavery? No, it is an argument against the immoral absurdity of the current trend in wages.

To be continued ...