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8/18/2001

Original text and editing by:
A G Kaiser
email to
agkaiser1@gmail,com
"A good slave works for food alone."

Q of the week:
Q: Does a photo-op showing the president sawing a dry limb from a tree in a Colorado forest, accompanied by a few words about "proper management of natural resources" indicate an environmentally sensitive administration?
A: No! Symbolic gestures and truly ironic words [dissemblings] never outweigh the real consequences of policy designed to fill the pockets of the elite masters with money conjured by the senseless destruction the planetary storehouse that provides the raw materials employed to create and support us all.

Issue: twenty-seven:

Delusions:
   Conservatives want to lower taxes and get the government off your back. They promise to protect your right to keep firearms. Why do they consistently back legislation that gives your tax money to their rich masters and undermines the bill of rights? Why do they support police and judges who confiscate guns from poor people and ignore the criminal activities of the wealthy elite?
   The answers to those questions are obvious. No one would vote for them if they were honest about who they are, what are their intentions and what their policies really cause to happen. You can't judge anyone by their words. You must see what they do and how it really affects you. Let no one tell you what they're about. They'll only lie to cover their crimes. After a while you'll be able to accurately predict how a person's or a group's action will cause or relieve your suffering. "You must separate the wheat from the chaff."

Economy:
   I've been trying for several days to catch a stock market report that gives the actual levels rather than merely a few deltas. This morning I finally glimpsed the Dow for a couple of hundred milliseconds. There was no accompaniing commentary. The low ten thousand figure is a shocking 33% off from the 13000 high of a few months ago. The Nasdaq was more than 50% higher, at over 3000, than the 1900 reported early today. [8/15/2001]
   What was the percent drop of the overall market that is known as the crash of 1929? Remember? That was the one that launched the great depression. Does it make a difference that it occurred in a day or two rather than over a few months? The newsperson's comment was that consumers were starting to make purchases that would revitalize the economy. Are they trying to get something started by telling us it's already begun? Will their wishful thinking get real money down to the people who need it to make this thing happen?
   Those whose economy is abstract have all the money. They will not raise wages and salaries because that decreases profits. They will not desist from seeking even lower cost labor by moving production out of the country. How do they expect us to consume their products if we have little or no income? Will they issue more credit cards and further exacerbate the problem by eroding even more of our buying power with the usarous interest we must pay?
   What is abstract economy? It's making money from money and not actually producing any real material thing; Moses called it usary and Jesus concurred. HE was arrested and executed a few weeks after cleansing the Temple of usarers. Does the failure of abstract economy, real or imagined, affect our ability to produce the means of survival from the resources supplied by the Earth, the immediate source of all life? Has our economy, which in contemporary usage is the vehicle by which we distribute the goods we work to make, ever not been dysfunctional for the vast majority of us? Why don't the elite do any real labor?
   What is real labor? It's anything that contributes in a meaningful way to the production of material things. It certainly includes farmers who till their own soil, construction workers, miners, mechanics, factory workers, garbage collectors and those who provide other useful services. It also includes researchers, scholars, planners and entertainers. (Amusement relieves stress and increases our efficiency.) Add a few non-redundant low level managers but only because we are a large population. It does not include those who own only stocks, securities and real estate and who do not participate in production of real goods and services other than by capitalization. That last is an unecessary and usarous function that only exists because of the immoral hoarding and/or stealing of the tokens of exchange we use to distribute the things that we make.
   To sum up: if compensation for work was paid according to the real contribution to survival of the species that an individual makes, rather than to reward greed, unscrupulousness, laziness and childish selfishness, there would be no rich millstones to drag us down. The last would be first and the first would be last. If we want the prophecy to be fulfilled, we must do it ourselves.

Editorial Column:
   What is a critical difference of scale? If I live in a society in which I must do evil to survive, am I as culpable whether I do the minimum of harm that I must to sustain my life or the most of which I am capable in order to satisfy greed? Is a homeless person who cons you out of a meal or a pair of shoes as guilty of sin as an insurance man or creditor who steals 10% or more of your annual salary by their systematic usary? What is more fraudulent, lying to get food to eat or living parasitically on abstract economy? Keep in mind; the same parasites who have undermined the viability of the human species have sent the jobs out of the country to increase their unworked for profits. Only one in twenty really benefits from our way of life as it is today. That means our culture and economy is dysfunctional for 95% of us.
   If we are to begin to remove evil from our society, we must start with the greatest ills. That is only practical, common sense. When no one is rich we can begin to work on less irritating parasites like politicians. The insurance men, oil men, bankers and brokers will have gone with the first wave.
   It will be a long time before we are good enough to concern ourselves with the minor annoyance of petty thieves and swindlers. Besides, with the example of the elimination of big operations, which will be outlawed in a sensible society, many of them will give up their childish malevolence in order to lose their place in the line. Withold the reward to extinguish the unwanted behavior and perhaps negative reinforcement won't be necessary for some of those who are not yet completely hardened criminals like the wealthy elite.
   The practice of economic servitude that started less than ten thousand years ago is the source of all of our problems. It must be abandoned if we are to survive as a species. I've heard it said, we are the brightest, most knowledgeable people who ever lived. Surely we can find a better way than this weakly disguised slavery to supply our needs. Surely we must!
   We must devise a way of life that heals our psyches. It must replace the abomination of spirit that seeks only to take advantage of our individual weaknesses for the satisfaction of the greed and malice of the elite. It must strengthen and empower every one of us individually and not do so at the expense of each other.

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Greg Kaiser