Original text and editing by:
A G Kaiser
email to
agkaiser1@gmail,com
Subservience to the rich, whatever alias they may be traveling under, has been constant throughout written history. Morality, ethics and the emotional engagement of populations are in a constant state of change. Only the greed, corruption and treachery of the powerful remains the same.
"A good slave works for food alone."
Q of the week:
Q: Is it futile to attempt to challenge the system?
A: Maybe. I don't care. It amuses me to try and I would feel cowardly to do nothing while many suffer and die to satisfy the greed of a few.
Volume II Issue 15:
Distractions:
The evil of a tyrant lives and dies. The evils of social problems continue to worsen. Why are we able to pretend that the misery, pain, suffering and death that are built into our social/economic institutions are not more onerous than the temporary ills of selfish individuals, like George or Saddam?
Describe real human misery, suffering, pain and death. You'll receive talk, not help in response. The required action will not be forthcoming. Empty words are all our bosses and rulers are willing to give. They rationalize their conservatism. They explain that real solutions are disallowed by their traditions, values and principals of greed. Their actions and our money (stolen by taxation from the poor, working and middle classes and given to the rich in defense contracts and other corporate welfare) will be reserved for dealing with the petty tyrants and other distorted and exaggerated issues, with which they distract us.
Politics:
What is genuinely relevant to us? Jobs, money and the corporations themselves are being moved out of the country by treasonous multinational CEOs and politicians, in service to their plutocratic masters. The resulting low wages and joblessness cause an increase of misery, pain, suffering and death to the majority of US citizens. The middle class, which overlaps the opposing groups, along with many of us who are smart enough to know better, often consents to our betrayal by the elite. The 9/11 attack, onerous as it was, pales in comparison to the evil of American economic terrorism.
On September 11, 2001, thousands of innocent Americans died in attacks directed [symbolically] against the power and wealth of our country. [Ed. note: I can't help but feel personally disconnected from the symbolic target. That doesn't detract from my condemnation of horror with respect to the criminal irresponsibility of the zealots who planned and perpetrated the act of terror.] Every day thousands of the forty million Americans without adequate health care die, due to the criminal economic terror of American corporations. We accept that terror as a fact of life: an inevitable reality of capitalism. We don't bat an eye at homelessness or hunger. We ignore the lack of opportunity, not only in education and good jobs, but in all aspects of American life. How is it possible that we fail to condemn the evil of our rulers?
Economy:
V2i14 [the last issue] introduced the 100 apple economy. Some people, who're greatly impressed by their superiors, suggested that I didn't understand the complexity of the system. Having been daunted themselves by pretentious, patronizing, overbearing idiots, they hoped to build up their wounded self esteem at my expense. i.e. They wanted to act like their betters and attempted to confuse me with bullshit delivered in a confident and smug tone. They were surprised at my response, having been so completely deluded when the scam had been run on them.
The truth is: simple formulae may be applied to complex problems by the mathematical technique of variable substitution. Let one person stand for one percent of the population. Let one apple stand for one percent of the worlds material wealth. Now whole classes people may have fractional apples (slightly more than nothing) or multiple apples or much more than they need or can justify in the world of want in which most of us live. The formula may be used with confidence for any number of people or groups and any amount of goods. It won't, though, quantify all the pain and suffering (the measure of evil) done in the abstract domain of economy. What is abstract economy?
It's any economic activity that has only indirect connections with material goods. Banking, the prime example, is based on usury. Making money from money is forbidden in Mosaic Law. Leviticus 25:35-37 reads , "35- And if thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee; then thou shalt relieve him: yea, though he be a stranger, or a sojourner; that he may live with thee. 36- Take thou no usury of him, or increase: but fear thy God; that thy brother may live with thee. 37- Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase." In Nehemiah 5:7, "I rebuked the nobles and the rulers, and said unto them, 'Ye exact usury, every one of his brother. And I set a great assembly against them.'" (I referred to a King James version.)
I'm not a Bible thumper but I believe the prohibition against making money with money, without direct connection to the material goods it represents, is common sense. At best, usury dilutes the value of money. Interest creates more money without creating more real products. The increase in the value of stocks does the same. There are useful services, like medicine, that must be supported. The non-industries that deal only in abstractions like money are usurious, parasitic and harmful to the economy. They are not justified by necessity. They are intolerable for the pain and suffering they cause. Their practitioners are stealing from the rest of us by making the money we have worth_less.
Read an economical allegory Apeshit
Editorial Column:
Capitalism is an economic system. Democracy is a political system. When capitalists control a representative form of government it's no longer free or of the people. Free market economies may develop into capitalism. When they do, as in America, they're no longer free. Capitalism has led unswervingly to plutocracy, rule by the rich. Plutocracy is incompatible with freedom. The freedom of capitalists is inconsistent with that of people. Capitalism destroys free markets.
People need jobs, not ideology, philosophy or morality. Values, principals and standards [of greed] are mere words. People need money to live. Defense of the status quo is an assault on the lives of the best part of the human race. We must defend our lives. I say to the rich and powerful elite of the Earth: "It's your money or OUR lives!"
If you can help with cash donations, so that I may spend more time thinking and writing, contact me:
agkaiser@hotmail.com
Please, copy the "Collector" to an e-mail composition or print it out. Send or give it to ten people. Unlike our economy, this is a pyramid scheme that can work. If this has been forwarded to you and you wish to be added to the list to receive direct notification of the posting of new issues, put Collector Request in the subject and e-mail to:
agkaiser@yahoo.com
Greg Kaiser