Monday, May 28, 2012

USA Heroes



Bill Moyers last couple of shows have revived my faith in America. RoseAnn DeMoro head of the Nurses Union and Tom Morello aka The Nightwatchman have both been active with the 99% aka waking folks up! (PBS)

Believing in strong unions, people and economic justice, they are speaking into the microphones because they have the power to be heard. Yay.

That doesn't get the rest of us off the hook. Be the hook! Every day we have opportunities to bring up the hard stuff. Hone in on an issue, research it and drop it into common discourse as often as possible. Sure some people will get upset, but wow, that's a small price for providing the information services we need to get to a real, community strong, diverse participatory democracy. This seems the next phase of the journey. As barriers and ignorance fall away, healthier models will ensue and we all "win."

More power at the community level could nurture case specific endeavors in an efficient and speedy manner. This will encourage people to become more responsible, involved and motivated as they see themselves as active members of a larger dynamic whole.Thus, more individual potential will bloom.

This is the magic paradox. Consider:
Tom Morello: "What I think the global human cost of this horrific poverty is how many Mozarts or curers of cancer are slaving away in the Maquiladoras along the Tijuana border, or in the Indonesian sweat shops? You know, there are billions of people who will never become the people they could be, or the people they were meant to be, due to crushing poverty.
Poverty is not an accident of, sort of, an economic spreadsheet. Poverty is a crime. There are criminals involved. And those criminals walk the streets as free men. What my music is about, and what-- this from, you know, from the riots in the streets of Greece and Spain to the people's uprisings in Egypt and Libya and Madison is about is holding those people accountable, those who are responsible for subverting the entire global economy and causing so much misery and then laughing about it with their, you know, clinking their champagne glasses on their yachts." (from the transcript)

Why these jobs and why the low pay?

The ruse is over, the applause is stopping, we are learning to read between the li(n)es We know that it is rigged, unfair by design and failing the people, failing human be-ings

"The 2,300 assembly plants known as maquiladoras in Mexico are an important example of the benefits of these low-wage jobs.
More significant is that employment in this sector has grown consistently during periods when Mexico's economic crises have been at their worst and unemployment has been at its highest." (New York Times)

Fruit companies, land loss, distribution chains, GMO crops  and bribery from many sides have helped create dependent poverty. (Dependency creates need, which is good for corporations and governments, isolates and mesmerises) Pushing people off the land and into factories by closing the commons, helped the early Industrial Revolution gain momentum...serfs weren't people- doncha know? That belief has carried us here. That belief has been proven false.

Is there a corresponding cause ...why do we have to short change workers and pay huge amounts to those CEOs willing to be the henchmen of the major stockholders?

"Banking is a huge leech on our economy. 40% of every dollar we spend on goods and services -- 40% of all that we create and all we consume -- is siphoned off the top as bank interest in one form or another. (Calculations of Margrit Kennedy) The US Government is in the absurd position of paying interest to a private bank for every dollar that is put into circulation. The Federal Reserve system has privatized the power to create money, which, according to the Constitution, ought to belong to Congress alone. Presently, interest on the national debt costs the Federal government $500 billion in 2011, and (because of structural deficit spending) it is the fastest-growing portion of the Federal budget."  (Published on Sunday, May 20, 2012 by Common Dreams -The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Quiet Drama in Philadelphia by Ellen Brown)http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-tom-morello-troubadour-for-justice/

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