Imagination

Greetings good citizen,

There are two, er, ‘distressing’ articles in today’s news, one from the the Libertarians pretending to be liberals at Alternet and the other comes from today’s NY Times editorial section.

Libbies first:

Vandana Shiva, who addressed the Reimagining Work conference via video, is another activist/thinker bringing new work ideas to her largely women-initiated projects in India.

There is no one template that is guiding these rapidly growing worldwide efforts. The writings and videos of the people named above, plus Matthew Fox, David and Fran Korten, Ahrundati Roy, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Paul Gildering and others are resources for many new economy innovators.

What all have in common is the realization that the old system is breaking down. Within the distinction made by Grace Boggs between protest organizing and visionary organizing, they fall on the visionary side. Many believe that small and local are best, especially at this stage. All tend to be non-dogmatic and inclusive rather than exclusive and rigidly ideological. All are committed to fair treatment of all stakeholders involved. Cooperation and community are valued over competition and individualism. Genuine leadership is valued and respected. Hierarchy for its own sake is not.

All share a sense of urgency driven by the growing waste of human potential, and the race to avoid ecosystem catastrophe.

Re-imagining work is nothing more than the old capitalist doctrine of, if you can’t find work then make your own job!

Which is perfectly sound reasoning…until you ask yourself why there’s no such thing as ‘capitalist utopia’.

Sadly, the answer to both questions is ‘market share’.

Your ‘enterprise’ thrives (or starves) solely on it’s ability to capture market share.

Do you know what the statistics are surrounding ‘new ventures’? NINE out of TEN FAIL during their first year! The ten ‘survivors’ of a hundred newly established enterprises, NINE of those will fail during the first five years…and the sole survivor will be limping along against its ‘better established’ competitors.

Now THAT’S ‘Capitalism’!

(Did I forget to add the primary reason why most of these enterprises fail, the ‘fuck you, pay me’ part of the process?)

How ironic is it that the same people who give you a ‘leg-up’ in your new venture just happen to be the same people who shovel the dirt over its corpse…after all, they are really in the ‘juice’ business. They exist to put the squeeze on YOU!

And little moronic articles like this one are merely ‘advertisements’ for ‘suckers’ to buy into the Capitalist Ponzi Scheme.

Can’t find a job? Just grab yourself by the fucking ‘bootstraps’ and create your own!

Seriously good citizen, this is only a fraction removed from claiming that the wealthy are ‘innocent’ of ‘gouging the public’ because it was ‘God’s Will’ that they be rich!

How fucking ‘enchanting’, huh? You wake up in the morning and trudge out to the garage (which doubles as your ‘storefront’) as almost ALL ‘kitchen table’ operations literally do start out on the kitchen table!

And you sit there and wait for the customers to show up…

And after a couple of days of ‘nothing’, the wife suggests maybe this ‘do it yourself’ thing isn’t for you and the mortgage payment will be due next week so maybe you ought to find something to bring in some cash in the meantime…

Well, a few more days go by and lo and behold, you still don’t have any customers! Naturally, some ‘genius’ tells you your problem is advertising! You need to let the world know you’re there!

But you have a different problem, don’t ya? Your ‘lack of customers’ isn’t due to ‘invisibility’. Your problem is there’s no reason for your neighbors to buy your product/service over the better-established brands…if they haven’t cut that particular item out of their budgets in the first place.

You just can’t attract enough ‘market share’ to your brand (fast enough to keep our doors open!)

So if you hang your own shingle out, like a typical ‘Libertarian’ will tell you to do (because nuthin’ go up top!) you’re gonna starve!

Wishing is not reality and the reality is our ENTIRE economy is FUBAR, you will NEVER SUCCEED in ‘wishing that away’ either!

Let us switch gears here for a moment and check out our second offering, such as it is:

Campaign Stops
Finding the Limits of Empathy
By THOMAS B. EDSALL

In order to campaign effectively, President Obama and Mitt Romney have to figure each other's supporters out. It isn't easy.

Taken at face value, this editorial appears to ‘assume’ that Obama supporters have a lot in common with Romney supporters.

So we are ALL ‘just like’ the >One Percent.

Or should we view this with a more cynical eye and interpret it to mean that the >One Percent are the only ones who matter?

Understand, good citizen that there are hundred of millions of voting aged individuals out there who don’t like EITHER candidate!

So ‘spinning’ this election will be a taller job than any the corporate owned media has taken on before.

For the first time (and definitely far too late) the announcement of the election results will be met with widespread disbelief and cries of BULLSHIT!

Regardless of who is declared the ‘winner’.

How sad is it good citizen that as matters stand, a win for either candidate is a loss for the nation as a whole?

Only a few more months good citizen…prepare.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner