Compasses

Greetings good citizen,

In what can only be described as massive case of cognitive dissonance (although there is the 'only game in town factor’ also in play) markets are generally ‘up’, again, for no apparent or rational reason.

The pending Greek vote, like the upcoming Egyptian elections both appear to be just like the upcoming US elections, already stacked with ‘non-choices’ pretending to be ‘alternatives.’

Because no matter how you choose, the outcome remains the same.

And how friggin’ sad is THAT, good citizen?

In my mind it conjures the image of a captive being prepared for slaughter by cannibals. It doesn’t matter that the captives out number the cannibals by a factor of a million to one, the cannibals have them all hobbled, hand and foot so they can’t resist.

You should seriously take a moment to marvel at how effective just a handful of men with guns can be.

Which raises some other, disturbing social problems and the raging debate over ‘how’ these problems should be ‘handled’:

In his June 11, 2012 op-ed in the NY Times, Paul Krugman goes beyond economic analysis to bring up the morality and the conceptual framing that determines economic policy. He speaks of “the people the economy is supposed to serve” — “the unemployed,” and “workers”— and “the mentality that sees economic pain as somehow redeeming.”

Krugman is right to bring these matters up. Markets are not provided by nature. They are constructed — by laws, rules, and institutions. All of these have moral bases of one sort or another. Hence, all markets are moral, according to someone’s sense of morality. The only question is, Whose morality? In contemporary America, it is conservative versus progressive morality that governs forms of economic policy. The systems of morality behind economic policies need to be discussed.

Most Democrats, consciously or mostly unconsciously, use a moral view deriving from an idealized notion of nurturing parenting, a morality based on caring about their fellow citizens, and acting responsibly both for themselves and others with what President Obama has called “an ethic of excellence” — doing one’s best not just for oneself, but for one’s family, community, and country, and for the world. Government on this view has two moral missions: to protect and empower everyone equally.

In a debate totally void of reason the conservative ‘argument’ over ‘the natural order of things’ smacks so loudly of religious dogma as to be indistinguishable from it.

‘It’s that way because that’s the way it is’ is a mighty ‘feeble’ argument that is only a half a degree removed from the truth, it’s that way because that is how I want it to be!

Which the meat-headed conservative will vehemently deny (if he is not surrounded by his criminal cohorts.)

How fucked up is it that the phrase ‘the poor deserve what they get’ serves as the ‘secret handshake’ for a club any self-respecting human doesn’t want anything to do with?

Funny thing about that particular ‘handshake’, you know what it will buy you under A Simple Plan? It gets you an all expenses paid trip to ‘liberty-land’, that place where you’re ‘free’ to do whatever you like, you can lay claim to the whole place because it will be the only place in our new society where you will be allowed to ‘own’ things.

Sounds like a ‘good deal’ right?

There are a couple of little ‘hitches’…and ‘how little’ are matters of ‘perspective’.

First, we send you on your ‘permanent holiday’ in your ‘birthday suit’ [regardless of time of year.] Since you don’t appreciate the cooperative nature of society/civilization, you will not be permitted to bring anything you didn’t make yourself out of natural materials. Um, there are also ‘size restrictions’, you won’t be allowed to bring the Hogan you built with you either.

For safety reasons, if your only handmade possession is a ‘sharp rock’, you won’t be able to bring it with you because there will be no shortage of ‘sharp rocks’ where you’re going.

You won’t be permitted to bring food with you, part of your, er, ‘rehabilitation’ will be the sharpening of those self-sufficiency skills that you folks prize so highly.

You’re free to hunt, prep and eat whatever comes along…and ‘whatever’ is a literal term.

The people who have been there longer may well include you as part of the day’s menu, so choose your ‘allies’ carefully…

Those who befriend you may have other motives (like not wanting to drag your dead ass to the cook fire.)

Now it sounds a bit ‘harsh’, doesn’t it?

Shouldn’t we show these misguided souls some ‘mercy’?

In answer to that we have to reverse the situation and ask where was THEIR mercy when it came to the destitute?

Who were they to decide who did and didn’t deserve succor in a situation THEY created?

An employer ‘picks’ their employees, hiring no more (and usually less) than they need.

So it comes down to cases…do the poor ‘deserve’ what they get?

Are they truly ‘undeserving’ of respite from their misery because they are ‘immoral’ or is the pig who would pocket the poor’s share for himself the one with the broken moral compass?

Circle logic is often employed to cover self-serving behavior.

The disturbing aspect of this whole line of questioning is why nothing is done when we see these feeble excuses being used to defend inequity?

Why aren’t the defrauders of the destitute prosecuted?

Why aren’t the employers who don’t pay a living wage fined?

Where is the Justice, good citizen?

And ‘I don’t know’ isn’t the right (or enough of) an answer.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner