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Road to Corporate Serfdom
It was Bill Clinton’s campaign strategist, James Carville, who in 1992
created the election slogan: “It’s the Economy, Stupid.” For the 2010
Congressional campaigns, the slogan should have been: “It’s Corporate
Crime and Control, Stupid.”
But notwithstanding the latest corporate crime wave, the devastating
fallout on workers, investors and taxpayers from the greed and
corruption of Wall Street, and the abandonment of American workers by
U.S. corporations in favor of repressive regimes abroad, the Democrats
have failed to focus voter anger on the corporate supremacists.
The giant corporate control of our country is so vast that people who call themselves anything
politically—liberal, conservative, progressive, libertarian,
independents or anarchist—should be banding together against the
reckless Big Business steamroller.
Conservatives need to remember the sharply critical cautions against
misbehaving or over-reaching businesses and commercialism by Adam Smith,
Frederic Bastiat, Friedrich Hayek and other famous conservative
intellectuals. All knew that the commercial instinct and drive know few
boundaries to the relentless stomping or destruction of the basic civic
values for any civilized society.
When eighty percent of the Americans polled believe ‘America is in
decline,’ they are reflecting in part the decline of real household
income and the shattered bargaining power of American workers up against
global companies.
The U.S. won World War II. Germany lost and was devastated. Yet note this remarkable headline in the October 27th Washington Post:
“A Bargain for BMW means jobs for 1,000 in S. Carolina: Workers line up
for $15 an hour—half of what German counterparts make.”
The German plant is backed by South Carolina taxpayer subsidies and is
not unionized. Newly hired workers at General Motors and Chrysler,
recently bailed out by taxpayers, are paid $14 an hour before
deductions. The auto companies used to be in the upper tier of high
paying manufacturing jobs. Now the U.S. is a low-wage country compared
to some countries in Western Europe and the trend here is continuing
downward.
Workers in their fifties at the BMW plant, subsidizing their lower wages
with their tax dollars, aren’t openly complaining, according to the Post. Not surprising, since the alternative in a falling economy is unemployment or a fast food job at $8 per hour.
It is not as if we weren’t forewarned by our illustrious political forebears Fasten your seat belts; here are some examples:
Thomas Jefferson—“I hope that we shall crush in its birth the
aristocracy of our monied corporations, which dare already to challenge
our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of
our country.”
Abraham Lincoln in 1864—“I see in the near future a crisis approaching
that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country.
…corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high
places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to
prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all
wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”
(1864)
Theodore Roosevelt—“The citizens of the United States must control the
mighty commercial forces which they themselves call into being.”
Woodrow Wilson—“Big business is not dangerous because it is big, but
because its bigness is an unwholesome inflation created by privileges
and exemptions which it ought not to enjoy.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt—“The first truth is that the liberty of a
democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power
to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state
itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism—ownership of Government by an
individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.”
Dwight Eisenhower, farewell address—“In the councils of government, we
must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether
sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”
And, lastly, a literary insight:
Theodore Dreiser—“The government has ceased to function, the corporations are the government.”
Are you, dear reader, the same now as you were when you began reading this column?
Comments
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201 Comments so far
Show AllSome more quotes:
“The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western world. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity - much less dissent.” Gore Vidal
“Avoid overly pretentious job titles such as "Lord of the Realm, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India" or "Director of Corporate Planning” - source unknown. Think it is the official MBA handbook.
“Nothing's ever really changed. What difference does it make whether it's the Corporate state or the Nation state? In our struggle for freedom we still find ourselves fighting the state.” Source unknown
“The human being who would not harm you on an individual, face-to-face basis, who is charitable, civic-minded, loving and devout, will wound or kill you from behind the corporate veil.” Investigative journalist and author, Morton Mintz.
But my favourite, which gives me hope for the human soul:
"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949.
Because, after all, the human mind knows no boundaries except those which it imposes on itself.
Onemantribe,
Thanks for the thoughtful quotes. The last two cause me to wonder if there is an inverse relationship between technological progress and human perceptive capacity.
It just seems as though humans loose critical thinking skills as technology continues to assume more and more human tasks.
And our corporate-controlled culture discourages any form of empathic response while promoting narcissism and greed.
Are we under attack by the forces of evil and darkness and not even aware of it?
3001?
I have been dedicated to seeking truth ever since I was nearly conscripted into LBJ's Viet Nam occupation in 1968 and I find it much faster to find a greater variety of credible information in the internet age.
The only explanation for 96 to 98% of Americans relying on the mainstream media for news and voting for Democrats and Republicans in most elections is that they don't have critical thinking skills and/or they have a serious case of denial syndrome.
Denial? No. They're not even aware. To deny that something exists, you have to at least be aware of the possibility that it >>could<< exist.
Perhaps I'm splitting hairs.
You are not splitting hairs...just facing the reality that we are living in the land of the brain dead.
I am also painfully aware of the several million who either can't afford internet access, they might not have access to libraries, or they have access but the connection is so slow or spotty as to render it practically useless. This was highlighted for me the other night by a story on Marketplace where they were talking about banks charging customers $10 for a paper statement, and there was a woman on there who lived in NH and talked about her lack of access to high-speed and where even attempting to get to her bank account online with her access was spotty, at best, and when she could get to it, it was an incredibly long time and not reliable enough to do anything meaningful -- like say printing out statements or getting information.
I realized how lucky I am and I also realized that much as I would like to move to a place that is much, much more affordable, I can't just pull up roots and go wherever I want. I do not have to be where I am but I do need high-speed reliable internet for my job and fairly easy access to the PO, or UPS or FedEx.
Probably the only thing I agree with Obama on is the need for high-speed internet access for millions of people who don't have it now. But like all things Obama, I am always suspect of his motives.
IOWA: I would say there is an inverse relationship; but it's related to a loss of sentience, a purposeful distancing from the natural world and the capacity to identify--or feel--the beings therein. People are taught, particularly through the Judeo-Christian ethic, to pursue a relationship with the land that's based on domination. Add the capitalist ethos; and all living beings are reduced to their paper profit equivalent. They become mere things, as opposed to marvelous living beings. This adulteration is yet another form of collateral damage since it enables the machine-driven march of unapologetic ecocide.
One could say that "modern times" set up the premise that those who live close to (or in harmony with) the land are perceived as primitive or savages. The pivotal understanding that recognizes the innate symbiotic relationship between people and the natural world has been expunged. Just as cultural icons like Jon Stewart makes it hip not to care, or care enough to God forbid enter into the crazy-making world of activism; social mores disparage caring for nature. What's celebrated in a culture of malls are inate things, status objects whose worth is attributed to them through the power of slick, sometimes subliminal, advertising campaigns.
One could make an equal case that the loss of the natural began when fake formulas were substituted for breast milk. These artificial food-stuffs were championed (again by slick advertisers) as being better than the real thing. What follows by progression is that much of today's food barely owns any natural ingredients. I'm waiting for the product warning: "Nothing natural added."
The departure from all things natural has twisted the American psyche to the point where love, empathy, and caring are becoming rare indeed. Substitutions in the form of a dark lust assisted by a grotesque infestation of ugly pornography, added to the countless men who literally stroke their weapons (in the land that LOVES--to the point of idolotry--its guns) as extensions of their own wounded masculinity... the sacred conjunctio, a/k/a intended Balance, has been lost. Powerful elites have shaped consciousness in a way that has led in endless ways to a death culture. Small wonder that its chief export is war and/or weapons.
As Shadow Dancer so often relates, The Tribes did understand community and a respect for nature that modern mankind does not. I believe the sentience exists, but it's been battered out of most of us. Now, in the midst of so much dying, the last hope is the great remembering. (Our souls, being eternal, may well have lived in those tribes and understood the contract/covenant shared with the natural world for the benefit of both. Summoning this latent consciousness will probably make a difference in those who survive this unsettling phase of The Transition.)
SR,
Your obsession with men "stroking their weapons" is irritating to me. Don't believe I would say women are "fingering their triggers." If there is a sexual angle to our shared catastrophe, it is to be shared by men and women. After all, women have sons and help to bring them up just as men have daughters. Behaviors are reinforced by both parents. If women--as in Lysistrata--did not sleep with their men until war was banished, peace would come in a year. The point is, men and women do not live in separate worlds; we are not separate species; we share the same chromosomes (with one exception). If there is something twisted in the way our society regards sexuality, then the fault belongs to all of us, men and women.
Drosera: It is hardly an obsession. Bullets, missiles, torpedoes, and bombs are phallic extensions. WAR is attributable to primal urges, those the ancients linked with the MALE god Mars. Even in America, the premise of leader is cast in terms like firm, hard, and possessed of the instincts of a warrior. (Otherwise said leader is defined as a pussy.) Most societies were run by men, and still ARE. Female input is secondary. For "Empathy 101" why not consider how many male citizens feel powerless today as a small group of elites makes decisions that directly impact their lives. Women lived that way for centuries. Quite a few still do.
One can cut the pie into a number of concentric circles in defining the allotment of power, by niche or demographic. Proportionally, women do not wield the power that men do. The decision to go to war is generally made by men. Women clean up the broken bodies. And I have ENDLESSLY related (in this forum) that religions that ONLY bear witness to the power of God the father (you took umbrage with Mother nature, for Goddess's sake!) grant to males a disproportionate status. You are pathetically clueless as to how that pervasive delusion spiritually diminishes the value of "The Second Sex."
You know, of course, than women have held the right to vote in this nation for less than a century.
We did not arrive where we are today out of no where. The foundations of our society ARE sexist AND racist. Just because SOME improvements have recently ensued does not erase the template and its embedded beliefs and patterns.
The few women who make it into the circles of power (Condi Rice, Madeleine Albright, Hillary Clinton, etc.) reflect the distorted war-oriented "values" of those that granted them entrance. It's that way with powerful minority figures, too. Eric Holder hasn't dared to rock the boat. He's a holder, i.e. place holder for the status quo. Consider Yoo, Colin Powell, Clarence Thomas, etc operating in similar yes-men fashion.
I'd encourage you to read the work of some of the illumined feminists because you really don't GET IT about the powerful imprint of sexism, at all. You do to me (on a regular basis) what the right does to progressives: put the blame onto the messenger for saying it LIKE IT IS. You find the message uncomfortable; and prefer to criticize the one relating it, rather than take the awful truth into account. (This is why I think your attitudes unconsciously undermine your wife, at the level of her Essence.)
IF society granted equal powers to men and women, your final statement would hold water.
P.S. A few days ago TRYLON used the word TITS in a very demeaning way. Not ONE male in the forum was offended by that. However, Trylon didn't like being called on it. He could have dignifed his post by saying a woman's breasts...
This is why I point out that sexism is so pervasive; taken for just another one of our twisted nation's norms. The result is that quite a few of you, otherwise intelligent men, miss this one utterly and entirely. Should we "pull an Obama" and just look forward, forget about the shadow of the past and the footsteps its carved into the collective unconscious? In my book, NOT when war, torture, ecocide, and pornography--all expressions of depraved indifference to life are on the increase. These are projections of Mars, a force that is too much with us. ONLY its Divine counterpart can act as balance. You pretend to applaud that balance, while you merely reinforce a VERY destructive status quo.
I don't deny that men have waged war and have promoted values that lead to violence. My point is that both sexes accept the male role as warrior and "provider"--not just men. Women marry men who achieve fame in war and in business. Such men are sought after. Women bring up their sons to be good soldiers--"Come back bearing your shield or lying upon it." It's like racism--there is its effect upon whites--their belief that blacks are inferior to whites when it comes to activities that call for intelligence. And then there is the effect of racism on blacks: the acceptance of that belief and the subsequent self-doubt that gets in the way of achievement. It's the same with the vastly different gender roles men and women are socialized into. Both sexes buy into stereotypes which can be poisonous. Men are brought up--by observing mother and father--to believe success is to be achieved through competition and fighting; girls are brought up to believe the most important thing is to make yourself desirable. In the same way racism is perpetrated by society in general with harmful effects settling on both sides, sexual stereotypes are carried on through child-rearing practices, the media, movies, and video games. You blame men for the evils of sexism when everyone is at fault.
If you move outside of Western religion, you find that patriarchal ways exist outside the reach of God the Father. China, for example, never a country to buy into such a view of God, is far more sexist than the United States. What that tells me is that your idea that sexism is related to the Abrahamic religions is false. You can find cultures--like many Native American--which had little to do with Christianity--and still treated women like cattle, to be traded to other tribes to cement tribal relations, for example. How many tribes had female chiefs, anyway? It is not as simple as you say; a particular religion is not always paired with sexism.
I resent your psychobabble about my attitudes undermining my wife at the level of her Essence. You do not know her or me. And I don't speculate about how you relate to the important people in your life.
drosera: Women bring up their sons to be good soldiers--"Come back bearing your shield or lying upon it."
The problem here is that you deduce from this statement a status of those women which is quite contrary to fact. Sparta was unquestionably one of the most male supremacist societies ever known. Spartan women were nothing but breeders and handmaids of men, and to this role they were trained from infancy to play their part as supporters of an order in which they were valueless except for their validation (as in the saying you quote) of the uber-masculine state.
Hitler consigned "perfect" German girls to a similar role, including forced impregnation by the uber-Menschen of the Nazi Party so as to produce the perfect Aryan specimens for the 1,000-year Reich. It didn't work very well, as we know, but Spartans had many more generations to perfect their system than Hitler did.
Nothing you said contradicts my point. Both the men and women of Sparta created a society that valued warriorship above all. Certainly women were trained to serve men--but mothers participated in this training as well as men. You and SR insist men are imposing tyranny on women--placing women in a category as victims. I would say women are not simply victims; they participate in a sexist society. Tell me that Southern belle femininity, the "make yourself pretty for your man" value is imposed unilaterally on women by men; it isn't. Women make a choice to participate in the game (just as men do).
Their children place the chains on themselves--because they do not know freedom.
JUSTICE: That was exactly the example I intended to relate. So long as Drosera holds to a comfort zone that blames both genders for what one held in restraint, if not collective contempt, was UNABLE to do... like a boat navigated by only one oar for centuries, there is no way to reason with him. He argues for a paradigm that is asymmetrical; and he refuses to understand how the roots of inequality have led it (which means all of us) to a place which shows contempt for LIFE. To suggest that both genders are equally responsible for society, its ethics, mores, and rules... when one gender was not even allowed to own property or vote, and was largely viewed AS a possession... is like saying Blacks were complicit in their own slavery.
Furthermore, when he took umbrage with the concept of Mother Nature (several months ago), while having no problem with the fact that MILLIONS, probably billions, only lend their religious homage to God the Father... it exposed the sexism he doesn't even realize he owns.
DROSERA: I will not mention your wife again... unless you deliberately push my buttons, which means, try to denigrate my life work, beliefs, or posts.
You--or Justice--have not responded to my argument that sexism is maintained by both genders through the upbringing of children. Mothers propagate sexism in allowing their sons--encouraging their sons often--to participate in violent sports and violent games. They teach their daughters to behave in certain ways in order to attract a good husband, often one who has distinguished himself in cut-throat business relationships, in violent sports or in war. Fathers bear an equal weight in conveying sexist attitudes to their children. I do not understand your saying I argue for a paradigm that is asymmetrical. You do that in insisting men are criminal and women are only victims. A fairly large proportion of women who read these postings--especially those who have brought up a son--would agree with me that sexism is taught to boys and girls by both parents. Your perspective seems the outlier here.
As for men being so divorced from Mother Nature, tell that to Thoreau, Muir, or, for that matter, any of the male professors who taught me what I know about biology. In their caring for Nature they are not exceptions. They are not allowing the "feminine side" of their natures to express itself in their life's work. They simply understand how things work, an activity unrelated to one's gender, and wish to devote themselves to protecting and nurturing Nature. This criminalizing of half of humanity--it can't be good for you or others. Why not open up to the possibility that Nature is neither male or female? It might make you more tolerant.
DROSERA: You are more dense than a board. Until you can appreciate the context in which women have been FORCED to adapt to false constructs, there is no answer to your question. And since you pulled a "Julian Assange" on me, by suggesting that my ACCURATE portrait of sexist society is a reflection of my purported intolerance, here's another on your wife. YOU carry a great deal of misogyny. YOU never answered for why you think it pertinent that GOD be defined entirely through the MASCULINE pronoun (and by extension, masculine qualities), yet you can't be bothered to see nature as the placenta of life, and thus Divine Feminine? And you call ME intolerant? Your unacknowledged, inverted misogyny, likely internalized by your wife, has caused her body, her very being & cells to implode on themselves. You think you understand love? You deny women their basic essence, have not the faintest iota of understanding of what's been ROBBED from the Second Sex, and try to paint me as somehow flawed in my judgment for pointing out what is OBVIOUS to any educated, awakened woman? I can only imagine what it must be like for a woman to live with you.
Some men do get in. In this forum, four IMMEDIATELY come to mind: Loren Bliss, Justice Arcs, Stephen Riley, & G W North. There are others, and many who see through a FAR more comprehensive prism than you do. You MUST be an earth sign, or have Saturn strongly configured with your key planets. You're a typical authoritarian personality who believes that reality really is what flawed people, old church-state elites, have managed to establish. You absolutely do not understand the roots that grew into the twisted tree. And since you don't recognize or acknowledge the factors behind this formation, you cannot imagine OTHER. I find yours to be an incurious mind, which is odd for a stated scientist.
You continually conflate my analysis of the patriarchal roots of society with men, in specific. At points these intersect, but they are not the same thing. And by the way, there are feminist men, like Robert Jensen, for example.
So, your argument is that women are forced into a subservient role by...their fathers? Their grandfathers? Women had no role in socializing their children into inappropriate gender roles? No, that is all I can say.
Your obvious anger about my insisting Nature has no gender comes from your assurance that you understand at the deepest level things that I am unable to comprehend. Your sense of worth comes from your confidence that you grasp spiritual matters most people have no clue of. Seems like the "stink of Zen," to me. Sorry you are mired in a way of thinking that exalts your own narrow perspective. You could say that of me, I suppose, but that would not be accurate. I do not see a spiritual world which only a few are privileged to enter. I do not discriminate between men and women as you do. I do not see the world as a dualism--spirit and material--as you do. And I do not appropriate that word "spiritual" which you esteem so much and apply it only to my own set of beliefs.
Please don't talk about native americans as if have ever bothered to look at native culture because you should take another look before making your generalizations. How a chief became a chief included all the people in various levels of decision making and was far superior to the election process and term limits of this corrupt society. The Cherokee had a woman chief, Wilma Mankiller.
SouixRose & Drosera:
But explain to me why the maximum pie or profit curve resembles Hogarth’s curve!
Let’s not forget the mating game, ... beauty, ... and the main source and influence of the nurturer as children grow up.
I wonder if all the issues of peace and war are mainly sexual.
"The Mass Psychology of Fascism" explains how it is - by Wilhelm Reich
HERD: I think Reich had some brilliant ideas. It sure explained fascism to me. Granny D seems to get the connection, too.
EMPIRE: If a woman/mother is treated like dirt by society, how can she teach her children the love and nurture that was intended? I don't have the link but the U.N. estimates that about half of all women will know some form of direct male abuse during their lifetimes. I managed to avoid two rapes. Once, because I was walking across a street at night (from my job) to the college campus, and just as the attacker grabbed me a crowded bus went by and people SAW him; so he ran. The second time was on a beach in Puerto Rico. I was wearing a bikini. Suddenly in an instant, dogs started barking as a man grabbed me from behind. I let out a scream that probably roused the dead because a lot of people came running, and the guy ran away. Quite a few of my friends (and one sister) have been raped.
The levels of violence aimed at women are something many men give little thought to. Of course if it was your wife, mother, daughter, or girlfriend... that would be an altogether different matter.
Many men arrested for rape, even serial killing, refer to the role Porn played in rousing their unhealthy appetites. Now I realize, "healthy" men can "consume" porn without raping anyone; although they may want to shame their girlfriend into doing what they see in these visual depictions that treat women's bodies like garbage disposal bins... still, I believe that a society that feeds on porn damages the way men view women. It may act on subliminal planes; but images that are based on disrespect and POWER OVER OTHER are not good ones if the goal is decency, beauty, love, or genuine partnership.
Most men want power over women. They may not even admit this to themselves. VERY few know love or true equality in their intimate ties. The concept is one that shakes millions of men to their boots... the worst examples of this include both the Taliban and America's homegrown version of it, the born-again bigots who tell women it's God's will for them to SERVE their spouses, and become subservient to them. Interesting how that segues into a virtual pornography of the spirit!
Just as the Caucasian race owes a debt to the Black, Brown, Red, and Yellow people; by in large, men owe a debt to women.
SouixRose
Thanks for your anecdotal response.
One thing I think about a bit, is how language enters the picture and how different cultures think differently according to how they form their thoughts.
Symbols play a big part especially in making what we call "progress" possible; but symbols also play a big part in our internal dialogues and who we view ourselves in relation to the communities that we become involved in.
I am not convinced that either Matriarchal or Patriarchal societies are the key essence of trying to form a more functional society.
And yes, We do owe our Mothers a huge debt.
SouixRose & Drosera:
But explain to me why the maximum pie or profit curve resembles Hogarth’s curve!
Let’s not forget the mating game, ... beauty, ... and the main source and influence of the nurturer as children grow up.
I wonder if all the issues of peace and war are mainly sexual.
Good comeback to Ms SiouxRose. I think she has a hard time admitting that women also have some complicity in the cruelty of human nature.
Are men 100% responsible? Of course not. I'd say maybe 70 to 30%, maybe less maybe more!
And what is it that makes Amerikan women think calling 'Breasts Tits' is sexist? Maybe when I am making love to my wife, I should say "Dear, I just love having intercourse with you" versus " F#*k me baby"
So long as those two words upset you; you will remain just a few steps away from enlightment.
Maybe when men get hired for a job based on the size of thier penis you will understand what she is talking about.
You completely miss the point. No one is saying that men are bad and women are good, nor are they denying that we do all participate in the existing social conventions and arrangements. (We have no choice.)
We have a social system of domination and control, a complex and rigid hierarchy that determines who has power over others. One has to be blind to not see this. At one time, the belief was that some born to a certain bloodline had the "right" to control and dominate others, and today the belief is that those having more money have the "right" to control and dominate others. That is the main basis for power, but that is interrelated with racism and sexism, as well as with homophobia. It is also interrelated with war and violence.
Since it was white males from a patriarchal culture who set up the system of social hierarchy according to wealth, and who were the colonial lords as well as the imperialists and the lords of industry and the lords of the household, all of society is organized along those lines. This means there is a systematic and pervasive oppression of women as well as of people of color. Poor women who are people of color suffer the worst, but all poor people, all people of color, and all women suffer and are under systematic oppression, by which I mean they are controlled and dominated and denied their full humanity and full participation in society as equals.
This is not about good and bad individuals, it is about a form of social organization that is based on the control and domination of some by others. We are all prisoners of this system to some extent, with some of us "bought off" and co-opted - males, whites, those with higher incomes in the professions and middle management.
This is not merely a matter of personal beliefs - "I believe women should be equal" - since the attitudes, beliefs and prejudices are always driven by the social conditions and not the other way around. Once there was a profit to be made, for example, on the slave trade and on people held in bondage and worked and the profiting from that labor, and once human beings had been driven into and held in poverty, ignorance, illiteracy, captivity and despair, only then did racist attitudes arise as a justification for the ongoing crimes and brutality and injustice. People had to tell themselves that the victims were suitable and appropriate subjects for that outrageously brutal treatment by virtue of their "nature." Those manufactured lies as to the "nature" of the people being held in bondage formed the basis for the attitudes and beliefs that we call racism, and it is alive today.
One cannot possibly fail to notice that WASP straight males have the power in this society, and have for some time, and that the advantages inherent in that give them a better chance at the ultimate presumed "right" to control and dominate others - the amassing of wealth. There are two possible explanations for this: either they are superior, by virtue of gender and race, have gained their positions of power by merit, deserve them; or, there must be a pattern of systematic oppression, active control and domination of others that is ongoing based on race and gender. The oppression and subjugation of women is also closely associated with violence and aggression and with war, and war is closely associated with the amassing of wealth.
When you say that women are participating in this and so are equally responsible, or characterize the statements pointing out the pervasive sexism as "blaming men" and the like, you are denying the history, the social context, and the day-in day-out observable objective social reality. You could only be doing this if you felt threatened somehow by these discussions, and that of course strongly suggests that it is status and power you fear to lose when equality is discussed, and that itself negates your claims.
Sioux Rose:
"This is why I point out that sexism is so pervasive; taken for just another one of our twisted nation's norms."--SR
*****
I concur.
Just the other day I was having a discussion with a male friend about how women are viewed in our increasingly militarized, misogynistic, and authoritarian society. I mentioned that I've noticed that as societies move further to the political right, thus becoming less egalitarian, classism, and its evil and divisive subsets, racism and sexism, rear their ugly heads and become increasingly pervasive and normalized.
With regard to sexism, and to illustrate how women are viewed/valued, I suggested that due to decades of social conditioning, in our culture the worst criticism one can give a man is to compare him to a woman, i.e., to accuse a man of being "gay," "girlie," weak, empathic, or (gulp) sensitive.
Though some men may disagree, my experiences suggest that any typically feminine character attribution is never greeted as complimentary by the male recipient and, in fact, is almost always considered in the pejorative, which instantly places the recipient of the characterization on the defensive--to prove his manly toughness and to dispel any notion of horrid womanliness (code for weakness), which is not valued in our culture. After all, what heterosexual man wants to be referred to as possessing womanly characteristics? Horrors! My male friend could not deny that he would find any 'feminine' characterization of himself demeaning. I find this unfortunate and disconcerting, but very telling of how women are viewed.
On the other hand, we both agreed it is not considered derogatory in the least--in fact, complimentary in some cases, for a woman in our culture to be told that she possesses traditional 'manly' qualities such as "strength" and physical and mental "toughness."
So glad I'm gay. I've known many drag queens and other gay men who possess all the 'womanly' virtues and who value and extol them. When or if our culture ever integrates homosexuality into it's mainstream, we will be well on the road to the recovery of social sanity.
Ok, so what happened tp the evils of corporatism?? I know that was mentioned in the article... I missed all the sex and race stuff..
>^^<
"Ok, so what happened tp the evils of corporatism?? I know that was mentioned in the article... I missed all the sex and race stuff.."
It's easier to have a food fight over sex and race than over corporatism, though i think I've seen that done, too ....
George, I am not gay and I am very happy to be called " Loving, Compassionate and understanding"
Good for you, Peterpeacenik. There are a lot of very sweet straight men. Love em.
Damn, I'm glad you're gay, too. This bifurcated society would be just too sad and grey without you.
Question: are gay men more positively disposed toward women?
Compared to straight men? Well, with the dick out of the equation in our Mars ruled society, probably so. As for society being sad and grey, it is. With or without. We are a fucked up, fragmented culture. My point is that integration must take place for a healthy society. Give me my rights, call me brother/sister, love me for being what I am instead of hating me for being a fag--then let's talk.
I wonder if this is why all sorts of female politicians (mainly those types that make me want to drink coffee) have been telling their male opponents "Man Up."
GIOVANNA: I could not agree more! In fact, it was very validating for me to participate in an 11-day journey to Peru, spending time with Shaman and learning that they view the lack of balance between Matriarchal and Patriarchal systems as the root cause for the decimation of the natural world. They were particularly taken aback by the uber: masculine "values" of American culture. Only a fool cannot see the relationship between this Yang focus on force, generating a battery of weaponry, and the collapse of life-sustaining values in our nation.
When half the budget goes UNQUESTIONINGLY to warriors, military invasions, weapons design, storage, and deployment... and when the "leaders" show straight faces as they then go on to explain that there are no available monies for health CARE or rebuilding next-to-collapsing bridges, then the values and priorities are clearly OUT OF BALANCE. And they are costing us our lives, while consigning the natural world to species upon species extinction.
Nature is designed with balance in mind. The human genome requires an EQUAL sum of genetic material from both partners. The sun and moon regulate life on earth. As the ancients so poetically understood, life is represented by the dance between Yin and Yang. Masculine culture ties women's feet to control the dance. The result of imbalance is screaming all around us.
To the geniuses that suggest the complicity of women. Well, duh. Does the Black person have the option of drawing up a different ethos in a nation dominated by Whites? Does the Afghan citizen get to determine his own culture, or lifestyle, in a land increasingly dominated by America's military? Self-determination is not possible under regimes of others' control. Women have adapted to the metrics of a "man's world" and therefore cannot be blamed for the way they've been twisted as a result. (I never said men are 100% to blame, PETER!) For me, the saddest examples are those Christian mothers, burned out from being baby makers, who drown their own children and then lie that they were victims of an assailant.
Truly, this should not be about blaming men, but enlightening men because it is the culture, the patriarchal religious indoctrination, the teaching that war is a sacrament that MUST change for the longevity of persons of BOTH genders. Until this mindset is altered, we are truly on a collision course with the grim reaper. And Giovanna, your point about language, that feminine qualities are considered a virtual curse by macho men, was well taken!
GIOVANNA: I think you are a magnificent thinker, and I am always glad to see your contributions in this forum.
PETER: What you say to your wife in bed is a personal matter. Can you take the discussion a bit higher than your own dick to consider what the denigration of women on a worldwide scale, and by extension the FEMININE SENSIBILITY means to a nation that's run amok on amoral policies? These generate from a castigation of feeling itself! Real men don't feel. They just act. Tough. Fuck Empathy! Screw compassion! We're all warriors now. And the few women who think it's cool to be like their fathers, uncles, or big brothers, and join the military to show their "inner Mars" are to be PITIED.
I argued this very item with then-editor of Ms. Magazine, Marcia Gillespie. The magazine usually devoted several pages to women in sports. For me, this showed the need to do what men do (play with balls) and be validated for it. The editor, who I term an "Athene woman," was afraid to publish my findings, those that became the core of a radical thesis, "Moon Dance." I wanted Ms. to be the first magazine to unveil the particular sensibility drawn from the moon, and publicly address its impact on women. My concern was the millions of people, a disproportionate number women, being guided to shut down their innate sentience by regularly ingesting anti-depressant drugs. Ms. Gillespie could not follow my line of reasoning. She was caught up in the existing paradigm. I have found that to be largely true of editors, guardians of the culture of ideas. FEW will rock the boat; so we end up with a sick status quo instead; one that's passively endorsed at every turn.
Every new truth is first perceived as a heresy. And some old truths remain locked into that category, falsely. All to maintain an order that resembles a mass suicide pact. (Mars rules, but should not!)
SR
Weapons are NOT phallic extensions.
They are arm extensions.
If men want penis extensions they get a penis extension.
And how is pornography depraved indifference to life?
It's becoming obvious you really don't like men and blame men for all the ills of the world . That's very sad.
How can you not like men, men and women are indivisible.
The violence between sexes goes both ways. I have personally known more Female on Male violence than Male on Female. One night I saw someone I knew through a friend that I had not seen in years. I asked how the mutual friend was doing and she was like "You didn't hear?"
Come to find out the guy I had asked about had hit his wife. However, I personally witnessed her physically assaulting him on repeated occasions as he stood there and took it. (I by no means see this Female as in any way "representative" - she is one of the most psychologically disturbed people I have ever met.) He never "reported it" - often it had nothing to do with him or anything he had done. However, he once apparently hit back. He was demonized and she became a "victim".
I've known other instances like this. Violence goes in all directions. And as the "Economy" goes down and more and more people have less and less, it will probably get worse and worse.
Justice
I am blaming noone.
I think I understand men and women , they are all people with hearts and minds , who love , hate etc etc You get the idea. We are the same.
We have to go beyond the artificial divisions of society and labels and strive for unity if we want to achieve anything like social and economic liberation.
I think pornography is a strictly american issue, No other country is so afraid of sex, yet so happy about maining & killing!
Hell I've paintings in the vatican that can't be shown on american TV, any religon that tries to get rid of sex will fail.. Just look at the Shakers, almost gone.
>^^<
RICHARD: Although I think you are an illiterate dunce, and your spelling attests to it... SEX is a wonderful, beautiful, magical, poetic thing. A woman giving head to 30 men, or a woman being penetrated by 2 at once, over and over again IS NOT remotely akin to any of the above. That so many men have lost a capacity to feel, to experience love, and therefore now require one of the Viagra-chemicals and/or disgusting images of many men doing onto ONE woman to "get off" or "get it up" shows how SICK our society has become. (Robert Jensen documented all this in gory detail in his book, "Getting Off.")
Images have consequences. That's one of the key powers of media... its use of sound and image, symbols as well, to move people and influence, if not control, their behavior.
As a mother of daughters, as a grandmother with a little beautiful angelic granddaughter, I do not endorse a world no longer safe for these females... every third police officer probably watches this crap and it will spill over submliminally into how he views, and treats women. Every college frat boy that indulges in these image-based rituals to go jerk off in the shower, will carry the ghost of this distorted sexuality into his actual relationships with women. Because a type of porn that DAMAGES women is being proliferated, many women will pay.
Porn and sex are like comparing rap with a concert symphony.
HERD: I am so tired of you, possibly as a Martian Bachelor RETREAD, trying to use a few anecdotes of a woman going off on a man, to suggest an EQUIVALENCE in violent behaviors.
How many men are gang raped in Congo?
How many men are raped as acts of war?
How many men go to the emergency room because they were battered by their spouses or boyfriends?
The statistics are MORE THAN CLEAR. Violence to women, by men, is rampant. The other, to the extent that it exists, is an anomaly of our very violent times.
Bravo, Rose. Just to inform you that there are men who get it.
MORTICIA: I've been over this "terrain" with you before. I think you're a phony, as few women would identify with the bondage that denigrates them all.
It is not my job to educate you. Any IDIOT can look at the shape of a bullet or missile and NOTICE the "coincidence" of it resembling a penis.
I happen to like men on an individual basis, and certainly enjoy sexual passion; but masculine culture and its ideal of war I do NOT like. You constanty conflate the two, have had the nerve to say I hate men; and therefore clearly have ulterior motives for setting up these false constructs. I find it hard to believe a woman with an intellect could read my posts and draw from them the false characterizations that you do. Again and again and again.
Try reading Shulamith Firestone, Betty Friedan, Susan Faludi, Germaine Greer, etc. Unless you prefer to remain absolutely CLUELESS. Perhaps you do, since in these threads your modus operandi works like the Right wing smear machine. You attempt to invert the BIG ISSUES I raise about culture, into my personal problems.
You are one fool I need not suffer gracefully. From every topic raised by this forum, I don't believe I've ever once seen you take the higher consciousness into account.
SR - I must admit, your obsession with blaming men is irksome. Don't you have any other drums to bang? After Christmas, go have a look in the trees when the weaver birds are building their nests. It's the female who hops impatiently from foot to foot, driven near insane by the rage of spring hormones, as the male builds her nest and her security and the future of the species. I see some similarities with birds and humans. Your argument is like two sides of the same coin arguing over who gets to spend it - both men and women share equal responsibility for everything, and the tyranny of oestrogen would be as nasty a thing as the tyranny of testosterone. I see no compromise, just intellectual hate inside you, and it worries me.
And the real shame for me, is that you would have women equal in, as the article states, the right to enter a world of corporate serfdom. Either that or you want a return to matriarchal society, which itself would be skewed in terms of gender power relations. Let's see how quickly smooth words turn bitter.
There's a big problem in the US armed forces with female troops being raped by their male counterparts. Equality? Far from it.
ONE MAN: What is irksome is confusing my indictment of an unbalanced, Mars-rules, war-worshipping culture with ME blaming men.
Until you take time to read about patriarchal constructs from the perspective of those outside the paradigm (by that I mean that generally endorsed MODEL based on asymmetric beliefs and mores), YOU will remain trapped inside it. By putting the onus on me for allegedly blaming men, you get to dismiss the key issues I've validly raised. Convenient, that sleight of hand.
Just as you once tried to sound "in the know" by speaking of the Aquarian Age as related to water; and when I corrected you, that Aquarius in an AIR sign (albeit signified by the "water carrier") you said nothing... here again, YOU are the one who is not up to speed on FACTS.
It says a lot about a person from the company they keep. Your argument FOR the status quo, and thus sexism, suggests that you're operating here with your little squad of buddies, all of whom wish to keep the conversation within the "allowable limits." You people remind me of the waiters on the Titanic. You keep telling everyone in the lower cabins that everything is fine, is being taken care of, to just have a little trust and be patient... pay no attention to that water in your cabin. Meanwhile the wealthy are directed into the lifeboats.
Until the dis-ease(s) that is undermining our society, eroding its mores, consigning its citizens to hell can be truthfully exposed, the healing (in the form of a new collective consciousness) will be delayed. Who can wait, given the direction of the homeland security state?
ANYONE who argues FOR sexism, racism, the class war, the two-party sold-out system, GM technology, nuclear technology, that global warming is a hoax, that 911 happened just the way our corrupt media said it did, that Iraq/Afghanistan are our enemies (did I leave anything else out?), oh, and that people of conscience, those who have dedicated their lives to working for social justice, education, equality, and ecological sanity ARE TO BLAME... every one supporting these constructs is either wearing blinders, ignorant, or has a nefarious PAID agenda.
Enlightenment Happens! Or could...
P.S. Men and women are not equally responsible. A society that allots privileges only to men (which was the case for all the centuries that led up to the present), does not grant equal power to both genders to make such determinations. Without equal input, there is not equal culpability or responsibility. I do NOT think you are here to learn anything. Your motive is more about repeating the false meme that I have an obsession, and/or that I hate men. Both are PATENTLY false. I am the whistleblower here, so it's easier to try to cast aspersions on me, then OWN the truth of what I deliver. Your motives TAINT your commentary. I have been tasked with this same crap repeated times in this forum likely by the same perpetrators. COWARDS, each and all, you hide behind a number of screen names to repeat the same lies. Karl Rove, Goebbels, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck would be proud of you. Your karma will catch up with you... even if it holds you to account at the level of your ignorance, which appears to be the key resource you hold in common with your cyber buddies.
SIOUX ROSE -
Firstly, I do apologise for upsetting you in anyway. That was certainly not my attention. My intention was to start debate and to disagree.
Having said that, your verbal broadside was completely unwarranted.
How dare you equate me to Goebbels, Rove, Beck et al. Who do you think you are to pass judgement on complete strangers, just because they disagree with you? That's a whole load of small-minded, fear-filled totaliarianism on your part.
I enjoy reading your comments every day, because I thought you were coming from a place of peace and harmony. Of deeper understanding. Apparently not. You get so offensive, so quick. I have no motives, no agenda. I am not even American. I have never been to America. I am not some corporate schill paid to disrupt Common Dreams, as you insinuate. I don't have any vested interest in defending or attacking the status quo.
As far as karma goes - karma doesn't catch up with anyone. We are all living our own karma every millisecond of our existence. Acorns and oak trees. And even, if as you suggest, so-called "bad karma" caught up with me, why, that would be good, because I would be progressing through my karmic debt. Don't play patty-cake with big concepts you apparently know nothing about.
Why that makes me a coward, I have no idea and as for cyber buddies - read the name, thorny, one man tribe. One man. No tribe. No clan to belong to. No need to hide behind the laager of collective perception. If anything, you are the one who has a little cabal of followers on Common Dreams. Every day. Every week for years. I think it damages your ego. Unhealthy.
After this posting session, myself and no doubt a lot of other people whom you have verbally lambasted, (although I give two hoots for them, because as I have said, one man, and no tribe), have seen right through you. Sioux Rose indeed, and as prickly as the thorns therein. You barely tolerate men, and take every opportunity to attack them. I have seen countless examples.
Ater all this, I do apologise though for offending or upsetting
Peace on you, nevertheless.
I think S-R was talking about the pervasiveness and destructiveness of the dominator model. It was a more generalized statement about the harmfulness of that paradigm.
As it is, men are the dominant gender in our society, and women do not really share the "catastrophe" equally. Indeed, we have Thatcher, Albright, Clinton, Palin, Merkel, Rice, Meir, etc., who have been admitted to the higher levels of the patriarchy because they have demonstrated their allegiance to its skew. The imbalance exists, undeniably. That is not to say that women do not have hand in maintaining it, but history - and a quick scan through media, literature, world religions, science - will show the accuracy of that observation. (Have you ever seen photos of women at the Wailing Wall?)
Pop quiz: name the scientists that discovered and described DNA. (no cheating!)
In another, degenerate example of the dominator paradigm, America has become the biggest promulgator of the Cult of Death and its eroticization and glorification, a degraded / corrupted expression of the dominator paradigm.
RE: the word, TITS. it's not polite. I do not care what language you use when you are in bed with your s.o., that's between you two. But this word derived from the word, TEATS, which is a term used to describe features on animals. I expect a little decorum to be in order at a meeting, or in a professional setting. A little respect, yes? Is that so hard?
I'm not interested in arguing the relative degrees of responsibility for the "catastrophe" our world has become. My comments are not an attack on men, but merely a reinforcement of the comments on the destructive effects of the dominator paradigm - it hurts everyone, even the dominators.
Sioux Rose is correct that there is a discrimination culture that places men in positions of authority and women as its victims. The part she misses is that she is part of that culture- in her writings and her attitude. You can't persuade her by logic, the culture does not allow it. The only way to transcend culture is to be aware of it and by an act of will refuse to participate in evil cultural practices. Thus far she has been unable to exert that will and so participates in making women victims. I believe it is a divine spark that creates necessary profound act of ideation. Only through praying can SR energize herself. You on the other hand are wasting your time with arguments that no one disagrees with.
Sioux Rose,
I haven't heard the phrase "the great remembering" before but the concept is very beautiful and I hope it will eventually manifest into a shared vision that will save us from the pervasive influence of the domination and exploitation of life.
I think mothers and fathers, if they are observant and perceptive, see the remnants of what you describe in very young children. The undiminished awe and wonder and reverence for all natural things. The joy in discovering different forms of life. The capacity to join in and become a part of the natural transformations in our midst.
And then we watch this natural brilliance and innate knowledge evaporate before our saddened eyes as the kids become "socialized."
I think you're correct, that this intelligence lies dormant within us all. I guess the question of how to reformulate or bring it back to life is the key, or a key, to our salvation.