Keith Hudson wrote:
At 09:51 15/05/2005 -0400, Brad McCormick, Ed.D. wrote:
Here's a story from today's Washington Post, about a soon to be
vanishing breed of patirotic American: a citizen who did right by his
country and his company and then his country and his company takes care of him:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/14/AR2005051400515.html?referrer=email&referrer=email <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/14/AR2005051400515.html?referrer=email&referrer=email>
It's un-American (Social Security and corporate[sic] pensions). It's going away. America's experiment with communism [or was it national socialism???] is ending.
As Condi said, "freedom" does not need to be imposed on people, because people spontaneously *want* freedom (freedom from pensions, etc., I presume she was talking about, although she didn't spell out this detail...) -- although, as she also said, the United States does help people in oppressed nations who are trying to win their freedom.
But not in Uzbekistan where young people demonstrating for freedom are being slaughtered in their hundreds by Karimov's Praetorian Guards. Our Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, "deplores" this "clear abuse of human rights" while American troops sit tight in their huge well-equipped base not very far away.
You bring up an important distinction here:
(1) America "encourages" freedom fighters: America even gives them aid go dig themselves
into a deeper hole then they could fund by themselves (printing presses,
radio broadcasts, etc.).
But, when unarmed civilians come to tanks -- excuse me, I meant: when push comes
to shove, then (2) the United States *doesn't lift a finger*. This happened most
famously in Hungary in 1956, and then again in southern Iraq in 1991.
Moral? Don't trust America.
--
BACK TO AMERICA"S EXPERIMENT WITH COMMUNISM:
DIfferent angle: The more I think about it, the more I am fascinated by this
notion of "America's experiment with communism". I'm beginning to
see the period from 1950 to 1970 (more or less...)
as, indeed, rather "communistic" in
America. Surely not as communistic at an anracho-syndicalist
would want: The corporate executives here were no more
"the people's representatives" than the bosses in The Soviet Union.
But I thought of something I've argued previously: Giant corporations here are no more "private enterprise" than state enterprises were in The Soviet Union. I define private enterprise as Sam Farmer trading some grain for Joe Blacksmith to shoe his horse, where Sam hands Joe the grain looking into Joe's eyes, and Joe returns Sam's horse looking into Sam's eyes (Would you disagree, Harry?).
From the worker's perspective,
he or she was working for a political organ beyond his
control in both the US and the USSR.
We speak of how the old corporations, like IBM, GM and [in the Wash. Post asrticle:] Glenn L. Martin, were "paternalistic". From the worker's perspective, it matters not one bit whether their social safety net comes from "a private corporation" or from "the government" -- all that matters is that the individual feels SAFE.
So, call it what you want: communism, national socialism, or fascism or capitalism. The difference which makes a difference is:
If Joe Nobody does his job, does Joe Nobody have to worry about his current and future life needs and the life needs of his family and friends being provided for?
The answer today in The United States, as the Washington Post article reaffirms, is: "YES". *That's* what communism, national socialism, or fascism and 1950s American capitalism all had in common: They answered that question: "no" -- we will take care of you. And what could be a more important difference that *that* (at least for *you*, if you ARE Joe Nobody)?
I'm starting to speculatively see the last decades of the first century of barbed wire in a new way, as the age of the social safety net. Them's not the right words in that last sentence, of course.
"Yours in discourse [which tends to be crushed when a person fears for the satisfaction of their basic life needs]...."
\brad mccormick
Keith Hudson
\brad mccormick
-- Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org <http://www.evolutionary-economics.org/>>
-- Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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