Beautifully said!
Barry
On Sep 30, 2010, at 5:26 PM, Ray Harrell wrote:
Thanks Arthur, Question: Can there be political will in the face
of ruin? I’ve personally run that process for years but few
people are willing to walk as close the edge as I and my family
do. For example, we spend everything on the Art and the community
and go monthly from hand to mouth with no perks such as
retirement. One of the members of list spoke of the need to only
have $100,000 per year to live comfortably. Today, the rising
prices and the fewer students make it harder than ever and
sacrifices necessary but my record at my death will be
significant. Things to remember because I worked to create
significant products. I already have my place in the history of
American music simply with what I have done with composers. There
are other things as well. But you have to be comfortable with
creativity and edginess as a way of life. Someone called it the
old “die broke” theory. But when I read that book (Die Broke) I
was surprised that he didn’t realize that Artists and Indians had
been doing that for generations because those who didn’t grew
addicted to money and lost their souls. Who is more lost than
the pitiful billionaires today amassing collectables from people who
WERE significant? Sitting Bull’s and Custer’s rifles.
Jefferson’s lousy wine. They will collect my trash as well but
they will not have been me or understand me. Who is more
pitiful than those who consider that the fragile paper or hard
stones that they place their souls within can disappear in a
moment? They belong to paper, we belong to the earth.
REH
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]
] On Behalf Of Arthur Cordell
Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2010 4:10 PM
To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION'
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Not a very positive picture
. Your system doesn’t work Ed, Arthur, Chris, Harry, Spencer,
Tom, etc., etc, etc. Your system doesn’t work. You need to
think harder and write. Or is the fact that Futurework has been
quiet on my computer mean I’ve been banned or removed from the list?
=====================
Maybe silence is consent. The system works for some and doesn’t
work for most. Many ideas have been put forward to make things
better. The ideas are out there but political will is lacking.
Arthur
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]
] On Behalf Of Ray Harrell
Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2010 3:18 PM
To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION'
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Not a very positive picture
The problem is a system that must generate progress through surplus
(profit). That redefines sustainability and stability into
stagnation and creates a situation that is at best chaotic with lots
of Private Enterprise viruses eating at the root of the tree of
prosperity. Their only comparison is to the failure of
“communism” which was really a “King” system with an elite advisory
legislature. Their inadequate version of our counsel system.
Either way they are both western products in a culture that admires
aristocracy more than anything. It’s your system Ed.
That’s what those first Nation’s folks have had to deal with all of
their lives. But it doesn’t really work without the church beating
them over the head for being evil. Untrammeled they are just dog
eat dog and inefficient.
Take for example, two things on the web. Dictionary. Com and
Babelfish. They used to be open use and had great reference.
Good etymological sources and reasonable translations for some
languages. But there was no profit in that and everyone jumped on
the copyright wagon and now we have an inferior free product and if
you buy Babylon or any of the other for profit products they gum up
your system because they operate like an invading army. They are
also inferior translations. I put a German or Italian art song
text in and they can’t translate it. I’m still driven back to my
library and the hard copy. For a brief moment there was a
promise by capitalism has closed the door and information, just like
what happened with the telephone system, is fragmented and
disconnected. The rule for you white folks is the opposed of “We
are all connected.” It’s “we are all disconnected in order to
make a profit.”
Because there are no regulations to keep the flow of information
open, the creative small sector slowly succumbs to the big for
profit sector and what we get are private governments of wealthy
stockholders unchecked by anyone. Even the Supreme Court has sold
out. So it’s the system Ed. Your system doesn’t work Ed,
Arthur, Chris, Harry, Spencer, Tom, etc., etc, etc. Your
system doesn’t work. You need to think harder and write. Or is
the fact that Futurework has been quiet on my computer mean I’ve
been banned or removed from the list?
REH
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]
] On Behalf Of Ed Weick
Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2010 2:57 PM
To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Not a very positive picture
Partly because some recent US Presidents had a strange faith in
supply side and trickle down economics, very rich Americans have
become much richer and poor Americans have become much poorer, while
the middle class has declined. Presidents Reagan and G.W. Bush
believed that giving large tax cuts to the very rich and to business
would "trickle down" into investment that would boost the economy
and employment. It simply didn't happen that way. The rich liked
the extra money that the tax cuts gave them and hung onto it.
It's difficult to assess where Obama is with regard to all of this.
I believe he intends to put an end to Bush's tax cuts for the rich
before long and make other adjustments to taxes and tax credits, but
he's not in a very strong position to do anything right now.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
From: Ray Harrell
To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION'
Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2010 12:25 PM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Not a very positive picture
Of more interest to me is the frozen capital at the top and we
refuse to tax them to free some of it for work in the economy.
REH
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]
] On Behalf Of Ed Weick
Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2010 10:07 AM
To: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: [Futurework] Not a very positive picture
From yesterday's Washington Post.
Ed
As 44 million Americans live in poverty, a crisis grows
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
It's clear that the Great Recession battered those on the bottom
most heavily, adding 6 million people to the ranks of the officially
poor, defined as just $22,000 in annual income for a family of four.
Forty-four million Americans -- one in seven citizens -- are now
living below the poverty line, more than at any time since the
Census Bureau began tracking poverty 51 years ago. Shamefully, that
figure includes one in five children, more than one in four African
Americans or Latinos, and over 51 percent of female-headed families
with children under 6.
These numbers are bad enough. But dig deeper -- as Georgetown
University law professor Peter Edelman has been doing for nearly 50
years in his battle against poverty -- and the story told by these
figures is even more staggering.
Edelman points out that 19 million people are now living in "extreme
poverty," which is under 50 percent of the poverty line, or $11,000
for a family of four. "That means over 43 percent of the poor are
extremely poor," said Edelman, who served as an aide to Sen. Robert
Kennedy (D-N.Y.) and in the Clinton administration before resigning
in protest over welfare reform that shredded the safety net. "That's
over 6 percent of the population, and that figure has just been
climbing up and up."
Edelman says that the number of people living at less than two times
the poverty line ($44,000 for a family of four) is equally
significant.
"Data shows that's really the line between whether or not you can
pay your bills," said Edelman. "That has reached 100,411,000 people.
That's 33 percent of the country. That's the totality of the problem
-- whether you call it poverty or not."
For too long we have accepted the narrative -- promoted by well-
funded conservative think tanks -- that claims people who are
struggling are to blame for their troubles, and at the same time we
don't have effective anti-poverty policies. So tackling the problem
is seen as wasteful.
"So many people think it's their own fault," said Edelman. "They
don't see the structural problem in our economy."
But with so many in poverty, that narrative has become harder to
sustain during the Great Recession, and so renewed work is being
done to take on poverty and its structural underpinnings.
[If you want to read more, go to:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/28/AR2010092802356.html?wpisrc=nl_opinions
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