Happy to have coffee with you at anytime. But what I’ve been talking about
IS business and as I’ve practiced it successfully here. It seems to me that
we have to change the assumptions.
REH
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Arthur Cordell
Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2011 10:08 AM
To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION'
Subject: Re: [Futurework] The 'New Normal' of Unemployment
Ray,
I agree with much of what you write and care about.
I really don’t know how to right past wrongs. This holds true for what has
been done to your people and what has been done to religious and ethnic groups
in many areas of the world.
All we can do is try to make things better as we go forward.
I think the kinds of things that pre-occupy you and touch me as well are best
discussed over a coffee or perhaps a beer or two and when I am next in your
part of the world, NYC, I look forward to talking through some of these issues.
For now I would like to leave this discussion for a face to face sometime in
the future.
All good wishes
Arthur
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ray Harrell
Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2011 10:30 PM
To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION'
Subject: Re: [Futurework] The 'New Normal' of Unemployment
1. “Be Careful” Given the history I’m surprised that you think I
wouldn’t be careful.
2. “Don’t be swayed by the current intellectual fashion.” Are you
referring to my statements about the most advanced architectural and
transportation projects today are to be found in Asia and China in particular
and in the Islamic countries? If so, data is just data. I’m concerned
about comparative advantage in the coming world. I’m concerned that we
support our disloyal, unpatriotic fat cats and do nothing to keep up with the
rest of the world. During the Cold War America propagated the myth that we
were great followers and developers of culture. Abstract Expressionism, the
Congress for Cultural Freedom, many journals in Europe and most of all,
building 81 Opera Houses and many orchestras in Germany. All to prove that we
were a better model for culture oriented Europe than the Soviets and their Arts
structures. Today, America won the war and reverted to trinkets and trash
entertainment and hires the Russians to do our serious music. It was a lie
that won the war and we are non-competitive because of that lie. It was
true once but since the 1980s and the conservative revolution it has destroyed
the fragile flower of Minimalism and an evolving American artistic
professionalism equal to anyplace in the world.
One other thing. In the first seventy years after 1776 America murdered a
large percentage of my people, stole our property, stole our children and only
stopped enslaving us because Africans were less expensive and more easily
replaced. (their words). Our way of life was ravaged, lied about, we were
stolen blind and at the end of those seventy years our religion was made
illegal because it protected the land from speculators and resisted
missionaries. One hundred years after 1776 we still were able to mount an
army that destroyed Custer’s 7th Cavalry. What were we protecting? The
legal treaty land titles to the Sioux “Jerusalem” at Paha Sapa in the Black
Hills. Red Cloud had won the day and Custer, that little thief, went into the
Black Hills and destroyed the treaty. In the quarter of the 20th century
the courts found that the Sioux were cheated and tried to buy them out at the
1880 price. Even today the Sioux refuse to take billions in cash for the
sacred land that they fought and died for and that represents their identity as
a people. As a result they are the poorest people in America with 80%
unemployment at Pine Ridge. Some things are ideals and you don’t sell your
identity for anything.
3. “Profound solutions happen slowly” That is what I’ve been saying to
Harry. It took us a thousand years to make the land philosophy (that Harry
speaks of) a part of the total fabric of our culture. In 1492 we were
millions and the size of France. By 1838 we were 20,000 and still our lands
were so well developed with our policies that the State of Georgia coveted them
and sent us on a death march to the barren plains of Oklahoma where we
accomplished the same thing again including the best schools west of the
Mississippi at the time and still they attacked and disbanded us. Harry has
no idea what he asking. If he got it, they would take it and change it back.
4. “tyrants kill people who look different.” America tells nice stories
but even today there are people who are robbed and killed for what they wear
and what they look like. We were once 30 to 40 million people. By the turn
of the 19th century we were less than 150,000. More crimes are committed
against American Indians by non-Indians than any other group. We’ve been a
punching bag since 1492.
5. “I feel your pain” I don’t know what that statement means.
REH
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Arthur Cordell
Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2011 9:07 AM
To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION'
Subject: Re: [Futurework] The 'New Normal' of Unemployment
1. Be careful of what you embrace, it might turn around and bite you later
on.
2. Intellectuals in the 30’s were equally taken with Russia, intellectuals
in the 60’s were equally taken with Mao. Some intellectuals are taken with
Islam today.
3. Intellectuals seeking total solutions sometimes grab on to total
ideologies not realizing that change comes bit by bit. Small bites are more
easily digestible.
4. A revolution is not a tea party. Be careful of what you ask for. Do you
have smooth hands and wear glasses? The Khmer Rouge would have you killed for
this “crime” since it is clear that you are not a worker.
5. As Clinton would say, “I feel your pain” but there is little I can offer
to ease that pain.
arthur
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