Friday, December 02, 2005
I just read "You Can’t Be Neutral on A Moving Train" by Howard Zinn and I realized his interpretation of the term Neutral is different from mine. By the Way, this is an awesome book and I recommend reading it in addition to "The People’s History of The United States".
The definition of neutral is:
- neither moral nor immoral; neither good nor evil, right nor wrong
- impersonal: having no personal preference; "impersonal criticism"; "a neutral observer"
- not supporting or favoring either side in a war, dispute, or contest
- of something that is lacking hue; "neutral colors like back or white"
- possessing no distinctive quality or characteristics
- one who does not side with any party in a war or dispute
- lacking distinguishing quality or characteristics; "a neutral personality that made no impression whatever"
These descriptions of neutral are not really what I had in mind when I envisioned this blog.
When I use the term neutral in relation to politics, I just want the reader to understand that I swear allegiance to neither Democrat nor Republican, none to the “left nor the “right”. I evaluate issues and politicians on a case by case basis. I do not blindly follow a group. During war time I do take sides but my allegiance is to the group or individual that represents my values and morals. In fact, this is how I judge every issue or individual.
In today’s political arena there really isn’t any group that completely represents my values. The only commonality with the two political parties is they all support the upper class, the wealthier Americans. Very few times will you see a politician defending and supporting the poor or the lower class needs.
I have always believed the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few but this is not how America works. The needs of the richest people that buy the best lobbyists, politicians and judges outweigh everybody else. The true divide in America is between the upper class and the lower classes. This is proven on a daily basis with a variety of issues:
- Welfare is allowed for corporations but not for individuals.
- Professional athletes are adorned and paid as heroes while the soldiers, policemen, firemen and educators can never seem to get a decent living wage.
- A CEO earning over 450% of his employee's average salary can complain about the high price of wages, terminate half his company's work force, and then collect a record breaking bonus. Now I understand why the French citizens used to behead the rich.
- Copying is now stealing and the jail sentences are longer for copying than for stealing.
- Huge Corporations are allowed to merge to stifle competition and squeeze out jobs.
- NAFTA and CAFTA benefit the richest corporations while the majority of Americans loose jobs. As a bonus, the residents of these smaller countries are thrust into a new form of slavery.
- Credits laws do not protect the individuals but instead are written for the wealthier corporations. These rules are created to keep people in debt. You should never have to pay back a loan in which the interest exceeds (or even comes close) to the original principle – this is loan sharking.
- Employment laws are virtually non existence in America or these laws benefit the company not the individual.
- Your land, house and property can be taken from you at any time to build a shopping mall.
- “Beyond A Reasonable Doubt” has no meaning anymore as people are put in jail and on death row for little or no evidence at all. Usually the defendant cannot afford a proper attorney and looses the “game”. Unless you are rich and can afford a decent defense, then you can get away with murder.
- War is never waged with the upper classes children but with the children from the lower classes. The upper class kids are too busy with school work to be bothered with something as trivial as defending our freedom.
- Casinos are built with the promise of good jobs but in reality these jobs are the lowest paying of any skill and the tax money that was promised to schools never arrives. Meanwhile, the corporations win again by earning hundreds of millions in profits.
- The burden of keeping our air clean is passed to the drivers of cars by way of emissions testing; while the richer companies that pollute more in a day that most cities with cars polute in a week, have little or no standards at all.
- We declare war on terrorism and drugs, which is great, but how about a war on illiteracy, homelessness and hunger. I'll tell you why; because these help too many poor people.
People everywhere should have a voice and be heard regardless of how much money they have in their pocket. I am in favor of earning a profit but as a civilized society we should help people that need help instead of promoting and encouraging gross wealth.
I am neutral when it comes to party affiliation but I take sides on issues. I have values, morals and support candidates with similar values and ideas but I will not have blind faith in anything.
posted by DarthImmortal at 12:54 PM
4 Comments:
You have an interesting perspective here, but the question I have is how to achieve this. Communism was a valiant attempt, but people are inherently greedy. If you take, for example, some homeless impoverished person and give him/her all the wealth in the world, they will hoard it just the same as anyone who's lived with that sort of wealth their whole lives. I believe that a class system is necessary to the survival and productivity of any society. It doesn't mean that injustice among the classes should be tolerated, but that their existence is necessary.
I agree that we, as a society, should better our society and our culture with literacy programs, more focus on education, and other such positive reinforcement, but the fact still remains that a caste system is necessary. There will always be those who aren't as fortunate as others. It's the way humanity functions.
I do enjoy your blog entries!
Instead of looking back through out Western civilizations, let's look at how the American indian lived. It was a community, where everybody worked, played and socialized. Everybody hunted and everybody ate; that is the perfect society.
In our society the workers cannot afford to live because many are not paid a living wage. When the working class finally finds a way to earn a good living, the owners find a way to elimite it (hence globalization). Now the owners can enslave an entire country.
A perfect society is a mixture of socialism and capitalism, which are both evil in different ways.
There are several exceptions to the "american indian" example. In fact, by the time of European arrival, native populations were beginning to war over natural resources since the populations of certain groups were growing more rapidly than their native environments could withstand. There was prevalent slavery in most of the native societies and a very intricate social hierarchy that functioned much like the early western civilizations. Tribes and groups living in Chaco canyon is a very good example of this. There have been hundreds of "guard" stations unearthed all over the desert hinting that the area was wellfortified against outside warmongers. Furthermore, Pueblo Bonita and Cliff Palace exude a hierarchy of individuals. Some rooms were simple, some moderately ornate, and the "apartments" at the top of the complex were huge with many rooms including private bathing areas and scenic private patio areas. Eastern Woodlands populations functioned very similarly as well as most of the plains indians and northwest coast hunter gatherer societies.
There are always haves and havenots. This doesn't mean that the "havenots" are miserable or impoverished. In fact, in the most successful and longstanding societies, the lower class populations were still better off than they would be alone and were able to support themselves. Historically, they've been the artisans and craftsmen of society and an integral part of keeping the culture alive. It's not a bad thing to have a caste system in culture; it is in fact, necessary.
Another good one!
I've been thinking about Liz's comments about caste systems. And it's true, that native populations were running into some of the same issues of warring amongst themselves and overextending the natural resources of the land. Now, it's been awhile since I've researched and read about Native American culture (for example), but it seems to me that the fundamental difference between today's caste system and the Native American one, is that the Native American one allowed people to evolve into a caste system based on their skills, whereas many times in today's society, a person is "marked" automatically by their income. Native American males would hunt, they pretty much would all learn to do this, because it was necessary for the tribe's survival as a group, but also necessary for the survival on the individual as well. But learning some of the other skills, to paint, to become a shaman, for example, were based on the individual's aptitude. So once the basic skills were taught to all, the individuals were allowed to specialize. So they felt a part of the whole. They did have the responsibility to the whole tribe, being depended upon, but they were still allowed to be individuals that could pursue their own things as well, based on their own desires and curiosities.
Today, it can work similarly, we can do things for the whole of society, and our individual expressions as well, but with only a few exceptions, we are not being treated as equals within the tribe anymore. The shaman was not looked down upon by the rest of the tribe for not hunting, because He Was Respected. He was treated as an equal, and was considered necessary, because their spiritual wellbeing was considered as important as the survival of the tribe itself.
So to me, the caste system of the Native Americans mostly divided people by their interests and skill sets, not the money in their pocket, and it was about respecting the Path of the Individual, as well as the Path of the Tribe. Today's caste system is for those in power to retain that power with the majority of the benefits going to the elite, while the majority of the non-elite do the work and suffering, and getting the smaller percentage of the fruits of their labors.
I'm suddenly recalling a quote from the movie "Aliens", when they have discovered that Carter Burke was going to attempt to smuggle Aliens through quarantine using Ripley and Newt:
Ripley: "I don't know which one's worse! You don't see them fucking each other over a goddamn percentage!"
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