I remember from reading I've done that in the waning days of the Romanov Empire in Russia, dreamers for the new Russia were worried about the trade union movement taking place in the US and Europe, because they felt that some workers would become empowered to win advantages at the expense of other workers. Now, in the United States, while states are struggling with their budgets even more than usually, some want to end collective bargaining for public service union members. They are labeled as the "elite". In a sense they are, because the rights of other workers have either never been won or have been crushed by outsourcing, corporate maneuvering, or by the excesses of labor union movements in the past few decades. But what kind of nonsense is this? Why are we perpetually suckered into such stupid, closed minded, myopic false dichotomies?
Heaven forbid we should take any lessons from the rest of the world! Oh dear, do we have to admit that we maybe weren't first in some discovery? Why don't we have a union for people who are simply employees? We could have another union for the self-employed, as long as such unions cannot be maneuvered into power plays against each other. Can't we just try to make a system that works for people, for the well-being, health, and happiness of people, without all the ideological rubbish? Our ideological self-distraction is just allowing us to be twisted by the interests of the corrupted rich, of excess wealth. It's no wonder "they" used to call people like me "communists", because plain thinking about things is as dangerous to the hegemony of wealth as anything could be.
The transparency that is appearing all over the world lately may become the people's escape hatch. It is hard not to notice the similarities in the corruption of mental health of people like Col. Gadaffi and David Koch. Our democracy is just a marionette show run for and by the corrupted excess wealth with which we are so blessed (due to our own lack of attention). Our democratic systems are allowed to look democratic by the continuation of forms, but nothing gets passed by our legislatures that isn't also blessed by the plutocracy as an acceptable addition to the democratic screen.
Recently in our local laundramat I met a young woman who was reading a copy of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, by Paulo Freire. As an old educator, I was delighted to see anyone reading that book for any reasons under any circumstances. I interrupted her study to inquire why she was reading that book; she reponded that it was required reading in a management course she was taking in her school in New York City. My mind was blown to see that somewhere some professor of management understood the word "management" is such cosmically basic and sublimely democratic terms! Remembering that blows my mind again!
Am I supposed to believe that Rumsfeld's Pentagon really supposed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction? Thousands of us, maybe millions of us, could see that was not true, so I wonder how the Pentagon missed it. Hmm! Soon they won't be able to fool us even by acting so stupid, because we are gradually catching on despite, or maybe because of, our utterly ruined education system. Our best leadership these days seems to be appearing in North Africa, and maybe even the union folks in Madison will see the bigger issues and the compelling connections.
Maybe our children will even lead us into the understanding that money is a medium of exchange to facilitate fair exchange and cooperative interactions between people, not as something to be stashed addictively in a treasure house to be guarded with the highest technology available. In the meantime, what on earth is our federal government doing for us? No wonder the Tea Party folks are angry, even if they haven't quite figured out who their tormentors really are.
