Firstly, it should be said and understood that we did not, in fact, abolish slavery. Where once there was a race-based slavery and its post-abolition cousins, there arose the older and more stable classist slavery. For the practice of slavery as it had become known was “doomed” to fail. It was too in the open, too in the faces of the people. That was accounted for in the “duly convicted” loophole in the thirteenth amendment. We simply pushed it out of sight and out of mind, into places such as prisons and “Free Trade Zones.” The racism of yesterday is the Classism of today. Many of the same groups are targeted for the oppression that is institutionalized poverty.
The Ayn Randian sociopathic megalomania of wealth supremacy is engrained in the very foundations of our society long before we knew it by a nomenclature. Despite the nonsensical Margret Thatcher notion of there being “no such thing as society,” there is and it is against the rest of us. There have been, throughout human history, a class of rulers that took more than was due and did as they pleased. Royalty, religion, emperors, conquerors, warlords, all the way back to the largest Neanderthal have always taken from the rest, selfishness and greed going all the way back. When one has, one believes one should have. When one has much, one believes one deserves more. Further, that those who can take should take.
"Democracy is a totalitarian manifestation; it is not a form of freedom."
Ayn Rand
"I grew up reading Ayn Rand and it taught me quite a bit about who I am and what my value systems are and what my beliefs are. …”
Paul Ryan
Where once there was the threat of the crack of the whip upon one’s back, there is now the threat of the pink slip upon one’s life. This is functional and largely unseen because of the simple fact of the “Cost of living.” As incomparable as it is and does seem the cost of living of the oppressed working class was once paid for by the owners of the plantation. Now, the owners of corporations provide barely enough for the cost of living through the “wage.” The plantation by another name, but, the functionality is much the same. Is this said to diminish the atrocities perpetrated against the slaves of that day? Certainly not. We do not give enough credence to the acts of old, let alone too much. To quickly forget is to quickly repeat. It is said to bring into the light the slavery of today.
But, this threat proved to not be enough. The sixties and early seventies proved as much. There were, still yet, other paths that one could take. Side routes, backdoors, alternative lifestyles and the, now ever elusive, upward social mobility that could raise one up from the depth of poverty and the mediocre conformity of the middle class; the collectively overarching structure allotted for by the powerful. Now flash forward to today, and find that those paths are closed by policy and by criminalization. The middle class shrinks as if by magic, but it is not mystical in origin at all. It is a “planned contrivance.”
"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum."
Noam Chomsky
Credit card debt, student loan debt, mortgage loan debt and the constant cost of raising the nuclear family that keeps down the heads of any whom wish to step out of line. And for those who do, an example is made for all others, who think, to see what becomes of them. We do not have the most people of any country in the world and yet we have the most imprisoned. The land of the free indeed. The ratio of minorities in the populace at large to the populace imprisoned is not statistically anomalous; but, a concerted effort by the puppeteers of groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council and industry trade groups. Disproportionately minority, 13 cents a day "wage," and robbed of the basic human right to leave of their own freewill. This is not to say that violent offenders should not be in prison or should allowed to come and go freely. That is not what bloats our nations prison system.
"The psychology behind this is kind of transparent. When you've got your boot on someone's neck and you're crushing them, you can't say to yourself, "I'm a son of a bitch and I'm doing it for my own benefit." So what you have to do is figure out some way of saying, "I'm doing it for their benefit." It's like when you punish a child. "It is for your good, I have to do it. It is my responsibility."
Noam Chomsky
We are one of the richest nations in the world, and yet we have an institutionalized epidemic of homelessness. For them? No American dream. Do what is required of you or to the streets with you. Lost and forgotten, left to die of starvation or exposure. The freedom to life? Ignored. Forget happiness. But you still have, what is called, your liberty. The,
There's no ceiling and no floor. If you want to be a bum, you can..., notion from Casino Jack. An amusing line, but a painful reality. There are those who don't care. The problem is that those who don't care tend to be the ones with all the money and power. Back to the sociopathy of Randian notions and her "Altruism is evil."
“Too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives from the shattered dreams of other human beings.”
Robert Fitzgerald Kennedy
Taken out of context? Surely. Those who are excused are the ones who enslave us. But none-the-less true, as economic violence is the bullet of today. Why rob a man of his life, when you can rob him of his path? And still yet further, why bind a man’s hands in chains of iron, when you can bind his mind in chains of ideology? If you can make him believe that if only he would work harder he too could be rich, that he too could be an enslaver, pardon me, a “job creator.” What better manner of action could be devised? Convince the slave that they are free.
“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Imagine for a moment the tasks that would be given to the robots, the androids of the future. What are those tasks, but the tasks we force human beings to do today? Why bother building and programming robots, when you can raise generation after generation of humans that believe that they can become what they cannot become. Are we not Pinocchio trying to become a real boy? Would we not see the robots as the slaves that they would be? Yet do we not delude ourselves into believing that we are not the slaves we are?
“If we took away the minimum wage -- if conceivably it was gone -- we could potentially virtually wipe out the unemployment because we could offer jobs at whatever level.” Michelle Bachman
And we are not slaves? No minimum wage? We
did try that and it
was slavery. They say unemployment, I say unenslavement. It is no coincidence that those who were so in favor of slavery and the plantation structure are so Classist and in favor of the corporate structure today. One, usually white, owner lording over a workforce of poor who have little to no rights, little to no say and the smallest of portions of the fruits of the labor. The corporate structure is dictatorial and without democracy of any kind. Wage slavery is the slave trade of today. Debt slavery is the peonage of today.
“Whoever gives his labor for money sells himself and puts himself in the rank of slaves” Marcus Tullius Cicero
It is my opinion that all work, which is not for one’s self, is prostitution. A temporary “self-sale” into the empire of corporate America. If you had the money to not work, would you do the work you do now for the corporation that you do it for? Unfortunately, in many cases women who are without sexually prostitute themselves to get by. The jump to a man’s wage slavery for the all mighty paycheck is a small one. Evolutionarily women have sex to perpetuate the species, then take care of those children while the male is away "earning a living," which literally means the gathering of that which is needed for life. Other animals and organisms are said to "earn their living" in X way. Anything outside of that which is needed or for pleasure is a prostitution of those drives. The only difference is that of rape and coercion, force and the offer that can not be refused. All the fruits of an individual’s labor should go to the individual laboring, not up a tyrannical pyramid to benefit a fractional elite. Thus arises the beauty of the worker owned factory and the democratic corporation. Remember, of the people, for the people, by the people? Interesting, such old words still ringing so very true.
"...a corporation or an industry is, if we were to think of it in political terms, fascist; that is,[sic] it has tight control at the top and strict obedience has to be established at every level--there's little bargaining, a little give and take,but the line of authority is perfectly straightforward."
Noam Chomsky
Any danger to said power, or strict obedience, is seen as a mortal threat to their regime. Thus the eternal war on unions is waged with such vitriol and vigor; Collectivism and the notion of community hated with enduring fervor. Any power outside of the hands of those in power, CEO's, owners, management and the political class is seen through the eyes of a plantation owner putting down a slave revolt. The decline of unions in the private sector is held up as a jealousy-inducing prize in an attempt to thwart the outsider power of the public sector unions. Hence Randian delusion arises again, she decried the right to tax and detested all things public, roads and schools. All things except the police, courts and military. Interestingly, the things needed for the fascism she claimed also to detest. Every law is a step away from freedom, carefully we must trend lest we run from that which
we claim to love.
Hence, following their prophet, Republicans despise the Public Broadcasting Station and Romney's big bird comment during the debate. It twas no spur of the moment comment. Much like the following comment that is core ideology. God-mythforbid a politician say what he really thinks... might lose an election.
"There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it -- that that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. …”
Mitt Romney
And back to the cost of living problem for them. They want what they have designed to continue. That the cost of living should be the burden of the “free” for having rejected their blatant slavery for the stealth slavery of today.
Cowen Thorne