Forum Post: cognitive dis-connect
Posted 9 years ago on May 25, 2015, 9:50 p.m. EST by elf3
(4203)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
When our politicians hit so far away from the mark on issues that matter to the people...and do so in an effort to pretend the national conversation is not what it is by pretending it isn't even an issue they need to comment on. As if they can fool the entire population whose intelligence and access to information grows on a daily basis. How long do they think they can keep this up before we all decide to tar and feather them? ...do they think they are going to avoid a tpp incited revolution? By the time power brokers of government and wallstreet get through with us...we will have nothing to lose. We need to take eminent domain over our media outlets as well...conficts of interest staining every one of them...amassing monopolistic wealth and behaving as Mexican Drug Cartels...doing whatever the fuck they want to make more money with which to control us...whores and pimps all in one. Fuck Rupert, Comcast, the whole lot of them...and when you're done tie them to a tree and let the rest of the abused consumers and citizenry eat them alive!
Everyone is aware of manufacturing jobs shutting down but there was much deeper fallout from those trade deals that is scarcely talked about. Those workers pushed out of their fields, had to seek other jobs...which flooded all of our jobs with a surplus of displaced workers ...lowering our pay and forcing competition down our throats.
Also it wasn't just manufacturing, it was call centers and jobs like customer service as well as backend accounting and payroll, which forced many women workers back into administrative roles with less focused responsibilities...employers rolled reception, admin, and collections into one catch all position - many got pushed out entirely and into retail or waitressing too competing with out of work college graduates to get hired. Then as an even further slap companies began usurping long time employees in favor of unpaid millenial interns who needed experience to get hired. Baby boomers unlike gen exers got forced to take lump sum pensions early and were outta there ...those that remained were the most ruthless middle manager hacks among them and largely spend their time making those beneath them miserable. The entire working culture has shifted...the younger generations can not work somewhere longer than five years have no pensions or 401k match...and cant get full time to qualify for health Benefits...not that you would want to stay longer or enjoy being there full time...employers have learned to force you out after around 3 - 5 years get you to quit to avoid paying severance so they can reset the salary back to entry level.
To make matters worse technology seems to be focused on replacing employees and destroying competition as opposed to bettering their products or offerings. As they race eachother on downsizing staff... It is a race to bottom barrel quality instead of innovation. In fields that once paid well like nursing and IT the influx of displaced workers flooding in has further decreased pay and benefits. But even that isn't enough...hospitals and corporations pay government to pay for people to go to school in those fields under the notion they need more workers, however hospitals for instance pay one RN to oversee a whole floor, while employing part time only nursing assistant positions that pay minimum wage ....they could have as many as 100 assistants working an hour or two a week and rotating hours...that way there is no overtime and no benefits and they free themselves to abuse them and take advantage relentlesly when they quit they just pick another off the conveyor belt...which also says a lot about our healthcare quality now...we are all in greater jeopardy and receive less quality care. Our financial iformation has also been placed in jeopardy in third world payroll and Call centers...being traded as a new black market currency.
Constantly looking for ways to undercut workers as they see them as liabilities. Corporations don't get breaks on payroll taxes...it is probably the only tax they can't get out of. Funny. For workers the hits just keep on coming with no end in sight ...now they want to demolish us with the tpp. How sad...
''The naive belief that history is linear, that moral progress accompanies technical progress, is a form of collective self-delusion. It cripples our capacity for radical action and lulls us into a false sense of security. Those who cling to the myth of human progress, who believe that the world inevitably moves toward a higher material and moral state, are held captive by power. Only those who accept the very real possibility of dystopia, of the rise of a ruthless corporate totalitarianism, buttressed by the most terrifying security and surveillance apparatus in human history, are likely to carry out the self-sacrifice necessary for revolt.
''The yearning for positivism that pervades our corporate culture ignores human nature and human history. But to challenge it, to state the obvious fact that things are getting worse, and may soon get much worse, is to be tossed out of the circle of magical thinking that defines American and much of Western culture.
''Wisdom connects us with forces that cannot be measured empirically and that are outside the confines of the rational world. To be wise is to pay homage to beauty, truth, grief, the brevity of life, our own mortality, love and the absurdity and mystery of existence. It is, in short, to honor the sacred.
''Hannah Arendt’s central point in “Eichmann in Jerusalem.” (is) Technocratic human beings are spiritually dead. They are capable of anything, no matter how heinous, because they do not reflect upon or question the ultimate goal. “The longer one listened to him,” Arendt writes of the Nazi Adolf Eichmann on trial, “the more obvious it became that his inability to speak was closely connected with an inability to think, namely, to think from the standpoint of somebody else. No communication was possible with him, not because he lied but because he was surrounded by the most reliable of all safeguards against the words and presence of others, and hence against reality as such.”
''As global capitalism disintegrates, the heresy our corporate masters fear is gaining currency. But that heresy will not be effective until it is divorced from the mania for hope that is an essential part of corporate indoctrination. The ridiculous positivism, the belief that we are headed toward some glorious future, defies reality. Hope, in this sense, is a form of disempowerment.
''There is nothing inevitable about human existence except birth and death. There are no forces, whether divine or technical, that will guarantee us a better future. When we give up false hopes, when we see human nature and history for what they are, when we accept that progress is not preordained, then we can act with an urgency and passion that comprehends the grim possibilities ahead.''
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The above is excerpted and heavily abridged from - ''Our Mania for Hope Is a Curse'' by Chris Hedges: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/our_mania_for_hope_is_a_curse_20150524 - in response to your excellent, heartfelt and paragraphed comment ;-) Solidarity to u & yours + fyi: http://www.leftforum.org/
Thanks! I spotted CLH at the 1st 2 Occupys but not at the last one.He gave a good speech a few days later at the Climate March,though.He is one of many who was caught on camera breaking intoTears of Joy on account of Occupy.The Beginning of Occupy was so freakin' Amazing!
TeleSUR will be Live Streaming The Left Forum plenaries. You can catch up with their updates here.. http://www.telesurtv.net/english/section/news/index.html + Chris Hedges is a brilliant 99% voice + re CLH @ OWS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SKw2j3XOY0 and also see this : http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/19127-the-sparks-of-rebellion + Solidarity 'th' .. and have a very good Left Forum.
Chris Hedges should be president...elegant prose as usual : thanks for posting.
Chris Hedges speaks some very deep truths and I knew you and others would get it. In compliment - I thoroughly recommend this great article to you: http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/30978-movement-builders-should-listen-to-bernie-sanders-focus-on-mass-action-not-candidates Solidarity to you & yours.
It's no fun reading Hedges mostly because what he has to say match the realities of our situation very well.
I was just about to use Hedges' article in reply to you here - http://occupywallst.org/forum/6-awesome-things-about-bernie-sanders-you-might-no/#comment-1060375 but you're ahead of the curve! Solidarity to you and others forum poster attendees at http://www.leftforum.org/ Ideas over individuals matter now. Hedges speaks deep truths to us, some of which are unpalatable but the best medicine is most bitter!
Also what arrogant ass decides to change the forum according to his own whim? Its not that I'm itching for points...it is that someone behaved like a little dictator bully deciding for everyone else. It was also nice to see what people viewed as relevant. You know...democracy in action unlike a decider.
Right, elf. I agree 100%. It also makes it even more important that the rest of us post as much as we can to drown him out.
A couple of them are showing a pattern with their posts-i.e.-"They Might Be Paid Opposition If..." 1) There are a minimum number of posts per day 2) Length of posts grows over time because of bogus or irrelevant content 3) Posting towards the end of the month becomes noticeably more frequent and lengthy 4) Lots of links to political party or SuperPac petitions are posted 5) Content of posts includes signature uses of logical fallacy 6) Lots of posts are devoted to attacking other posters who have been singled out for abuse-usually people who post good,informative links...Sound familiar?
Sounds very familiar. Been going on here for a long time mainly because this movement still scares the hell out of the 1%. It's quite funny how they claim that we are pushing the Republican agenda when, in fact, we are are pushing from the left. They are either really stupid or are paid to do what they do. Maybe both, lol.
Solidarity, trashyharry. And, I believe you have the earliest sign on date of anyone here!! Kudos to you and all that you do!! Good luck at LeftForum this weekend, I'll be re-tweeting your tweets.
Twinkle,Beautiful.You could have knocked me over with a feather when I came walking down Broadway on a warm October evening and saw Occupy."OMG-this is no Internet Hoax-this is REAL"
The day I went to Zuccotti was the day I signed in on this forum. It was one of the most exhilarating feelings I ever had in my life being in that park with all the people waking up. I thought that day would never come, but it did, and the memes of Occupy ring loud and clear in every household today.
Watershed change takes time but the best things in life are always worth waiting for.
Twinkle!
''Karl Marx Was Right'' - by Chris Hedges:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/karl_marx_was_right_20150531
Hope you are well and recovered after your Left Forum visit. Solidarity.
Thanks for making that point, elf.
The forum change has made it difficult for people (like me), whose lives have temporarily taken on a fever pitch, either with more personally imminent necessities, or, perhaps deeper involvement in grass roots activism outside the forum, to come here and quickly catch up each day, by viewing the best comments and their connected conversations from forum members that were trusted as the people here that were the most consistent with OWS core values.
I don't have the time to sift through the bullshit posts of bellicose bullies to get to the important posts that actually have meaningful contributions. It really sucks.
I don't know what "..arrogant ass.."..." chang[ed] the forum according to his own whim," but I do think that DK was getting kinda upset with all those minus 3's & 4's. He seemed to think that there was a scurrilous gang picking on him. But I think that he neglected to consider the other option, and that is, 'A sh..load of people did not think Occupy and the Democrats were one and the same.'
Just a sad reminder the internet is not entirely safe...we have to remind ourselves that we can especially be targeted here ...not nesc by dka but any nefarious gamers.
We are taking a risk when we walk out of our front door. By choosing to be gutless, you will be ensuring a destiny of subjugation. The choice is your's.
Just cautious ...now (bad experiences this year) but the force is still in tact hard to fight cowards who hide behind technology though ...like fighting ghosts
Talking of ''ghosts'', just - ''How does it work, this “freedom and democracy” that we Americans allegedly have, when neither the people nor their elected representatives are permitted to participate in the making of laws that enable Private Corporations To Negate The Law-Making Functions of Government and place Corporate Profit above the General Welfare?'' taken from:"Rule By The Corporations TTIP: The Corporate Empowerment Act'' by Dr.Paul Craig Roberts http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article42017.htm And also please consider - http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/karl_marx_was_right_20150531 by CLH