I was formulating a post in my mind earlier about Romney’s comments in Jerusalem, the capital of Israel….
….He said culture matters in terms of the success of a society. But before I sat down to write this Romney had written a piece called Culture Does Matter. He makes the same case I would have, though he’s far more pleasant and general than I would have been. No doubt this pleasantness comes from the culture of the LDS. There are very few unpleasant Mormons in my experience, Harry Reid being the glaring exception. Odd? Yes. Unpleasant? Not often. The missionary boys I see volunteering at the library are unfailingly kind and helpful, though I imagine my chunk of Los Angeles must be jarring at best. L.A. is often jarring to me and I’ve been here for most life.
Romney’s remarks in the Middle East caused an uproar with some. The truth often does. Culture DOES matter. It’s not the only thing that matters. Other factors play a part. Certainly the Palestinians are less “successful” in the Middle East for a number of reasons, some of them unfair and ugly. This doesn’t mean that one should avoid self-evident truths. Some cultural assumptions and attitudes are helpful, some are not.
The success of the Irish in the U.S. – against long odds – wasn’t because of their charming accents. One can see the success of Mexican and Central American immigrants in Los Angeles everywhere – if success if quantified by willingness to work – by which I mean labor. Walk 20 feet in any direction in my town and you’ll find brown people doing jobs that many white and black Americans would consider demeaning.
It’s also worth pondering why the Jews are so consistently successful across the centuries. It’s not because they are “chosen” or because they are devious. It’s because where ever they land – and they’ve been forced to “land” many times – they bring the elements of success with them. This is true whether they’re creating a nation in the desert or creating a world dominating business in Southern California because the WASP culture of the time thought it too vulgar to bother with.
Any honest public school teacher in a culturally diverse city knows that after parental involvement, cultural biases may be the biggest factor in determining success in a classroom. Gender plays a role here. But gender attitudes are cultural attitudes. Economic factors matter – but again – generation after generation of poverty is often cultural. Asians suffered unreal bigotry in California – and yet they are in many ways a wild success story now. The Chinese population of Chinatown has greatly diminished. Why? They made a go of it and move to the suburbs.
Romney’s comments causing an uproar with some is more proof of the “liberal” establishment’s disconnect from the reality most of us live in. On some level we all know culture matters. Even those who wear the “diversity” talisman (as long as it’s pre approved, thought policed diversity) know it. I suspect Romney’s “gaffe” will actually help him politically. He hit on a truth we are not allowed to discuss currently, but deep down we desperately want to. That is: We need to stop pretending that all cultures are created equal or that we even want elements of some cultures in ours.
Via the backdoor Romney is hitting on the same truth Barack Obama hit on in 2004 when he said “There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America.” This statement is about our cultural values. Read the entire speech here. It is a love song to our culture and our values.
Values matter. Culture matters. They make a difference. Romney said it. Out loud. Good for him.
I really wish you quit writing my posts before I do.
oh no no no no myiq2xu. Crayfisher routinely laps me…
His staffer’s ‘kiss my ass’ comment also made me very happy, tough to read about it I think I’m supposed to be outraged. Oops. I’m not.
agreed, Jay. I take great joy in someone yelling at a media monkey “kiss my ass”.
Me too, Jay. I’m sick of the news media acting like the tabloids in their pursuit for their faux news. Some areas are off-limits, period. It’s time they get a clue.
We have become a culture that does not like to be uncomfortable be it in examining ourselves or others. It is not politically correct to point out the obvious. I have a kid that just graduated from college. I presumed that she knew how to present herself for job interviews. She didn’t. I just happened to be visiting her when she was schlepping around to go on one. I was horrified at how lackadaisical she was. When she came back we went over the process, I explained that her appearance, grooming, demeanor, timing, etc were all evaluated. Her older brother got involved in the critique because he hires people! He told her to wash her car because some employers look out the window to see if an applicant respects their own property. She was furious, then embarrassed and finally accepting that her university’s culture of “Eh, whatever, we are smarter and cooler than everyone else” was not going to cut it. I did not enjoy telling her this stuff (her brother did) but she is now telling everyone in her group (who are all looking for employment) that a lot of stuff matters that they were led to believe shouldn’t because they are diverse, free, individual, brilliant and other assorted rot.
i need a “like” button for comments like this.
You have the option with WordPress of setting up the thumbs up or down icons on comments. I really like them. E-mail me if you want to do it and I’ll send you step by step directions.
Wow. The high school my 9th grade kid goes to already drills them about how to present themselves for a college interview, and does mock interviews, and they dress up as if they are going to a job interview. But maybe because this is a charter school…
And these new job seekers are also learning a hard reality about appearance. Many college grads who succumbed to the tat trend are now dreading it. Recent college grads are the group most likely to see tat removal now. Guess they didn’t realize that tats on your hands, neck & face might have an effect on the interviewer. As one HR person told me, and I agree with her, having tats don’t show much regard for one’s future.
Not that I’m personally against people getting tattoos. I didn’t get one but I don’t disparage others for getting them. And, some are even real cool looking. But the disregard for the future has been never more apparent in terms of location on the body. A friend of mine has one on her upper arm/shoulder and desires removal because she cannot wear clothing that exposes tattoos at her place of work. Having to wear long sleeves in these sweltering Midwest temps has changed her mind this summer.
Of course what Romney said is self evident truth, the media would have gone postal if he had pointed out that rain is wet.
Having worked with folks who were accustomed to bringing their tvs’ and jewelry to work, locked in the trunks of their cars, I saw first hand how culture can diminish a once vibrant community. It wasn’t the tv’s or the jewelry that was the issue, it was their acceptance of the idea that this is ‘just how life is’.. They didn’t complain, or revolt, they simply took the least confrontational course of action, which was a common theme in their neighborhoods. They had tried calling the police, who took reports and did nothing, even when given names and addresses of likely suspects. So they gave up. I mean the horse had already left the barn, so why be upset ? These well educated professionals were law abiding, upright people, it was their silent assent that only furthered the self destructive actions of a few. Yet if these repeated crimes had been committed in a nice little suburban area, the residents would have gone through the roof.
The different responses to the same crimes are cultural, imo.
No one wants to get in the face of a gang banger, they are our very own, homegrown terrorists.. ..Boutis is right, this is another of those ‘uncomfortable’ issues. But until a good bit of our urban culture changes,not much will change in our once great cities.
So does this make you more inclined to take an affirmative step toward Romney? Or are you still of the “I’ll vote for him but I won’t like it” mindset? If the latter is true, why do you feel this way John? What specifically gives you pause about Romney?
Romney places business freedom on par with civil liberty. We tried his plan — in the 1890′s — and it didn’t work.
http://crayfisher.wordpress.com/2012/07/30/in-defense-of-capitalism/
Praising the railroad barons for helping out the common folk? Get serious.
The Prussian government built an extensive RR net starting in the 1840′s. It stimulated private business & economic growth just fine.
The choice between MR’s laissez faire and BO’s ‘you didn’t build that’ is a false dichotomy. There is a third way.
So make the case for it, Tamerlane. You’re long on criticism and short on solutions, so far anyway.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_state_railways
BTW – At it’s peak, Prussia encompassed an area smaller than the state of California.
Au contraire, mon frère. If you want to focus solely on the bad stuff that happened you can paint that decade as a terrible time. But it was also a time when immigrants were flooding into the US in search of opportunity. There was industrial growth and technological innovation. Our cities were becoming electrified and telephone service was spreading. Steamships had replaced sailing ships and you could travel to Europe (or across the country) in a matter of days. The first automobiles were being produced.
The reforms that emerged from that era were not a repudiation of capitalism – we fixed it, we didn’t replace it.
Lola, if the election were today I’d vote for Stein or Johnson. My order at this very moment is 1. Johnson 2. Stein 3. Romney 4. Obama. Chances of me becoming a Romney voter between now and November are not high, though not impossible. I dislike Johnson by a weeeee bit less than I dislike Stein. Her twitter feed after the sad Martin shooting really turned me off.
I know two Romney leaners who are Dems by instinct. It will be interesting to see how they evolve and it may influence me. The biggest factors are my discomfort with the GOP which has not abated much, I’ve just become more open to listening to everyone since Obama came along. And the media bias is not crystal clear to me and it makes me nutters. Also I’m in CA. This state won’t be close. I figure I may as well pull the lever for my top choice since the 54 EC votes are Obama’s anyway.
But I love watching others become convinced and supportive of their choice and will continue to write about what I see regardless of how I’ll vote.
1. I’m supposed to accept WIki’s editorializing about taxes in Prussia?
2. Want WIki? Here’s a wiki list of recessions, depressions, & panics during the Golden Age of “the Business of America is Business”:
1869-70 recession, panic
1873 panic, depression
1882-85 recession
1887-88 recession
1893 panic
1896 panic
1899-1900 recession
1902-4 recession
1907 panic
1910-11 panic
1913-14 recession
1918-19 recession
1920-21 depression
1923-24 recession
1926-27 recession
1929 the big one
3. Read Upton Sinclair.
4. Lola, I offer plenty of suggestions all the time. Here’s four: a) stop subsidizing mega businesses like big oil, GM, the banks; b) streamline regulations & paperwork for micro-businesses; c) implement universal healthcare, relieving small businesses of that burden; d) end Welfare; replace it with a national jobs program, where everyone who wants to work gets put to work.
tamerlane says:
August 1, 2012 at 5:44 pm
yup .
Many think the business way is so great….then how come it keeps needing huge bail out? Did I dream the 2007 market melt down and huge bail outs? Given with the idea the public money would be” trickled down” But those who got the huge bailouts are still sitting on them… I guess that’s good business
Romney’s statement was right on the money, and I believe you wouldn’t be hearing all of those angry voices if he wasn’t running against the media darling, Barack Obama.
On matters of culture, I’m all for preserving and respecting our cultural differences rather than attempting to make all cultures uniform. I live in NYC, which like L.A. has many ethnic neighborhoods. Going to Little India to buy fresh cardamom is akin to visiting another country. Same with Chinatown, the Ukranian area of the Lower East SIde and the Braziilian markets in Flushing. I prefer to celebrate that diversity rather than equalize it.
My question would be “Should the members of any society become so homogeneous that any trace of cultural diversity vanishes?” Retaining one’s cultural identity must include the evolution of that culture, which only broadens and enriches it.
There are universal mores, particularly pertaining to human rights issues, that all cultures share. When an organized religious system seeks to violate those mores as in the case of stoning women or sending suicide bombers into the marketplaces or schools, then members of that society are obliged to stand up and protest that action. I believe the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is enflamed by religious tenets and that’s where the waters get muddy. What God condones killing another human being in his or her name? What God signed a lease agreement awarding a tract of land to a specific group of people? Compounding that is the imposition of borders by foreign leaders that contradict earlier boundaries that allowed these people to live side by side if not peaceably.
Sorry for the rambling comment, but this is where my thoughts on the value of cultural differences has brought me. Maybe I’m just off my rocker.
never leaving a comment when I’m taking cold medication again……
Why? It was great!
“There are universal mores, particularly pertaining to human rights issues, that all cultures share. When an organized religious system seeks to violate those mores ”
1) Those mores clearly aren’t universal. In fact, until the Enlightenment, brutality, cruelty, etc. were the rule. Even today, most of the world’s population does not embrace enlightened mores;
2) The only difference between Islam & other religions is: right now, more of Islam’s practitioners are *putting into practice* their religion’s edicts & value set; Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, all contain the same bloody principles.
Tamerlane, this is exactly my point. I don’t believe that any human being truly believes that its acceptable to engage in this behavior without the blessing of a religious authority figure. There will always be some in every culture that are inherently supportive of the cruelties you mention, but I believe that the majority of human beings are not on board with that.
I see a clear distinction between ethnic culture and religious culture, and thats where I believe the problem lies. When Catholic priests were finally being prosecuted for molesting children, I was surprised that any parent would let a grown man tuck their 12 year old boy to bed every night, as some of them had testified they did. The fear of offending their god by standing up to one of that god’s spokesmen prevented them from behaving the same way they would have if their neighbor tried pulling that shit.
The fusion of church and state goes all the way back to the Bronze Age, when military and religious leaders came together to manipulate a population. We haven’t come too much further than that in this century.
Anthony, God never signed any leases, but world leaders did, in their attempts to solve the problem of disenfranchised Jews, after WW11. If postwar America had been less Anti Semite, who knows ? Some lucky far flung, underpopulated State in the US might now be a hub of education, arts, and finance. America has been the real Promised Land for most of our ancestors.
Jewish culture exemplifies ‘bloom where you are planted’.. it’s in the dna. You have seen their influence all over NYC, which leaves me mystified at the recent nastiness of the NYT. The countries surrounding Israel are just as much to blame for the ‘Palestinian problem’ as anyone.
Since most of the now-called Palestinians were from places like Syria and Jordan, which have consistently refused them entry. Your comments really made me miss Manhattan.
Sophie, my point is that there seems to be a confusion of religious and ethnic identity in that region. I’m ambivalent on this subject, and will admit that I probably have no business involving myself in a discussion on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict because of that.
I get the “bloom where you’re planted” idea, but then should there not also be some respect of existing boundaries when and where one decides to “plant” themselves? I have clients who are Jewish – not Israeli. They’ve gone to Israel and helped to expand settlements on what was once Palestinian land whose boundaries were determined by those same world leaders you mentioned in your comment. Maybe its because I’m not Jewish that I can see this as a hostile act. My friends and I have argued the pros and cons, and eventually, the answer I always get is “God gave us that land!”, which I can’t abide by. On the other hand, I do understand the geopolitical significance of the region and the arguments that support the settlements. so I have no choice but to remain ambivalent.
What bothers me most is when religion is used to facilitate or qualify any actions that would be considered hostile on both sides. Now, with the Muslim Brotherhood controlling Egypt, the southern border has become a matter of concern. I am torn about this in equal directions, hence my ambivalence. And as I said, I probably have no business involving myself in a discussion where I don’t have a dog in the fight. Seeing both sides of the story can really be a pain in the ass sometimes.
The trouble with this sort of conversation is:
1) People seem to exactly correlate attributes with ethnicity/race. Are all Koreans really hard-working? Did they learn it from their parents, or is it genetic? Or was it the go-getter Koreans who moved to America, leaving the lazy-ass Koreans at home?
2) We are permitted to praise a particular culture/group’s good points, but are forbidden to mention any bad ones. So Jews are all super-smart; they also eat with their mouth open. Asians have a knack for running profitable convenience stores. They also think you can improve your luck by placing mirrors on a certain wall of your house. Guatemalans bust their ass mowing your lawn. Maybe they also kick their dog & slap their wife when they get home;
3) Traits and mores are tacitly assigned to every individual of a group (a.k.a., “stereotyping”);
4) We inevitably make a list of ranking groups by attribute – Top five hardest-working. So which are the bottom five most laziest? Are we allowed to make that list, too?
5) Are their some cultures that pretty much suck at everything? Are we allowed to say that?
Values are indeed passed down through families, and among cultural groups. Each family, each community, has its own mixed bag of values. Nor does every member embrace every value. To ignore those realities is trite.
Tamer, I grew up in a strongly ethnic area. As a little kid I had to defend the fact that my mother did not take in laundry, and my father was not a drunk or a policeman. Thank goodness, times change.
It’s not the ethnicity as much as the fact that *immigrants* are a self-selected group that all have certain common characteristics – the desire to start a new life, the willingness to work to create that new life, the courage to cut ties with almost their entire natural support system — th elist goes on. And any immigrant will tell you that back in their home country there are lots of people of their ethnicity without ambition who are shiftless and lazy.
“you’ll find brown people doing jobs that many white and black Americans would consider demeaning.”
I’m sick to death of this ridiculous meme. They’re accepting wages & working conditions that others consider demeaning, is what. I shovel shit every morning, for chrissakes! The dude who pumps my porta-potty is white. The lady at the transfer station is white.
As a former restaurant manager I saw workers of all colors, creeds and ethnic backgrounds. I can honestly say that most of my fellow managers would rather hire ONE Mexican at twice minimum wage. Why? because they DO THE DAMN job- without whining. With minimal supervision (I mean seriously- how many times do I need to show you how to clean the traps in the dishwasher, or clean the proofer, run the register and make change when the electricity goes down?) Without drama. Never once did I hear an immigrant employee say “That’s not my job” or “Not even if you gave me a five dollar and hour raise.”
Brutal. But true. My Mexican employees worked HARD and were rewarded for it. The absolute best baker we had in the whole company made $15 bucks and hour and was tracking to management. The “American” employees were ticked off because he made so much more. Hell, the guy had 8 yrs with the company and could complete his production, keep his area clean and help out elsewhere in the restaurant. The whiners could not keep rolls baked.
Are you telling me Mexican culture makes for better workers, or is this particular guy just desperate to stay in America, because the culture at home sucks so bad?
Is this worker legal? How many mouths is he he feeding with that paycheck?
What I hear underlying all this “work ethic” talk is an insidious attack on workers’ rights, fair pay & working conditions. Boss man says, ‘Look at Hector and Franklyn; they don’t complain’; and, ‘You want a raise? Overtime? Hector has a cousin, you know.’
Yes the worker was here legally. Feeding himself, his wife and one child.
Do Mexicans have better work ethic? As compared to some of the young Americans I have hired and interviewed – yes.
Assault on worker’s rights? How so? When the employees are interviewed they are given a description of the job- and I always went out of my way to make sure everyone understood how hard the work in a restaurant can be- having worked my way through every position. We paid above minimum to start. Raises given not just on a yearly review basis but as a reward for exceeding expectations along with the annual review increases.
My personal experience has been that those who want to come here and become American are willing to work damn hard because they still believe in the dream.
Unfortunately, restaurant business is damn hard work. That does not excuse taking a job and then whining and bitching the work is too hard- or worse- turning in shoddy work. The employee agreed to the wage and the work. I did not hire people to spend time on the clock texting or checking their facebook status (or dropping their cell phones in the fryer which actually happened)
Some of the young (and not so young) employees wanted the same wage as the gentleman who had all those yrs of hard work and experience. And I could never get them to understand that some things- like above average pay- are the result of hard work and not just for breathing while clocked in.
“My personal experience has been that those who want to come here and become American are willing to work damn hard because they still believe in the dream.”
It takes a lot of courage and ambition to immigrate. I think it may not necessarily be the culture the immigrant comes from as much as an individual trait the immigrant has, whether innate or learned, or a bit of both. My grandfather worked seven days a week his entire adult life, he even worked his vacation days so that he could be paid double. (And, yes, he sent money back home to his sisters.) He and my grandmother never did learn English but they were able to buy their own house after they were refused rental housing. And two of their sons went on to become self-made millionaires. Ironically, my uncle said that spending Sundays helping his father at his second job was instrumental in his desire to succeed in business. Go figure.
Romney’s statement was not a gaffe but a bird whistle to certain elements of his base.
The problem with ascribing “culture” to groups is that throughout history, negative traits have been assigned as an aspect of culture to out-groups that one does not like. For example, the Irish were considered lazy, dishonest, drunkards, no matter how hard-working they may have been in reality. The same negative stereotypes of diverse minorities arise over and over, applied to groups widely diverse in their actual cultures. Blaming a lack of progress on a cultural group as an aspect of their culture comes very close to assigning negative cultural traits to a disliked group on the basis of their membership in that group — stereotyping. People are people and there are both lazy and hard-working people in every cultural group. Further, you can find aspects of culture that support success and aspects that undermine it, within the same culture, if you want to apply selective attention. It is a bankrupt analysis.
Cultures arise and change to allow people to function well in the environments and circumstances in which they find themselves. To consider culture without considering that context makes no sense. The culture of African Americans in slavery was different than the culture of Africans in the communities they were taken from. The culture of Mexican Americans in US cities is different than the culture of Mexican communities, because the challenges of life are different. Similarities in cultures arise from similarities in life circumstances, not from similarities or differences in peoples. That’s why there are African American gangs, Mexican American gangs and Asian American gangs, with similar gang cultures.
So, I don’t find this discussion as satisfying and you all seem to.
Dog whistle, not bird whistle. A sound outside the hearing range of people without certain prejudices. Sorry for the gaffe.
Remember the British influence / rule in the Mid-East after WWI – the breakup of the Ottoman Empire. Many of the problems today can be traced back to them and the decisions they made.
Have you read David Fromkin’s A Peace to End All Peace?
Speaking of culture mattering, Romney apparently lives it. Via Glennmcgahee @TCH.
http://www.queerty.com/thanks-mitt-romney-for-making-the-salt-lake-city-games-so-gay-friendly-20120801/
Would love to know what John and commenters here think about this.
I was waiting for someone to trot this out, so thanks for doing it. Of course, Romney’s actions contradict the definition that the MSM is doing their best to assign him. Expect the usual brainless, uncentered, hyperbolic bullshit to be used to counter this, and expect many to bring up the kid that he supposedly shaved in middle school, whose parents don’t remember him coming home with a fucked up haircut.
Time for more cold medicine…..
The success of the Irish/Italian/Eastern European Jews/Asians (and the list goes on and one) in America I think comes down to that they came here to BE Americans. Those groups manage to retain many things from their “home” culture- the foods, the music, the religious affiliations- while whole heartedly embracing Americanism and assimilating.
The Jewish people have held on against very tough odds. And done all they could to educate their citizens, to rescue those in the Diaspora, to transform the very land. It pisses off those who do not wish these things for their own people. How many of the ME countries make the effort to educate ALL their people? Female and Male alike?
My son has done a few tours in the war zones of the ME and the thing that most broke his heart was the ignorance of the populace. Ignorance enforced and perpetuated by their so called leaders. For example. he tells the story of how the average Iraqi was taught in the mosque and by the elders and in the Madrassas that there were two oil pipelines running out of Iraq. One to Israel and on the the United States. And these poor people have no access to even a basic map to show them how very very far away the US is from Iraq. None of their leaders bother to tell the people that Israel never kicked the Palestinians off their land- that the big Arab countries encouraged those horrible refugee camps, of how the Brits (and the other oil hungry western powers) divided up peoples and countries to create all this mess.
Yes, culture is important. Keep the good things, which perhaps might be termed heritage- music, art, food- and strive toward GROWTH for the people. Starting with education.
Romney was specifically speaking about the culture freedom, or free enterprise. It’s a similar argument to the one put forth in the book, “Why Nations Fail.” It’s how a nation or culture’s power structure works. The theory is “inclusive” structures are more successful then “extracting”.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/why-nations-fail-by-daron-acemoglu-and-james-a-robinson
I don’t know why that link isn’t working. Here’s another review and source:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/643871-book-review-why-nations-fail
I agree with Romney on this. The seeking alpha link doesn’t address why so many groups came here and succeeded while a few fail.
Yes, but Romney wasn’t addressing that either. He was talking about freedom and free enterprise as a function of US culture. Basic Republican views. He just framed it in a larger context.
How do we explain the fact that Hispanics Own Miami in one or two generations and do not do nearly so well if they are Mexicans or Central Americans ? I don’t know, just asking. Both groups came here willing to do absolutely anything to survive, both groups send money ‘home’, both are hardworking. Is it all about legal status ? Or something else ?
If I had to float a theory about any ethnic group, it seems the ones that stick together, support each other’s efforts,police their own communites, and give opportunities to new arrivals,appear to be more successful.
Sophie, do you mean Cubans Own Miami?
Seems to me that “economic freedom,” Romney’s definition in particular, is pivotal to the point he makes in that piece. Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it, “economic freedom,” sounds like the Liberty Bell and George Washington’s cherry tree and Abraham Lincoln’s freeing slaves and keeping the nation whole.
However.
The United States became the most prosperous nation in history, not because of some apple pie pleasant economic “freedom,” but because of the kind of “freedom” that has cheating and bullying at its cultural core. This has been America’s plague and victory from the very start when the Dutch East India Company set up a branch called Dutch West India Company in New Amsterdam (now New York City’s Wall Street district) in the early 1600s and bullied out all the independent private traders in addition to “buying” Manhattan for about a thousand bucks. The Dutch East India Company was not just any old company, it was the world’s first Big Corporation and bought itself power that free people normally give only to their government like the “freedom” to wage war and imprison, even execute, citizens they deemed “convicts.” This first multinational corporation, and also the first corporation to issue stock BTW, set up shop at the tip of Manhattan, building the structure, the sub-foundation of what was to be the financial hub of the United States, the core of our “economic freedom.” Wall Street is so named because of the wall the DEIC built around their monopoly.
That’s how the “economic freedom” we have today started, and if you study it you’ll see that the core of our economy, and in particular the part Romney made a fortune in, is a direct decedent.
When we’ve been the nation we all like to think we are, it’s when we break away from the culture Romney deceptively calls “economic freedom,” not when we swim chin deep in it.
I take it you are pro-cheating and bullying then?
Zal, Many large American institutions were built on shaky ground. We are reminded of that in a literal manner whenever we see the WH and remember it was built by slaves. Even the building of our roads and bridges, a well intentioned project, is still rife with political and union thuggery and payoffs… Our financial ‘system’ is no different, but what is the alternative ? We can regulate ourselves into a banana republic, and human nature will still be what it is. No matter what system we end up with, there will always be those who can game it. If our so called ‘culture’ put more stress on honor and honesty, than simply ‘winning’, it might help. Real consequences for dishonor and dishonesty wouldn’t hurt either, without those, everything collapses eventually.
Our financial system is terrific, sophie. I think so anyway. The problem is, as you point to, dishonor and dishonesty, to say nothing of brutalism. The wars we’ve waged, the people we’ve killed, or “merely” the lives ruined, for “our” prosperity!
The things we like to identify as American like inventiveness, entrepreneurship, hard work, generosity, integrity, our great middle class, are not fantasies, they’ve existed and they create and build prosperity. They do not, however, create the kind of prosperity Romney has. Romney’s level of prosperity is not based in integrity, it’s based in cheating and bullying. Nobody earns two hundred million dollars; people steal that much money from those who’ve earned it. That’s what we need regulations and moral values for. There have been times and segments of our society when and where our finer qualities prevailed, that’s the picture we like to paint of what America is. That is part of our history, part of what some of us strive to be today even, but it is not what made or managed America’s “economic freedom” as Mitt Romney has lived it and understands it.
Or we can regulate ourselves into a strong middle class, which should include bankers el al, and keep dishonor where it belongs: on the fringe and shunned for their scams rather than front and center in leadership positions.
>
If I were asked to answer the following question: What is slavery? and I should answer in one word, It is murder!, my meaning would be understood at once. No extended argument would be required . . . Why, then, to this other question: What is property? may I not likewise answer, It is robbery!, without the certainty of being misunderstood; the second proposition being no other than a transformation of the first?
—Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, What is Property?
Proudhon was the founder of Anarchism. You know, like those Black Bloc types that start riots at all the OWS events.
You are showing your true roots Zal.
It never ceases to amaze me how many people spout slogans and ideas without knowing where they came from.
There’s no connection between what I wrote and that ridiculous quote.
Property is not robbery.
My point takes to task avarice and brutality, not property ownership. If you don’t understand that, let me help you: it’s the difference between a flood taking out a village and me pouring you a glass of water.
In fact I list regulations as essential to the success of a capitalist society; regulations are not exactly the stock and trade of anarchists.
I quote:
“Nobody earns two hundred million dollars; people steal that much money from those who’ve earned it.”
Proudhon was also a socialist.
A capitalist with a moral compass recognizes there’s a difference between businessmen and robber barons.
A capitalist with a moral compass recognizes there’s a difference between businessmen and robber barons.
Define it.
It’s defined in my sentence, “A capitalist with a moral compass recognizes there’s a difference between businessmen and robber barons.”
Define what? Moral compass?
Classic trolling Zal – somebody asks you to answer a question and you play obtuse.
Define the difference between businessmen and robber barons.
I accept that I wrote may be over your head but it isn’t obtuse to anyone with a reasonable understanding of the terms moral compass and robber baron.
To answer your question in a word: ethics.
Nobody is worth $200 million.
Nobody needs $200 million.
Our society could have hired 5,000 people at $40K p/a — to teach, to install solar panels, to make music, to care for the elderly. Instead we chose to buy a Mitt Romney.
To answer your question in a word: ethics.
You really need to quit while you’re only way behind Zal. Go back to school and take some history classes. We don’t evaluate people’s ethics by the standards of today, we evaluate them by the standards of that period. What specifically did the businessmen of the 1890′s do that made them “robber barons?”
Why is it that you can write long-winded unwanted comments but you give short evasive answers to questions?
I’m not your history professor. If you don’t know who the robber barons were and what they did, look it up. It’s not an obscure corner of business history.
If you don’t want to read my comments then don’t read them.
Evaluating robber barons by the standards of that period or today comes out the same; like Walmart and Goldman Sachs, they used smarmy methods to acquire their fortunes.
IOW – You got nothing Zal.
I already knew that, I just wanted you to prove it.
You’re good at trolling, klown; how did Lola put it, “you want to intimidate and confuse if you can. … It may be dishonest and devious …”
You boasted right out of the gate in the comments of Lola’s “Fine Art of Trolling” post, that you troll, or “sockpuppet,” and have been banned for it. No surprise there.
Anyway, I don’t get intimidated or confused by trolls or sockpuppets; deception and bullying is nothing new, you just have new labels. Any gay man who grew up in the 50s and early 60s then was involved with AIDS fights and our government’s and general population’s reaction to it had plenty of experience in dealing with the same kind of deception and bullying tactics long before the Internet. I just keep on keepin on with honest and forthright commentary, and let you keep proving I’m right about deceitful empty character and what it’s done to our country.
“Yeah, when trolling, you don’t want to think too hard about the actual conversation. You’re not there to engage or to let them effect you. You’re there to effect them. You have to develop a wall of will with regard to what others are saying.” — Lola
http://crayfisher.wordpress.com/2012/04/16/the-fine-art-of-trolling-for-women/
Zal:
When you accuse someone of being a troll it’s what the headshrinkers call “projection.”
No prize for you, but thanks for playing. I’m done with you.
And since I’ve presented evidence that both you and Lola have been trolling and sockpuppeting for years, it’s clear who’s doing the projecting.
“We don’t evaluate people’s ethics by the standards of today, we evaluate them by the standards of that period. ”
That makes slavery, torture, genocide all ethical … historically speaking, of course.
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It really isn’t complicated.
Capitalism is the best system human civilization has invented to utilize the strengths of human nature, thought and imagination. But thanks to dark elements of human nature, unregulated capitalism becomes a horror story.
We are living right now in a time when the worst elements of human nature are prevalent in our society, our culture. Vanity, deceitfulness, greed, brutality, you name it, we’ve got it throughout our neighborhoods and institutions. This is destroying our nation and we won’t change course by electing more leaders who sing the virtues of greed and euphemize brutality.
We are living right now in a time when the worst elements of human nature are prevalent in our society, our culture.
Compared to when?
Tell me when things were better.
Please. Human nature is same as it ever was.
And, were Ancient Rome & Egypt capitalist? I think Carthage was plutocratic.
Human nature is the same but cultures are not. Presidents and Congresses and citizens are not the same, one era to the next in terms of moral boundaries and expectations.
In terms of ethical big business practices it was better beginning in the early part of the 20th century when Theodore Roosevelt led a slew of laws dealing with robber barons. Anti-trust laws, child labor, working conditions, health codes, beginning with TR and continuing with administrations following his, these laws and regulations forced more ethical behavior from wealthy powerful industrialists.
In terms of banking, it was better beginning in the early 1930s when FDR signed a lot of financial institution regulations into law.
It’s actually better than it ever was. Most women today can say no, and sex with children is at least taboo. It wasn’t always this way. Is rape and child sex abuse still a problem? You betcha, but the incidents of it are way, way down now that they’re not accepted cultural norms. And we aren’t actually allowed to own people anymore, or dispense of them as we would inanimate property.
You’re right, Lola, our time is probably the best time in history for women, anyway in Western Civilization. Though I can’t say the way some use the opportunities, trolling and deceiving and bullying (or “intimidating”) for kicks, for instance, is very admirable or would make the women (and men) who fought for your access to power proud.
It’s true sex crimes against children get a lot of attention, though I’ve not seen any verifiable evidence that incidents of child sex abuse are “way down.” At the core of these crimes is secrecy and deception, and we have no way of knowing how much remains secret. In fact the recent Sandusky scandal shows it’s still easy for deceitful intimidating pedophiles to get away with their behavior for many years if they’re expert enough at deceit and intimidation. In other words our culture has made strides in shaming outed pedophiles but our population’s skill and acceptance of deception and intimidation in general may very well have made pedophiles and other sickos more adept at hiding their behavior.
So, Zal, what I hear you saying is, we need anti-trust laws, Glass-Steagall, etc. to keep the same old human vices in check.
What do you think about the “greed is good” ethos that seemed to take hold in the eighties? Has it waxed, waned?
Yes exactly.
It’s become thoroughly interwoven and entrenched in American culture.
The generations that were adults in the 80s, who kind of smirked at the irony of “greed is good” while their choices increasingly exemplified it, were being watched by a generation growing up that doesn’t see it as ironic at all but as serious and right.
Unless we had a Teddy Roosevelt today, which would need a population that wanted a TR, there is no doubt in my mind that this gluttony will not end until we’ve ruined the US as we know it. That’s because it’s not just Wall Street and Big Corporations, not just Romney and Obama, it’s everybody who believes they need and deserve an SUV.
Anything would help, like laws that reign in Wall Street’s extreme risk taking or health care profits (corporations profiting, and big time, off illness and health – we’ve sunk so low that most people don’t even blink about that!), but only a complete cultural shift would redirect this train wreck.
” Obama is as serious a threat to our liberties as we’ve been led to believe; if he has systematically subverted Constitutional law; instituted a stealth-takeover of all healthcare in the country; granted amnesty to millions of illegals; is conniving to use drones to enforce the law; refused to kill bin Laden; supported the Muslim Brotherhood across Eurasia; dutifully worked with Turkey despite their intense anti-Americanism”;…my friend sent me the preceding remarks. If I agree he is correct, then it would be fair to say things were better at least for him, before Obama/Bush…for different reasons of course, but both took screwing up America to new levels.
Healthcare hasn’t been taken over by the government; the insurance industry’s grasp on our you-know-whats was re-affirmed.
Who uses the word “Eurasia” unless they’re playing RISK?
obama has destroyed the Constitution.
Really? It just now dawned on that crazy old bsratad that he doesn’t have enough delegates to win the GOP nomination? Ipso facto, tell me how that lends the slightest credibility to Rand Paul as a veep choice for Governor Romney?Senator Paul would be the Dan Quayle of 2012. His qualifications to step into the presidency are less than Barack Obama’s were four years ago. Mitt would be daft to pick him.
My friend says Eurasia, he still calls Asians ‘Orientals’ too. He’s a retired Lit. prof., so he goes for the archaic and sentimental.
Re: Culture, it seems beauty, as well as ugliness, is in the eye of the beholder. Maybe it’s really more about the things we value in own culture, that informs how we relate to other cultures.. Which is why most Westerners should look very hard before they leap into thinking we can ‘fix’ the Middle East.
One of our mistakes in Vietnam was thinking if we inflicted enough casualties on the North they would stop fighting. We killed over a million North Vietnamese – a 20 to 1 ratio.
We lost.
They placed a different value on human life than we did.
I like Gary Johnson, but he cannot win. He’s not even on the blloat in all states. His first mistake was trusting that the Republicans would give him the time of day, which of course they didn’t. Hence his current situation. And you say I’m wasting my vote?Now, I agree that Gary Johnson is the best candidate for true smaller government, but I believe voting for him ensures an Obama reelection, which is the absolute last thing I want to see. Quite frankly, I am getting a passport in the event he is reelected because I truly believe America as we know it is doomed if that happens.I am well aware that I live in a blue state, which is not my doing as both of my parents ended up here and thus so did I. My mom’s folks in southern Dutchess County and my dad’s folks Italian immigrants to Wappingers Falls. I will more than likely not live out the rest of my days in the Empire State and will most definitely head for a Red one. I am also well aware that my vote will not help Romney win New York, but he’s got a far better shot than Gary Johnson. Obama and his policies, however, frighten me.
Mitt’s tour has highlighted one clear difference between the candidates: Unlike Obama, Romney is prosemitic.
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I’m tired of the Zal vs. IQ/Lola name-calling. I value the input of all three, and would like to hear it devoid of personal attacks.
Zal has strong opinions, some I agree with, some I don’t. Zal is not a “troll.” He’s been here, as “Zaldonis”, for quite some time.
IQ & Lola have strong opinions, some I agree with, some I don’t. Both have bragged about trolling & sock-puppetry. I disapprove of that practice.
I’d like to see:
1) IQ & Lola divulge a list of all the troll/sock puppet “handles” they’ve used or currently use;
2) IQ & Lola pledge to refrain from trolling in future;
3) Zal’s, IQ’s & Lola’s positions be challenged on the merits alone.
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