One might well ask why there has been a lapse in posting to the Religion, Politics, and Sex site over the past two months, especially when one considers how much happened during that period. Among other things, former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain's sex scandal broke, ballooned, and then disappeared -- along with his chances of being a contender for the White House in 2012. And yet, there has not been a word about it or anything else here, so it seemed appropriate to offer an explanation.
The short answer is "National Novel Writing Month," an annual creative writing project that challenges participants to write a 50,000 word story between November 1 and November 30 that I decided to participate in this year. So, hard on the heels of the book tour for my latest title, Texas Confidential: Sex, Scandal, Murder, and Mayhem in the Lone Star State, I spent a month striving to complete a readable fantasy novel -- and am pleased to report that I succeeded in doing so. Between weekly signing events around Texas in October and November and completing that novel, a lot slipped through the cracks in November, and staying on top of my obligations to this site was one of them.
Although I am the author or co-author of 10 non-fiction books, I have never really been keen on events like this one for a variety of reasons, but a number of things prompted me to accept the challenge of this most recent NaNoWriMo. A major incentive for me was that one of the eleven New Year's resolutions I made for 2011 was to finish a novel by the end of the year and, not being on track to do that, I figured that if I was not going to get one done by the end of November that I sure as hell was not going to get one done in December.
Swords of Kos: Necropolis is a swords-and-sorcery novel and, in that it does not cross over much into the issues covered on this site, I will not say any more about it other than it is on track for publication and that the first 10,000-or-so words of it appear on my NaNoWriMo page, for anyone who might be interested in reading it.
But, now that our projects are done and out of the way, the Religion, Politics, and Sex staff are back! And just in time for the upcoming national election ...
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Ben Stein Missing the Point of Occupy
Ho, ho, ho! Ben Stein is so funny! It is hard to understand how someone would not be forced to wipe away tears of mirth when they hear the deadpan comedian suggest, in his monotone nasal voice, that “Occupy” movement protesters should just take baths and get jobs (echoing the recent quips of fellow Washington, D.C., insider Newt Gingrich).
For reasons that are probably somewhat obscure to average television viewers, Stein has made attacking the Occupy movement his latest cause and, for reasons equally obscure, CNN has given him a regular platform for doing so. Both of them, however, have reasons that I think are fairly prima fascia: Stein wants to sell copies of his latest book, What Would Ben Stein Do? and CNN wants to be able to appeal to its more conservative viewers by allowing the Occupy movement to be criticized without actually having one of its regular talking heads take the hit for it.
But Stein’s dismissive comments about Occupy reveal him to be someone who is missing the point — whether deliberately because he is closing ranks with the Republican right or inadvertently because he has just gotten old and is out of touch. His main contention in recent comments has been about the methodology of the protestors and that they are not accomplishing anything with it.
“Banging on drums ain’t working,“ Stein said recently on CNN, a complaint he made at least a dozen times during a previous appearance on the news network (whether because he really dislikes drums or, like many geriatrics who repeat the same thing again and again, because he believes people will think it is cute).
Whether or not the protestors are accomplishing anything, however, is separate from and secondary to the main point, which is that tens of thousands of people nationwide have turned out to protest corporate greed and the general state of malaise that has descended upon America over the past decade in particular — and done so even though they are probably not going to achieve anything concrete. The fact that Occupy is happening at all is significant and worth paying attention to. (See the related coverage of the Occupy Houston activities on this site.)
Stein has also expressed a fundamental lack of knowledge about the economic conditions prevalent in the United States today, most strikingly in contentions meant to criticize the Occupy protest, which claims to represent the 99 percent of least affluent Americans.
“The 99 percent are working,” Stein claimed. The fact that the U.S. unemployment rate dropped to 8.6 percent last month, however — the lowest it has been in two-and-a-half years, after exceeding 10 percent in late 2009 — disproves his contention. And those numbers only include people without jobs who are actively searching for fulltime work, and could probably be more than doubled by the inclusion of people who are underemployed or have given up on hopes of gainful employment in the foreseeable future (not to mention the people who are employed in jobs below their levels or outside their areas of expertise). Like many of his ilk, however, the rightwing pundit would prefer to claim that people are out of work simply because they are lazy.
“There is dignity in labor and I wish people would realize that,” Stein said recently on CNN, suggesting that the unemployed seek work at fast food restaurants and in the retail industry. Unfortunately, that is all just a theory to Stein, who has never done anything approaching actual “labor.”
So just what has Stein done and who the hell is he anyway? His most well-known claim to fame is certainly as playing a high school teacher in the 1986 film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and more recently as a game show host and flack on Clear Eyes eye drops commercials.
What is less well known is that Stein was a speechwriter for Richard M. Nixon during that president’s ill-fated administration — in short, he is a product of the most quantifiably corrupt presidential administration of the modern era and his opinions should be considered in that context. Along with his boss and colleagues, Stein had to watch those damn dirty hippies be a nuisance by protesting the Vietnam War. Those protesters, of course, were only motivated by moral outrage against an immoral war and most of them could have just sold out and gone mainstream if they wanted to — as compared to the sheer desperation and fear of the many Occupy protestors who wish they were working normal jobs and that they could have the things average people once took for granted in America.
Interestingly, Stein has also managed to get digs in against the Tea Party during his rants against the Occupy protestors, which would suggest that he uniformly dislikes any sort of non-traditional political movements. This is certainly a rare stance these days among both rightwing pundits and Republican presidential candidates, most of whom try to dance around the most rabid TP sentiments in an effort to pander simultaneously to them and more mainstream voters. This would suggest that Stein is at least sincere in his points of view and not just taking a party line, as so many conservative talking heads seem inclined to do.
Stein’s sincerity, of course, does not make him right about the significance of the Occupy movement—it just makes him seem mean spirited and confused.
But Stein’s dismissive comments about Occupy reveal him to be someone who is missing the point — whether deliberately because he is closing ranks with the Republican right or inadvertently because he has just gotten old and is out of touch. His main contention in recent comments has been about the methodology of the protestors and that they are not accomplishing anything with it.
Whether or not the protestors are accomplishing anything, however, is separate from and secondary to the main point, which is that tens of thousands of people nationwide have turned out to protest corporate greed and the general state of malaise that has descended upon America over the past decade in particular — and done so even though they are probably not going to achieve anything concrete. The fact that Occupy is happening at all is significant and worth paying attention to. (See the related coverage of the Occupy Houston activities on this site.)
Stein has also expressed a fundamental lack of knowledge about the economic conditions prevalent in the United States today, most strikingly in contentions meant to criticize the Occupy protest, which claims to represent the 99 percent of least affluent Americans.
“The 99 percent are working,” Stein claimed. The fact that the U.S. unemployment rate dropped to 8.6 percent last month, however — the lowest it has been in two-and-a-half years, after exceeding 10 percent in late 2009 — disproves his contention. And those numbers only include people without jobs who are actively searching for fulltime work, and could probably be more than doubled by the inclusion of people who are underemployed or have given up on hopes of gainful employment in the foreseeable future (not to mention the people who are employed in jobs below their levels or outside their areas of expertise). Like many of his ilk, however, the rightwing pundit would prefer to claim that people are out of work simply because they are lazy.
“There is dignity in labor and I wish people would realize that,” Stein said recently on CNN, suggesting that the unemployed seek work at fast food restaurants and in the retail industry. Unfortunately, that is all just a theory to Stein, who has never done anything approaching actual “labor.”
So just what has Stein done and who the hell is he anyway? His most well-known claim to fame is certainly as playing a high school teacher in the 1986 film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and more recently as a game show host and flack on Clear Eyes eye drops commercials.
What is less well known is that Stein was a speechwriter for Richard M. Nixon during that president’s ill-fated administration — in short, he is a product of the most quantifiably corrupt presidential administration of the modern era and his opinions should be considered in that context. Along with his boss and colleagues, Stein had to watch those damn dirty hippies be a nuisance by protesting the Vietnam War. Those protesters, of course, were only motivated by moral outrage against an immoral war and most of them could have just sold out and gone mainstream if they wanted to — as compared to the sheer desperation and fear of the many Occupy protestors who wish they were working normal jobs and that they could have the things average people once took for granted in America.
Interestingly, Stein has also managed to get digs in against the Tea Party during his rants against the Occupy protestors, which would suggest that he uniformly dislikes any sort of non-traditional political movements. This is certainly a rare stance these days among both rightwing pundits and Republican presidential candidates, most of whom try to dance around the most rabid TP sentiments in an effort to pander simultaneously to them and more mainstream voters. This would suggest that Stein is at least sincere in his points of view and not just taking a party line, as so many conservative talking heads seem inclined to do.
Stein’s sincerity, of course, does not make him right about the significance of the Occupy movement—it just makes him seem mean spirited and confused.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
A Union by Any Other Name, Part 2
Picking up from where I left off, this installment looks at the development of what became the modern organizations we recognize as unions and corporations. The most recent political struggles of the past thirty years are not covered here because of the length of this entry and the complexity of the issues that have been conflated with the debate of the role each plays in the economic structure of modern society.
Trade Unions
While there is no direct links to guilds due to laws that banned labor organizations for upwards of 500 years in some places, as in England. That said, enough similarities exist to suggest that the modern unions are rooted in the guilds of old. How so, you may ask? Like trade unions, guilds served to protect their members and the knowledge of their craft. In part, this last point was in lieu of legal protections that find modern analogues in various laws for patents, trade secrets, product identity, and so forth.
By controlling what amounts to instructional capital (now mainly held in the hands of private schools and their public institute counterparts), the guilds not only held job security, but also the insurance manifest in the power bound in their protected crafts and the need of access by those not privy to such services offered by their respective guilds. Guilds were as much a vocational school as they were organizations designed to protect their members’ interests. Maintaining secrecy meant that guilds could limit or prevent a client’s exploitation of its members. In effect, it let the guild shield its members from the aristocracy’s power.
So, what happened to them? In part, technology helped in their undoing. Mostly, they were legislated out of existence for being too much of an obstacle either to someone else’s power, or their own bureaucratic system that made them financial burdens, depending on who you ask. They didn’t completely disappear, however. The word “guild” comes from the German “Guilde,” which applied only to merchant organizations. “Gilden,” the plural form of the word, dealt in money. “Gilden” was the Saxon word “to pay” and helps explain phrases like “the gilded hand.”
Despite laws which eventually broke the guilds, not all of them disappeared outright. Some of them changed forms. Merchants had their own guilds, after all. The breaking of the guilds decoupled labor from its performers. It not only sent the knowledge to the universities (predominantly in the hands of the church at the time), but also the means of production into the hands of those who owned the devices and commodities of production. Thus the standardization of production meant the technology and location fell to those with the capacity to acquire the resources necessary to control and supply goods.
Modern unions arose with the Industrial Revolution. By this time, laborers had no claim to their work. The work done was paid with wages, but the value of the service performed was greater than the compensation. In part this was due to the fact that, despite schooling, laborers were unskilled. The improve work conditions, wages, and job security (including protection from an employer’s whims), workers began to unionize in the nineteenth century. No longer the one-stop shop of the guild system, a modern union works to control the conditions of labor and access to it to prevent exploitation. Unions work to protect jobs, but this can also result in negative views of the unions.
The early strikes of modern unions resulted in a great deal of violence that has colored the perception of these groups. The tactic was, and still is, used to prevent exploitation via unfair labor extraction of union members. Beyond ensuring a workers is considered skilled enough to be a journeyman (meaning such individuals can move from one work site to another and is treated as a skilled practitioner), the ability to strike or call for one as a bargaining chip to force factory owners to the negotiation table. As such, the modern union has some of the tools of the guilds, but not their clout. One doesn’t need to look at the recent developments in Wisconsin with Scott Walker’s union stripping bill. The clashes with the Pinkertons and factory workers marked the struggle to unionize and set the tone for American unions.
The “us vs. them” mentality has been a part of the American psyche since the nation’s inception. Americans have always been xenophobic because of the invasive policies of the British Crown. While some will gladly point out that the Revolution was over a 3% tax, this is a red herring. It’s what that fee (and other taxes) represented; or rather, what they didn’t grant in terms of representation. Like modern unions, the colonists were looking for a place at the table to prevent any exploitation via the Crown’s wealth extraction of the colonies. Being denied that, both sides ramped up the pressure and antagonism until only violence would lead to any changes. As a result, a system of antagonistic forces was inculcated in the fabric of American culture along with a deep-seated xenophobia. It carried over to the struggles between factory owners and laborers, which led to the violence during the factory strikes of early unionization.
Corporations
The earliest recorded company charter in Europe dates back to the fourteenth century, not coincidentally around the same time that guilds were being outlawed; discounting those of the Roman Empire that is. The purpose of a company is to minimize the risk to any one person. Perhaps not so curious is the fact that merchants did this in their own line of work. Look at the array of goods available to a consumer in any one given store. That example of so many different products in one location serves to show how companies work. If one product fails, the store doesn’t suffer. The varied inventory makes up for the loss of any one line.
As corporations are all about providing services at a cost, the image of the merchant serves well here; so further examination is warranted. As merchants operate stores, a bit needs to be done to understand what that means. Depending on how far back one goes, say mid-thirteenth century, the word refers to goods kept on a premises, such as food, fuel, clothing and so forth. It is in this context Americans use the word for a merchant’s place of business. The building and the goods/services offered are the merchant’s stores. What a merchant does, then, is provide the service of compiling goods in one location. This has fundamentally remained unchanged for the profession throughout its many iterations.
When a company is formed, the partners have to invest it with capital from their personal reserves, or stores, if one wants to extend the metaphor. The more partners, the less risk (and reward) to those involved in the venture. But companies cannot merely spring up out of nowhere. So the corporate charter from the 1300s is pretty important. Not only does it establish the legal precedent that marks business formation, but it also recognizes and regulates the proposed corporation. Short of a monarchy owning stock in the company’s business, the charter is designed to preserve the power of the crown while allowing those forming the company to have an exclusive grant to use the company to their mutual advantage. The question is where the funds come from to start the enterprise.
Now, any student of history can confirm that money in the fourteenth century was predominantly concentrated in the hands of the aristocracy and/or nobility of any given country. Laborers and the like from the lowest social strata surely couldn’t afford to establish a business. When the guilds were dissolved, this left the merchant class and nobles with the means to form a company that extended beyond selling their labor as services. Corporations are understandably modeled on merchants as the purpose of a corporation is to provide a service to their clients and shareholders. The people who provide the labor make it possible for corporations to do this at a profit, which will be discussed later.
What one should take away from the above point is that the merchants didn’t just disappear when their guild did. It is a good bet they didn’t lose their accumulated wealth, either. Some began to channel it into newer ventures. With their acumen in diversification, merchants knew how to minimize risk. Anyone who doubts as much should read the works of Adam Smith and Daniel Defoe. While not the oldest treatises for the transition and development of what would become the corporate model, these writers show the mentality that informs capitalist and corporate theory. Granted, some of this has fallen out of favor, but that does not negate the importance such work has in how corporations have developed and continue to affect modern economic theories and practices. Comparisons to the South Sea Bubble and the recent economic crises are a good indicator to the accuracy for this argument.
Where do factories fit into this system? For one, all those unskilled laborers had to go somewhere. With the collapse of cottage industry with its piecemeal work in favor of standardization and automation that improved output at the cost of skilled labor. As the primary site of production, the factory owners were applying technology to an old economic model: feudalism. Replacing farming and other duties of the serfs tied to the land system that was the site of labor extraction with the factory changed the relationship to finished goods the peasants formerly enjoyed. Like corporations, the factories lacked the means to provide the services they promised without employing others to perform the services on the company’s behalf.
Merchants had the money and knowledge to set up new ways to give clients services previously more cost intensive than what clients wanted to spend time doing themselves. This extended to activities people were unaware of that they needed someone else to help them accomplish. Advertising helps get the word out in regards to this last point. By having groups of people who not only can do the work needed to provide the service, the corporation divides the labor any one person performs. Like any other merchant, the corporation doesn’t make the good or service, it provides the conduit for customers to purchase a physical object or access to the commodity. Readers are free to speculate where this places venture capitalists and investment firms, but it should suggest itself.
In the next installment, how these seemingly divergent paths aren’t so different after all.
Trade Unions
While there is no direct links to guilds due to laws that banned labor organizations for upwards of 500 years in some places, as in England. That said, enough similarities exist to suggest that the modern unions are rooted in the guilds of old. How so, you may ask? Like trade unions, guilds served to protect their members and the knowledge of their craft. In part, this last point was in lieu of legal protections that find modern analogues in various laws for patents, trade secrets, product identity, and so forth.
By controlling what amounts to instructional capital (now mainly held in the hands of private schools and their public institute counterparts), the guilds not only held job security, but also the insurance manifest in the power bound in their protected crafts and the need of access by those not privy to such services offered by their respective guilds. Guilds were as much a vocational school as they were organizations designed to protect their members’ interests. Maintaining secrecy meant that guilds could limit or prevent a client’s exploitation of its members. In effect, it let the guild shield its members from the aristocracy’s power.
So, what happened to them? In part, technology helped in their undoing. Mostly, they were legislated out of existence for being too much of an obstacle either to someone else’s power, or their own bureaucratic system that made them financial burdens, depending on who you ask. They didn’t completely disappear, however. The word “guild” comes from the German “Guilde,” which applied only to merchant organizations. “Gilden,” the plural form of the word, dealt in money. “Gilden” was the Saxon word “to pay” and helps explain phrases like “the gilded hand.”
Despite laws which eventually broke the guilds, not all of them disappeared outright. Some of them changed forms. Merchants had their own guilds, after all. The breaking of the guilds decoupled labor from its performers. It not only sent the knowledge to the universities (predominantly in the hands of the church at the time), but also the means of production into the hands of those who owned the devices and commodities of production. Thus the standardization of production meant the technology and location fell to those with the capacity to acquire the resources necessary to control and supply goods.
Modern unions arose with the Industrial Revolution. By this time, laborers had no claim to their work. The work done was paid with wages, but the value of the service performed was greater than the compensation. In part this was due to the fact that, despite schooling, laborers were unskilled. The improve work conditions, wages, and job security (including protection from an employer’s whims), workers began to unionize in the nineteenth century. No longer the one-stop shop of the guild system, a modern union works to control the conditions of labor and access to it to prevent exploitation. Unions work to protect jobs, but this can also result in negative views of the unions.
The early strikes of modern unions resulted in a great deal of violence that has colored the perception of these groups. The tactic was, and still is, used to prevent exploitation via unfair labor extraction of union members. Beyond ensuring a workers is considered skilled enough to be a journeyman (meaning such individuals can move from one work site to another and is treated as a skilled practitioner), the ability to strike or call for one as a bargaining chip to force factory owners to the negotiation table. As such, the modern union has some of the tools of the guilds, but not their clout. One doesn’t need to look at the recent developments in Wisconsin with Scott Walker’s union stripping bill. The clashes with the Pinkertons and factory workers marked the struggle to unionize and set the tone for American unions.
The “us vs. them” mentality has been a part of the American psyche since the nation’s inception. Americans have always been xenophobic because of the invasive policies of the British Crown. While some will gladly point out that the Revolution was over a 3% tax, this is a red herring. It’s what that fee (and other taxes) represented; or rather, what they didn’t grant in terms of representation. Like modern unions, the colonists were looking for a place at the table to prevent any exploitation via the Crown’s wealth extraction of the colonies. Being denied that, both sides ramped up the pressure and antagonism until only violence would lead to any changes. As a result, a system of antagonistic forces was inculcated in the fabric of American culture along with a deep-seated xenophobia. It carried over to the struggles between factory owners and laborers, which led to the violence during the factory strikes of early unionization.
Corporations
The earliest recorded company charter in Europe dates back to the fourteenth century, not coincidentally around the same time that guilds were being outlawed; discounting those of the Roman Empire that is. The purpose of a company is to minimize the risk to any one person. Perhaps not so curious is the fact that merchants did this in their own line of work. Look at the array of goods available to a consumer in any one given store. That example of so many different products in one location serves to show how companies work. If one product fails, the store doesn’t suffer. The varied inventory makes up for the loss of any one line.
As corporations are all about providing services at a cost, the image of the merchant serves well here; so further examination is warranted. As merchants operate stores, a bit needs to be done to understand what that means. Depending on how far back one goes, say mid-thirteenth century, the word refers to goods kept on a premises, such as food, fuel, clothing and so forth. It is in this context Americans use the word for a merchant’s place of business. The building and the goods/services offered are the merchant’s stores. What a merchant does, then, is provide the service of compiling goods in one location. This has fundamentally remained unchanged for the profession throughout its many iterations.
When a company is formed, the partners have to invest it with capital from their personal reserves, or stores, if one wants to extend the metaphor. The more partners, the less risk (and reward) to those involved in the venture. But companies cannot merely spring up out of nowhere. So the corporate charter from the 1300s is pretty important. Not only does it establish the legal precedent that marks business formation, but it also recognizes and regulates the proposed corporation. Short of a monarchy owning stock in the company’s business, the charter is designed to preserve the power of the crown while allowing those forming the company to have an exclusive grant to use the company to their mutual advantage. The question is where the funds come from to start the enterprise.
Now, any student of history can confirm that money in the fourteenth century was predominantly concentrated in the hands of the aristocracy and/or nobility of any given country. Laborers and the like from the lowest social strata surely couldn’t afford to establish a business. When the guilds were dissolved, this left the merchant class and nobles with the means to form a company that extended beyond selling their labor as services. Corporations are understandably modeled on merchants as the purpose of a corporation is to provide a service to their clients and shareholders. The people who provide the labor make it possible for corporations to do this at a profit, which will be discussed later.
What one should take away from the above point is that the merchants didn’t just disappear when their guild did. It is a good bet they didn’t lose their accumulated wealth, either. Some began to channel it into newer ventures. With their acumen in diversification, merchants knew how to minimize risk. Anyone who doubts as much should read the works of Adam Smith and Daniel Defoe. While not the oldest treatises for the transition and development of what would become the corporate model, these writers show the mentality that informs capitalist and corporate theory. Granted, some of this has fallen out of favor, but that does not negate the importance such work has in how corporations have developed and continue to affect modern economic theories and practices. Comparisons to the South Sea Bubble and the recent economic crises are a good indicator to the accuracy for this argument.
Where do factories fit into this system? For one, all those unskilled laborers had to go somewhere. With the collapse of cottage industry with its piecemeal work in favor of standardization and automation that improved output at the cost of skilled labor. As the primary site of production, the factory owners were applying technology to an old economic model: feudalism. Replacing farming and other duties of the serfs tied to the land system that was the site of labor extraction with the factory changed the relationship to finished goods the peasants formerly enjoyed. Like corporations, the factories lacked the means to provide the services they promised without employing others to perform the services on the company’s behalf.
Merchants had the money and knowledge to set up new ways to give clients services previously more cost intensive than what clients wanted to spend time doing themselves. This extended to activities people were unaware of that they needed someone else to help them accomplish. Advertising helps get the word out in regards to this last point. By having groups of people who not only can do the work needed to provide the service, the corporation divides the labor any one person performs. Like any other merchant, the corporation doesn’t make the good or service, it provides the conduit for customers to purchase a physical object or access to the commodity. Readers are free to speculate where this places venture capitalists and investment firms, but it should suggest itself.
In the next installment, how these seemingly divergent paths aren’t so different after all.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
A Union by Any Other Name, Part 1
Up until a short time ago, I thought I was late to the party on the ongoing debate concerning unions and that it had fallen to the wayside in the news cycle. That was until I watched the commentary on Wisconsin’s recall election, the debt ceiling fiasco, and the 8/11/11 Republican presidential debate. So, I figured I should weigh in with my views on the subject.
Here’s my disclaimer: I’m not affiliated with any party. In fact, when I take political tests, I come out as a Libertarian. Mainly this is due to my views that anything safe, sane, and conducted by consensual adults in the privacy of their homes has no place in public debate or legislation; and, government should do the maximum good at minimal costs. The first because it’s none of my business what people do, as long as I don’t have to see it or join in if I do not want to. The latter: the less money used the less corruption possible. My lack of political affiliation stems from lies and half-truths oozing out of the rhetoric of everyone in office. The power grabs are appalling and irritating.
The Art of Communication
You don’t have to have a language degree to know there are multiple ways to say the same thing. Take the words used to describe dogs. The common reference is “dog,” the scientific is “canine;” one can address them by breed (Cocker Spaniel, Chihuahua), breeding terms for gender, and so on. Either way, it is the same thing being described. What differs is how much detail is being provided along with the emotional response imbued in each word available to denote what one wishes to discuss. In “The Language Instinct,” Steven Pinker makes the claim that language is the desire to acquire a form of art. If one considers the range of sounds people can use to convey emotional states without a linguistic (language) connection, there is no need to convey thoughts about one’s own state of being. Add to this the vast array of nonverbal cues we use to get a point across and there is no need for words outside the transfer of concepts from one individual to another.
Words, then, are a means by which people transfer intangible, sometimes esoteric, ideas from their conscious mind to someone else’s. Because ideas are fluid, people need ways to indicate subtle changes with something more adaptable to the mercurial world of ideas. Hence, a vocabulary with shadings of meaning for similar or related objects. Word slippage may lead to misinterpretation, but it is this very nuance that gives the art of language its versatility and power. Word slippage is one of the ways in which we form new meanings and words to cover gaps in our concepts we were previously unaware of. The obsoletion of words is essentially the failure of a definition to remain viable for a society’s needs. Language as a technology remains useful so long as it serves the needs of its users.
Language is a technology? Yes, in the sense of the meaning of the Greek root “techné,” the “art or technique of revealing.” Language is a tool for transmitting thoughts and an art for revealing new facets of humanity’s relation within its place amongst the natural world. So, people communicate in order to further this process. This leads to another word that requires a bit of explanation: “communicate.” The root of this word means “to share.” Whenever we gesture, speak, write, or simply are present, we are sharing something with others. What then are people sharing in regards to the divide between unions and corporations? For that, an examination of the roots of those words is required.
Etymology of Two Groups
Despite the rhetoric and slippage in meaning, there is very little difference between unions and corporations. Both groups are formed out of a common interest. In this case, it is the desire to make money. To some, this may sound strange. Let’s begin with corporations.
“Incorporation” means “the act of forming a body.” It is literally in the Latin from which the word descends: in + corpus, which becomes incorporaer. The meaning is the same. Corporations then are organizations that are composed in order to form a whole from discrete parts. In the US, cities as well as businesses incorporate to create an entity designed for legal recognition as such. These organizations work towards a common purpose via a group effort it can leverage in its favor. For the city, that is securing its citizens’ safety and ability to eke out a living. Corporations exist to benefit its members financially using similar analogous functions to a town. The most notable is the council elected by members of the body to lead the organization. This group then oversees the organs that sustain the incorporated entity are supplied with whatever they need to carry out their function. This could be equipment, labor (fire, police, education, payroll, personnel, etc.), or procedural codes (laws, safety guidelines, etc.).
To “unionize” means “to become one.” Unions, then, are organizations which come together to become a single entity. Like an incorporated group, unions are formed out of a common goal. The root of “union” and “unionize” is “unum,” The Latin word for “one.” With a single front, the unionized collective can pursue its members’ interests with minimal risk to any one entity. I used “entity” here because not all unions are collectives of people. The United States is such a union of entities, along with the Chamber of Commerce. Keep in mind the language used in the Constitution reflects this: “in order to form a more perfect union.” Unions organize to protect its members from the leverage of other groups that employ such pressure on individuals to accept a contract that does not necessarily benefit the person. In order to do this, the union elects a panel to represent it and to organize the group’s resources and people to ensure the functioning of the union and produce its leverage. So, as one can see, the corollaries between unions and incorporated entities in what they are and how they function are virtually synonymous.
Finally, let’s take a look at the words “organize” and “organs” as they have some bearing on this subject. Like the previous pairs, these two words share a common root. Both enter English from Greek (organon) via Latin (organum). The original meaning is “implement, tool.” The organs of a body are, in a technical sense, tools. They have very specialized functions that keep the body working: fuel intake, fuel processing, pump, filter, communications and distribution system. Companies do this as well. Each department is an organ; an implement that serves a specific need to allow a corporation to function, such as payroll and human resources. Trade unions originally were designed to nurture and protect the interests of people best suited to make requisite corporate organs function.
To “organize” is to implement or create the tool. Organization leads to efficiency. Ask any writer how beneficial it is to have a system in place to write with clarity and economy. They have a system; we all do if we want to be seen as professionals. If that is a single-person operation, imagine organizations with twenty or more people. Organizing, then, is to structure things for a specific purpose, just like hand tools are designed to perform a single functions. Following this line of thought, every component/division/etc. in an organization is a tool. Trade unions are tools that facilitate the hiring of specialized talent whereas corporations are tools for creating the need for such people to work amongst the corporate ranks.
Suffice it to say, both unions and corporations need each other the way all bodies need organs. The closeness of this relationship, along with similarities in their structures is why so much effort has gone into distinguishing the two. This, however, is the focus of the next installment.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Breaking News: Perry Enters Presidential Race
"I declare to you today as a candidate for president of the United States!" Perry announced during a speech that resonated with conservative imagery, support for industry, and references to Ronald Reagan, and which spoke to rightwing Republican and Tea Party concerns.
In keeping with the other current GOP candidates, Perry made vague criticisms of the Obama administration and observations on the economy core elements of his platform.
"We reject this president's unbridled fixation on taking more money out of wallets and pocketbooks of American families -- and employers -- and giving it to a central government," Perry said. "Spreading the wealth punishes success."
Perry also held Obama accountable for everything from the recent downgrade in the U.S. credit rating to the country's increasingly perilous place in the world, noting that "Our president has insulted our friends and encouraged our enemies."
Following his speech, Perry's wife and children joined him on stage while a crowd chanted their support for him.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Casey Anthony Trial — The Aftermath
I am actually stunned to see the current discourse on CNN regarding whether or not the names of the jurors in the Casey Anthony trial should be released. The judge, rightfully so, is concerned about the likelihood of retribution against jury members by the mob currently camped outside the Orlando Courthouse. Do these folks not have employment or lives of their own?
Sadly, the only thing that has made this case different from any of the other tragic murder cases of children: this case caught the interest of Nancy Grace. Grace in a single episode of her sensationalist tabloid TV show, stuck the label of “Tot Mom”, and tried and convicted Casey Anthony of First Degree Murder. It should be noted that Grace, prior to hosting her show on CNN, was a prosecutor of questionable ethics. Before becoming a CNN and Court TV anchor, she was a notorious prosecutor in Alabama.
In a 2005 federal appeals opinion, Judge William H. Pryor Jr., a conservative former Alabama attorney general, found that Grace had “played fast and loose” with core ethical rules in a 1990 triple-murder case. Grace was accused of not disclosing critical evidence (the existence of other suspects) as well as knowingly permitting a detective to testify falsely under oath. The Georgia Supreme Court also reprimanded her for withholding evidence and for making improper statements in a 1997 arson and murder case. The court overturned the conviction in that case and found that Grace’s behavior “demonstrated her disregard of the notions of due process and fairness and was inexcusable.” She faced similar claims in other cases.
Clearly, without conscience, Grace has never cared whether or not a defendant, who by constitutional law is supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, is denied due process or a fair trial. Her own misconduct as a prosecutor is proof of that. While one can understand why a prosecutor might bend or even break the rules a little to get that career enhancing conviction, she withheld evidence and suborned perjury that made it clear that the defendant on trial was actually innocent. Thus sending an innocent victim to prison until the conviction was overturned.
I suspect her biggest fans haven’t bothered to do any research on the character of the women they so idolize, and perhaps would not care. In the case of the Casey Anthony, Grace and others, like Grace clone Jane Velez-Mitchell, ranted and raved for the cameras for ratings, not caring who they libeled or defamed in the process. Notably, I do not believe I have ever heard either one of them covering, or inciting an angry mob on behalf of innocent victims being released from prison, many off death row, after decades in prison for crimes of which they were ultimately found innocent. (Shown here are agitated trial spectators attacking each other in the wake of the Anthony verdict.)
I honestly don’t know whether or not Casey Anthony killed her daughter either deliberately or accidentally. Given that she has been legally determined to be not guilty of the crime that should no longer be an issue. I do believe, without any doubt, that the jury did the best possible job and that while many of all of them might have thought that Anthony was responsible for the death of Caylee, evidence was not presented by the prosecution that convinced them beyond a reasonable doubt.
We all need to be cautious in condemning a justice system designed to protect us all from being railroaded to prison for crimes that we are innocent of. In spite of that protection, all too often innocent victims are imprisoned and even executed for crimes of which they are innocent.
Grace’s comment on her July 5th show “the devil is dancing” indicates that she believes in the devil. If she indeed does, then she must also consider that there is a God and that Anthony will ultimately be held accountable for her transgressions. That will have to be good enough for all of us, unless of course, some angry mob member, incited by years of hearing Grace proclaim “Tot Mom’s” guilt decides to take justice into their own hands.
See also "Breaking News: Casey Anthony Moving to Texas!" on Texas Confidential Online.
In a 2005 federal appeals opinion, Judge William H. Pryor Jr., a conservative former Alabama attorney general, found that Grace had “played fast and loose” with core ethical rules in a 1990 triple-murder case. Grace was accused of not disclosing critical evidence (the existence of other suspects) as well as knowingly permitting a detective to testify falsely under oath. The Georgia Supreme Court also reprimanded her for withholding evidence and for making improper statements in a 1997 arson and murder case. The court overturned the conviction in that case and found that Grace’s behavior “demonstrated her disregard of the notions of due process and fairness and was inexcusable.” She faced similar claims in other cases.
Clearly, without conscience, Grace has never cared whether or not a defendant, who by constitutional law is supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, is denied due process or a fair trial. Her own misconduct as a prosecutor is proof of that. While one can understand why a prosecutor might bend or even break the rules a little to get that career enhancing conviction, she withheld evidence and suborned perjury that made it clear that the defendant on trial was actually innocent. Thus sending an innocent victim to prison until the conviction was overturned.
We all need to be cautious in condemning a justice system designed to protect us all from being railroaded to prison for crimes that we are innocent of. In spite of that protection, all too often innocent victims are imprisoned and even executed for crimes of which they are innocent.
Grace’s comment on her July 5th show “the devil is dancing” indicates that she believes in the devil. If she indeed does, then she must also consider that there is a God and that Anthony will ultimately be held accountable for her transgressions. That will have to be good enough for all of us, unless of course, some angry mob member, incited by years of hearing Grace proclaim “Tot Mom’s” guilt decides to take justice into their own hands.
See also "Breaking News: Casey Anthony Moving to Texas!" on Texas Confidential Online.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Book Review: 'The Rise of the Fourth Reich'
(Harper Collins, 2008) is not a book to be read lightly. After completing it, a reader will either have wasted the time spent to work their way through nearly 400 pages of increasingly complex and disturbing data and relationships, or will be forced to acknowledge things about the world that they can no longer ignore (even if it was possible to do so when they only vaguely suspected they might be true). Marrs is the author of several bestselling books that focus largely on subjects like conspiracies, secret societies, the subversive agendas of “power elites,” and the like, works that tend to resonate on some level with many modern readers (while variously enthralling or repelling those at the extreme ends of the spectrum). Some of his other titles include Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy, the book upon which the Oliver Stone film JFK is based; The Terror Conspiracy: Deception, 9/11 and the Loss of Liberty; and Alien Agenda: Investigating the Extraterrestrial Presence Among Us.
Because it alludes to subjects like the Templars and Illuminati, which have become familiar even to the unread through popular films, The Rise of the Fourth Reich: The Secret Societies That Threaten to Take Over America
is in some ways very much a product of its time. As indicated by a significant number of online reviews of his books, however, some readers are disinclined to take any of Marrs’ work seriously simply because he goes far beyond these popular themes and into the realm of UFOs, time travel, and conspiracy theories. And Marrs is certainly no less extreme in his approach in The Rise of the Fourth Reich: The Secret Societies That Threaten to Take Over America
than in any of his other works. His thesis in this book is, in short, that the industrial and philosophical basis of Nazi Germany was not destroyed in World War II, even though its political and military apparatus was. Beyond just surviving, Marrs says, these systems were disseminated around the world, notably to the United States, and have subsequently become an integral part of what Eisenhower dubbed “the military-industrial complex” — and cautioned Americans to beware of. “Always remember that a typical attribute of fascism is the merging of state and business leadership,” Marrs writes. “In fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, the state gained control over the corporations. In modern America, corporations have gained control over the state. The end result is the same.”
Marrs demonstrates this merger, which was well underway by the early 20th century, and his revelations are disturbing and even a little sickening, especially when considered in light of each other. These include, for example, Prescott Bush’s role as a principal in corporations that supported the rise of Hitler in Germany, his son George H.W. Bush’s support of secret Nazi assistance programs while director of the CIA, and his grandson George W. Bush’s use of propaganda techniques identical to those used in fascist Germany.
And revelations about the pro-Nazi activities of individuals (e.g., Dick Cheney, Nelson Rockefeller, Donald Rumsfeld) and companies (e.g., Chase, IBM, I.G. Farben) we all are explicitly familiar with are equally horrifying.
Isolated facts aside, whether or not Marr’s conclusions in The Rise of the Fourth Reich: The Secret Societies That Threaten to Take Over America
are correct, they do constitute a unified theory on why things are the way they are in the United States today. The unending wars with vague justifications and no apparent end in sight to which Americans are becoming accustomed, for example, are perfectly explained in his schema (and he certainly articulates the possible motivations behind the current U.S. military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan better than any major political leaders have in the past nine years). His detractors and extreme conclusions aside, Marrs does not write like a nut and presents his case adeptly. And, the rather sensationalistic title of the book notwithstanding, he does nonetheless maintain a sober style of writing that lends credibility to his case. He also does a fairly good job of weighing even information that supports his case and expressing skepticism about claims that he does not deem likely.
At 42 pages, the most substantial chapter in the book — and one of the most fantastic — is on “Nazi Wonder Weapons,” such as the familiar V2 rockets. This chapter focuses in some detail on the German atomic weapons program, and touches briefly on things like flying-saucer-shaped concept aircraft and the “Bell,” an energy-manipulating device with some characteristics of a time machine. One of the most compelling things Marrs does in this chapter is present a believable case that the Germans might have not just had functioning atomic bombs late in the war but that they might have tested them on a number of Russian targets — and that the weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki several months after the Nazi surrender might have been of German manufacture and been transferred to the United States as part of a deal on behalf of certain Nazi leaders and researchers.
There are a few potential or actual flaws in The Rise of the Fourth Reich: The Secret Societies That Threaten to Take Over America.
While the sprawling patchwork of facts presented by Marrs has disturbing implications when considered as a whole, beginning to build inexorably early in the book and reaching critical mass well before its conclusion, it does not always go beyond implications of probabilities or possibilities. And, as largely a distillate of other authors’ findings and points of view, it often presents a disturbing collage but one that was not necessarily intended to hang together.
Marrs also draws almost exclusively on secondary rather than primary sources, so the overall effect of his presentation is potentially undermined by any weaknesses in the works of the disparate authors to whom he refers. This methodology has been effectively applied in the case of other significant books, of course (e.g., William Manchester’s The Arms of Krupp), and does not negate his prodigious accomplishment with The Rise of the Fourth Reich: The Secret Societies That Threaten to Take Over America
. Marrs does also not necessarily define unfamiliar concepts explicitly, and readers who want to completely understand what he is talking about may need to do some external research. He extensively uses the term “globalists,” for example, and while this likely evokes some sort of an image for most readers — and one that will crystallize as they work their way through this book — a full definition requires recourse to third-party sources.
A minor but nonetheless annoying downside that emerges in the second half of the book is some rather sloppy editing, which typically manifests itself in a particular name being spelled one way initially and a different way a little further on in the text. This never actually reduces the clarity of the book, but one would think a big publisher like Harper Collins could do better.
Marrs’ chapter on Religion is somewhat lightweight and a bit of a disappointment. In it, the author puts almost as much effort into decrying liberal attacks on organized religion, rather than on the overtly cynical ends to which the political and social institutions he builds a case against throughout his book have increasingly used many American churches (i.e., as a means of disseminating “values” calculated to erode personal freedoms). Marr’s own voice comes through in this chapter more so than many of the others, and it is conflicted.
In the end, however, these blemishes are minor compared to the great work Marrs has done in The Rise of the Fourth Reich: The Secret Societies That Threaten to Take Over America,
and his message is not greatly diminished by them. And even if someone is not inclined to agree with Marrs’ conclusions — that the social, political, and economic institutions of the United States have been suborned by de facto or actual Nazis — the information he provides to support them is interesting in and of itself, and it will be a rare reader who does not walk away knowing much more than they did before.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Movie Commentary: 'Good'
In many ways, the film is unexceptional in that its themes of corruption and the mind-numbing inhumanity of the Nazis are ones that have been explored any number of times in other works (although I don't think it ever hurts to be reminded of these things and for each generation to continue to explore them). It is, however, exceptional in one small way, and that is its depiction of the punch card system developed by computer pioneer IBM to help the Nazis manage the extermination of European Jews.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
When the Lie is the Message
Once in awhile, a friend or relative will forward me a message containing a brief emotional anecdote encouraging me to be patriotic, "support the troops," or engage in some other form of desirable conduct. These messages then usually exhort me to forward them to everyone I know but never actually call for any constructive action in support of the causes they espouse (e.g., sending care packages to the troops I am supposed to support).
What is most disturbing about these messages, however, is that they typically contain some blatant, verifiable lie. A recent one, supposedly about honoring fallen veterans, contained in it the following:
"Did you know that the ACLU has filed a suit to have all military cross-shaped headstones removed? and another suit to end prayer from the military completely. They're making great progress. The Navy Chaplains can no longer mention Jesus' name in prayer thanks to the ACLU."
A little research revealed that these particular statements have been making their way around the Internet since at least June 2009 (as per Snopes, and that none of these particular assertions are true in any way"Grave Concerns"). Over the past two years, they have been read by hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of people who have simply accepted them as the truth, got all worked up about them, and then forwarded them to everyone on their contact lists.
Verification aside, anyone capable of critical thinking ought to be able to read between the lines on these statements and sense that they are not true. There would be no legal basis, for example, for removing headstones with Christian iconography but not those with the symbols of other religions. There is thus a vicious, unspoken implication in this particular lie (e.g., that it would be OK for those Jews at the ACLU if headstones shaped like the Stars of David were retained, or even those with Muslim crescents, presumably as part of some convoluted Zionist plan to strengthen the hold of Islam in the United States).
And anyone who has actually served in the military anytime in the last few decades, or bothered to talk to those who have while "supporting" them, knows that troops are in no way deprived of their rights to prayer or worship -- especially Christian troops. Over the past several years, in fact, I have heard numerous complaints from soldiers that Bible-thumping commanders have promoted their own extreme fundamentalist religious views on their subordinates.
On a personal note, it bears mentioning that, as a journalist, I have striven most of my adult life to be strictly apolitical. But as an American, a veteran, and a person of faith, I am both revolted that there are so many people willing to spread baseless lies and dispirited that there are so many people eager to accept and propagate them -- and I cannot help but notice that messages bearing such falsehoods almost never originate from the left and almost always come from the right.
What is most disturbing about these messages, however, is that they typically contain some blatant, verifiable lie. A recent one, supposedly about honoring fallen veterans, contained in it the following:
"Did you know that the ACLU has filed a suit to have all military cross-shaped headstones removed? and another suit to end prayer from the military completely. They're making great progress. The Navy Chaplains can no longer mention Jesus' name in prayer thanks to the ACLU."
A little research revealed that these particular statements have been making their way around the Internet since at least June 2009 (as per Snopes, and that none of these particular assertions are true in any way"Grave Concerns"). Over the past two years, they have been read by hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of people who have simply accepted them as the truth, got all worked up about them, and then forwarded them to everyone on their contact lists.
Verification aside, anyone capable of critical thinking ought to be able to read between the lines on these statements and sense that they are not true. There would be no legal basis, for example, for removing headstones with Christian iconography but not those with the symbols of other religions. There is thus a vicious, unspoken implication in this particular lie (e.g., that it would be OK for those Jews at the ACLU if headstones shaped like the Stars of David were retained, or even those with Muslim crescents, presumably as part of some convoluted Zionist plan to strengthen the hold of Islam in the United States).
And anyone who has actually served in the military anytime in the last few decades, or bothered to talk to those who have while "supporting" them, knows that troops are in no way deprived of their rights to prayer or worship -- especially Christian troops. Over the past several years, in fact, I have heard numerous complaints from soldiers that Bible-thumping commanders have promoted their own extreme fundamentalist religious views on their subordinates.
On a personal note, it bears mentioning that, as a journalist, I have striven most of my adult life to be strictly apolitical. But as an American, a veteran, and a person of faith, I am both revolted that there are so many people willing to spread baseless lies and dispirited that there are so many people eager to accept and propagate them -- and I cannot help but notice that messages bearing such falsehoods almost never originate from the left and almost always come from the right.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Sex in the Lone Star State
2) Miss Hattie’s Bordello: For fully half a century, from 1902 until 1952, one of the best known and most successful businesses in San Angelo was Miss Hattie’s Bordello. It was, in fact, the crown jewel in the local vice district known as the Concho, a neighborhood named for the river along which it was located.
4) Walking Tall in the White House: Lyndon Baines Johnson, 36th President of the United States, always seemed proud of his womanizing ways. He had sex, inside and outside the White House, with secretaries, aides, and just about any other woman who would agree.
6) Going Down to Get Ahead: In 1976, John Andrew Young was on his eleventh term in the U.S. House of Representatives when a woman who had worked for him accused him of pressuring her to have sex with him. Even worse, she said, the married father of five had compensated her at taxpayer’s expense.
8) Below the Bench: After being named Federal District Judge of Galveston by President George H. W. Bush, Samuel B. Kent was convicted of lying about sexually harassing two female employees and sentenced to 33 months in prison.
9) Now All Sex is Fine in Texas: For those who are interested, anal and oral sex between consenting adults of all genders is now legal in the State of Texas — but only since 2003, when the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in to tell the state where it could stick its intrusive sodomy laws.
10) A Risky Proposition: Passed in 2005 with the intent of preventing gay relationships, Proposition 2 threatened to accidentally illegalize all marriage in the state.
12) Sex Toys Now Legal in Texas!: Since November 2008, people in Texas have had the right to sell or purchase sex toys of various sorts as desired. Prior to that, however, the Lone Star State explicitly reserved the right to regulate morality and to prosecute people who did not measure up to its lofty standards.
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