another failure of American society

I cannot keep up with all the autistic economists who keep saying, in one form or other, allowing for differences in personal style, that "the good times are over."  No more health care, no more pensions, no more public education.  Back to the nineteenth (or thirteenth) century!  Wage slavery triumphant. 


My goodness.  I never thought the "good times" were so good.  Have these guys never heard of alienation?


In any case, it's much like a doctor pronouncing that the patient has a fatal disease.  but, hey
with my comfortable post as an economist, I'm not suffering.


Do I shoot the messenger who bears bad news? No, I don't think it's so simple.  There's a lot of pretension in having a profession which is, errr, not fully scientific.  And the idea that we can be "objective" or "value-free" is really confusing these guys (and they are guys)... It is really nothing more than an excuse for not thinking things through fully, or censoring yourself in public.  Either way it's disgusting.


But that's not what I wanted to say.


My parents live in a sort of ghetto.  It's not that they live only with other elderly people.  But they are, in their suburban home, isolated.  And this is not right.


Is there no other possible way to live? Surely there must be.  Something is deeply wrong with a society that's so good at (errr used to be!)  so good at providing STUFF, but leaves out
the connections between people.


Not human. Not good.  Not justifiable. But if we look for reasons, the ugly beast of capitalism will raise its head.... and ....yccch, boy is it ugly!

death sentence through the internet

The other day,
a middle-aged friend received,
a death sentence through the internet.


The friend,
under-employed
or unemployed,
and not happy with that condition,
heard two wise men discussing him and everyone in his situation,
and the wise men said:
"Things won't get better,
not any time soon,
and they may not get better at all,
and before they'll get better,
there will have to be a movement,
an organized movement,
of many people."
--But,
there's no guarantee of anything.


And,
the friend was amazed
at the blandness and matter-of-fact quality of their pronouncement,
as if someone were counting paper clips,
and had said,
"There are 200 clips in this box,
and all those thousands of clips that don't fit,
well.....
they'll just have to go in the garbage."


"....unless those clips get together....."
(You get my point.)


The sheer absence of anything like an emotional reaction,
the economist bland and almost autistic,
the interviewer squirrelly and excited.....
"excited?"
---Yes,
in a squirrelly sort of way,
as if he were so excited to be discussing this deep issue,
the deep issue of misery and unhappiness,
and it's inevitability,
for now......


As if the mere thought that things could change in twenty or thirty years,
were somehow a piece of optimism.
But, hey, we will continue to follow this story.


Thanks a lot!

increasing barbarism

More evidence that things are getting worse:


Chris Hedges on Chris Christie:


http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_trouble_with_chris_christie_20140112


Journalists at so-called "liberal" newspapers (NYT, Guardian) advocating an elimination of medical care for those who are not rich. 
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/01/20/kell-j20.html


(My family members have had their lives lengthened by such things as stents and mammograms, which are among the targets of the attempt to eliminate medical care for most of us.)

au bord de l'eau

Yesterday I listened to Faure's "au bord de l'eau", and a few other songs.
I found myself thinking:  the ugliness to which I was submitted during my trip on an airline really was ugliness.
I was glad to re-discover that something beautiful exists.  I was relieved. If I'd been stuck on that airline for even another minute, I might have forgotten that anything else exists other than cramped quarters, bad food and air, and insincere dumbed-down music and crappy Hollywood movies.  I guess it's something like escaping from prison. (Yet, I know there are those who would like to reduce me and the rest of the world to that prison-like state--all for the sake of their profits.)

Capitalism's latest crisis

I'd like to start this post with an acerbic quotation from Marx, on the virtues of capitalists, their deservingness, and their blindness, but I'm not enough of a scholar for that.


My mother and father have memories of the Great Depression.  They have spoken of it.


And I regard it as a momentous fact that now, when they are elderly, so elderly and frail, that the system has, once again, broken down in a serious way.  And, once again, my parents and their family are under attack and threatened by something so stone cold stupid.


It's just too cruel.  They've only barely recovered from the last time the bankers and money-hoarders ruined the lives of millions.  And, even to say they have recovered would be a lie.  They have lived their lives with strong memories of the dislocation and pain inflicted upon them as children by this less-than-efficient and worse than cruel economic system. 

false emotions all over the place

Thanks to Hollywood and American Airlines, false emotions all over the place....

How American Airlines and Hollywood Underestimate and Insult

I flew on American Airlines from Chicago to London.

Along the way, they played one film and one TV series. In the guise of entertainment, they submitted us to false emotions of the most extreme variety.

The journey began with redundant „calm“ music, accompanied by nature scenes which some idiot apparently

thinks would be restful. For me it was a little annoying and silly. What do they think I am?  I'm supposed to be frightened because I'm flying?  So, I need pictures of mountains, lakes, beaches, deserts?  I do?  All I could think was:  I don't want to be there. 

Then, to make matters worse, there was an entertainment item which someone might

call a „feature film“. I would call it an overly long gladitorial spectacle which was a waste

of money and human resources, an item which dredged up every conceivable visual cliche,

and seemed to encourage the thought that a true hero must suffer an extraodinary amount of physical pain, and even torture. (Someone might say this is sort of a “reverse-Guantanamo” phenomenon. The USA government would like us to believe that anyone in Guantanamo deserved whatever they got; the inverse is that heroes who don't desere it will, in this brave new world, get what bad guys deserve---all for a nobler cause, to be sure.) As torture is now considered an acceptable government policy, heroes must expect to endure torture. To be sure, it was only the “bad guys“ that inflicted pain upon the hero in this film, but the camera was too happy to let us share the hero's pain. But, anyway, there was a miraculous recovery after the most unbelievable torture.

The film featured a bearded man who was very good at furrowing his brows

during close-ups. I was, in fact, amazed at the number of close ups which seemed to consist in the hero or his allies frowning or looking worried, worried gazes exchanged. Otherwise, the hero's other claim to fame was his evident visits to the gym. In many scenes he had no shirt.  Of course, I envied his strength and his power to attract pretty young women.   Indeed, I may have to visit the gym soon.

The film was one cliche after another: exotic Japanese girls and the Japanese mafia, explosions, Ninja fighters, etc.  The film was also sadistic and unrealistic.

Of course, I watched it only in parts, and without sound; so you may say I am unfair. I say that I would have preferred not to watch it at all. But when I travel, I become tired quickly, and the eyes naturally and automatically focus on the moving images on the screens.

I must emphasize the sadism of the film. At one point the hero had been shot in the back

with small darts or arrows with wires or long cords attached to them as much as twenty times, and he kept moving forward, porcupine like. I have never seen anything so sadistic in my life.  (I've not seen a certain recent depiction of Christ's crucifixion.)

What, really, is such a film about? The lone strong man who protects women? One man against many? No, he was aided by the two women.

I neglect the themes of bio-high-tech, regeneration of the old, and the persistence of evil. Of course, there had to be fancy machines to enhance the strength of the hero. Of course, And, indeed, the greatest stupidity was that he had the power to grow metal spikes out of his fingers. I mean: Really! Are audiences so stupid? They need a hero with a special power or a special car? Otherwise we would not be able to identify him as the hero?  As a matter of fact, I believe I've heard that any strength your arms may possess is much less than the strength of  your legs possess—so, isn't it stupid that the hero only fights with his hands and his steel finger-extensions? Silliness that is not for adults or educated young people.

Sadistic and pointless---and totally unrealistic.... But the good guy won, in the end---even if

there was a (supposedly) clever reversal in the final scene. (Yes, I think I could tell that even without dialogue.) 

I was honestly surprised that no one complained about the low quality of the movie being shown.

I could not believe that my fellow passengers took this as normal.

To make things worse, the "feature film" was followed by what I imagine was a young person's version of this nonsense with more magic.

In the young person's version---I think a TV series, but I can't be sure---a group of young friends have to do battle with people who are dressed like Romans.  There is lots of fighting and magic.  They fly away as they are transposed into dust or smoke or something like that.  I suppose it is supposed to be visually appealing; but here I am speculating.

The images in both of these shows were trite and cliched. Should I suppose that I missed something because I did not hear the dialogue? Of course, I missed something. Just as the flight made me miss out on sleep and wholesome food. Whenever I travel I become constipated, a problem I don't have when I do my own cooking. And my memories of those entertainments are themselves something I would like to expel.