January 10, 2005
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Topic: thinking, reading, synthesizing
Thought to examine:
Most people were raised to believe the US is “good” because we have opposed those who have done bad. Is it possible that we possess many of those bad qualities that we fight against?
ex) while we fought the evil atrocities of Hitler, the US supported racism at home
Thought to examine:
US ideals of freedom for all are second to none. That’s what creates a justified sense that America is best. However, freedom for all means recognizing those living with less freedom, both economically and legally than yourself. How can we claim to be spreading freedom and equal opportunity for all to regions like the Middle East, when we do not fully implement these ideals ourselves?
Thought to examine:
Welath can be a good thing when used to benefit humanity. How can wealth be used to harm humanity? How does wealth result in power to shape society? How has society been shaped by the beliefs of the wealthy?
Thought to examine:
How well documented is the student pracitce of beating the system of learning by cheating, pulling all-nighters, and cutting class?
Thought to examine:
The more I learn, the more outraged I become, the more likely I am to act. As a Prof. of mine once said, action happens when there’s an issue that really makes you angry. Without a complete education that includes controversy, there will not be education that will lead to outrage, there will not be education that will lead to political and civic engagement. Why do more older people vote than younger? I hypothesize that the young do not have the knowledge and experiences that would drive them to the ballot box. Why are youth perceived as apathetic? Becuase the majority of their lives have been spent in sanitized schools and classrooms.
Thought to examine:
What is it about our political system and politicians, that allows them to make decisions that violate many of the beliefs of the masses? Why is there no 3rd voice in politics?
Person to look-up: Studs Turkel
Thoughts to examine:
One of the functions of the US gov’t is to raise revenue, and to spend it. Does the US raise revenue in a fair way and spend in a way to meet the needs of all people? The fundamental needs of all people include food, housing, education, and medical care. The gov’t has not met the needs of the poor. How has the gov’t helped the rich?
ex) pre-civil war, builders of railroads and canals received gov’t money, while workers make little money and lived in terrible conditions.
Zinn: “The great romantic story of the American railroads owes everything to government welfare.”
Seeing the big picture:
laissez-faire = rugged American individualsm = the gov’t should aid neither the poor nor the rich
Gov’t believes in laissez faire for the poor, socialism for the rich. Socialsm for the rich comes in the forms of subsidies, tariffs, and military use for business rather than national interests.
Idea: To measure the effects of K-16 education, it woudl be useful to see what 22-28 year olds know and believe. Qualatative and quantative data will help. Possibly list terms and pople that are critical to understanding modern day politics, and see what % of people can state their importance to the big picture beyond simple facts.
Zinn: “It is shocking, it is irrational, it is unjust, that in a country as wealthy as the United States, any human being living within its borders whould not have these basic things.” (food, housing, medical care, education, and work)
“We need fresh thinking , new approaches. The old formulas for socialism have been discredited by teh experience of “socialism” in teh Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. But the standard praise of capitalism is not warranted by the human results of the American system. On the other hand, the mixed socialis and capitalist economies of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and New Zealand have succeeded in achieving a certain degree of economic justice, a high standard of living available, without too much inequality, to the entire population.”
Thought to examine:
Looking beyond 100% socialism and 100% capitalism, what do we get? Free-markets and profit-seekers have done great things for the world, but, where there is no profit to be made, the gov’t must introduce socialism to provide certain needs for the country.
Question to examine:
I’m curoius about the difference between planned and subsidized. Peace Corps is a gov’t subsidized program that pays for people to do good work abroad. In the 1930′s after economic disaster, the gov’t paid young people to plant trees and built roads, to clean parks and streets, to paint murals and perform plays. How do subsidizes differ than planned programs, like education???
Thought to examine:
What are the ill effects of a 100% laissez-faire free-market philosophy. In 1974, the US cut off food aid to Bangladesh, this resulted in famine and mass starvation.
Where does the federal budget go?
Who gets subsidies?
Who pays an unfair amount in taxes through special loop-holes and tax-breaks?
For further investigating:
Dominant ideologies in America are shaped by those who have wealth and power to overwhelm the mass media and education with their ideas.
I believe we need a radical reorganizing of American society. Most people will agree with the values underlying this new society, but have either not considered it, or oppose it, because of what they have/have not been taught in school, and because of what they learn/don’t learn, from the mass media.
Thought to examine:
Whose interests are politician working for?
Is it mostly the rich who give to their campaigns?
Are campaign contributions more influential than public opinion?
Is the US political system corrupt, because of money and wealthy individuals/corporation, and their ability to donate to campaign contribution?
What role does lobbying have in effecting politics?
What role does money have in the lobbying process?
Thought to examine:
Is the US political system built to allow for a gradual progressoin of social change, or does the system of corporate influced politician, media, and schools, work to thwart, slow, and reverse progress?
How does corporate America affect schools and education?
Is it true the US gov’t has always been biased against justice and equality, against the poor and for the rich?
Interesting thought:
The 8-hour work day took years of strikes and rebellion. Strikes were opposed by the power of the corporation, with the collaboration of the gov’t. The New Deal cam about to respond to widespread disruption of labor struggles.
Zinn: “Americans often point with pride to the high standard of living of the working class – the families that own their own homes, a car, and a television, and can afford to go away on vacation. All of this – the 8hr. day, a fairly decent wage, and vacations with pay – did not come about through the natural working of the market, or through the kindness of gov’t. It came about through the direct action of workers themselves in their labor struggles or through the response of state and nat’l governments to the threat of labor militancy”
New topics to examine:
Democrats and Republicans are both neoliberals with strong business interests.
The richest .25% of American make 80% of individual political contributions.
Neoliberalism relies on consumers, not citizens.
Neoliberalism opposes true democracy
Corporate interests – gov’t subsidies and lower taxes
Current thought:
What am I learning and thinking about? I’m thinking that nobody who only reads the daily papers and the history books from school, has an accurate picture of history and politics. I’m thinking that despite the ideology we’re all taught to believe, of the US being the wealthiest and most benevolant country, we might actually be ond of the greediest and the biggest opponant of helping the poor.
Possible book title:
Everything I really needed to know, I didn’t learn in college: From job to life skills, historical to political knowledge
Questions:
Why was the spread of Communism seen as so evil?
Is it because it would bring an end to class systems, thereby harming the rich?
What are the realities of US politics?
Chomsky: “Neoliberal doctrines, whatever one thinks of them, undermine education and health, increase inequality, and reduce labor’s share in income.
Thought to examine:
The US, England, and Japanese economies gained their power through “protectionism and violence.”
Tariffs protected domestic growth.
Free-trade means no public subsidies.
Protectionism = relief to industry through subside
Many fortune 500 companies require the “socializing of losses or state takeover”
Marshall Plan aid was tied to the purchase of US agricultural products. This interfered with free trade to benefit the US economy.
Many of the world’s problems can be understood because of US actions.
New ideas to examine:
Adam Smith, father of free-market capitalism, recognized the need for gov’t intervention to help working people. Wanted free-markets with equality of outcome
New phrases:
classical liberalism = free markets
neoliberalism is the modern reality
libertarian socialists???
these ideas are supported by Bertrand Russell and John Dewey
New history:
US involvement in Brazil during Kennedy administration was to “spread freedom and democracy” = violent overthrow of a parliamentary democracy to inrease US private investments
Thought to examine:
In 1994, the Republican gains in gov’t led many to believe the country had “shifted right,” just like now, in 2004. However, 60% of the public wanted social spending increased. Public attitudes remean stubbornly socially democratic.
Interesting fact:
1/6 of GDP, or $1 Trillion, is tax-deductable spending on advertising.
Chomsky: “People pay for their privilage of being subjected to manipulation of their attitudes and behavior.”
Look into:
Business progaganda campaigns designed to overcome social democratic attitudes
Thought to examine:
Margaret Thatcher’s free-market for the poor, gov’t intervention for industry, resulted in the privatization of gas, electricity, and water. Favors affluent customers, becomes a surcharge on the poor. Child poverty and sickness skyrocketed.
What amount of US utilities are public/private?
Comments (3)
Just a first thought: From the very beginning the US government was set up to make capitalists wealthy. From his first months as Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton paid tax dollars to steal trade secrets from Britain and create privately held companies to profit from that; set up financing for The Bank of the United States that made huge profits for speculators in New York; created “sin taxes” on the poor to finance internal improvements that made businesses more valuable. But counter to that, there’s always been a strong socialist strain in the US. New York, of course, blew huge public monies to create the Erie Canal, the New York City Water System, and other major public efforts early in the 19th Century.
Also: Please stop using the right-wing vocabulary: “Socialist” is not the same as the “State Socialism” of the Soviet Union, which would be properly called “Leninism.” “Socialism” hasn’t been discredited at all. It is the dominant politico-economic system of the industrialized world.
After work I’ll give you the rundown: but, just to start: Social Security/Payroll taxes are not really pay as you go, in the way an insurance policy would be. It’s a tax used to generate money so old people don’t starve to death. You get “credits,” one for every 3 month period in which you earn at least $800. You get retirement benefits (and disability insurance payments if needed) based on the number of credits you’ve amassed. There’s thus an obvious upper limit on benefits, but there’s also a tax limit. While everyone making under $91,000 a year effectively pays 15% (half by the employer), there’s no tax at all on the amount earned over that. Nor is there tax on all sorts of ways that rich people make money.
Anyway, of course its a generational transfer program. Do you find that surprising? Who the hell else is ever going to pay for old people? It’s also a dazzling fiscal success. For example: Over the last five years the net value of IRAs in the country has DROPPED 11%. If you were depending on that for retirement… well, oops. But Social Security is a guarantee.
OK, more: There is no “Social Security Trust Fund” and never has been. The “fund” consists of “obligation bonds,” which are established this way. Every year that Payroll Taxes take in more money than Social Security Retirement and Disability Insurance pay out (every year so far), the government takes that difference and says it owes that to Social Security. The problem, of course, is that since Social Security was created, the US Budget has only been in surplus 8 years, and only three of those have had a surplus close to that Social Security imbalance. So Payroll Taxes are nothing more than taxes, taxes disproportionately aimed at the poor and middle class, and of course, taxes that only target income from work.
It must be noted that no other country plays this charade. Since the German Empire set up the first Social Security system under Bismarck in the early 1880s, every other nation has simply admitted that this cost (along with unemployment insurance and health care) belongs as part of the general budget and tax system.
Of course taxes have been constantly shifted from rich people to the poor. In the 40s and 50s the US’s top marginal tax rate was 94%, now its 35%. But back then the payroll tax was 8%, now that’s doubled. The more money flows from rich people to congress the less they pay in taxes.