Category Archives: Sociology

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Why Are We So Crazy?

conspiraciesI’ll leave it to you to wrap your head around the events in Boston. I woke as usual, turned on the TV, and was bowled over with lockdowns of neighborhoods and then the entire city of Boston, the death of a young man who only yesterday was only a face, and the race to locate the brother who was trying to escape.

I shake my head in disbelief, for after all my 63 years of experience, I have yet to understand what motivates people to do these things.

I’m not interesting in speculation at this point. Rather I speak to the first issues that now come to those of us who are “normal.”

The Contrarian breathed a sigh of relief. “At least they entered the country well before Obama took office. That will stop the usual blame-it-on-the-Black-Man.” I too joined in with the hope that the remaining suspect would be brought in alive. This for the obvious reason that I hate our murderous tendencies in the first place, but admittedly because I hope the young man might inform us as to his motives. That might stop some of the conspiracy theories about them and their intentions. Of course it will never stop all of them. We are the best conspiracy theorists in the world I think.

Conspiracy is a simply defined crime: the agreement between two or more people to commit an unlawful act. In a few places one overt act toward the commission of the crime must be taken, in most not. It is known as a crime with an active actus reus, meaning that people can join the conspiracy at any time and be fully culpable of the entire enterprise, whether or not all parties are known, or even when some are acquitted.

As any lawyer will tell you, it’s a crime that almost never goes undetected for long. If “loose lips sink ships” well, people who are criminally liable for serious offenses are all too willing to spill their guts to save their own skins. Somebody gets an attack of conscience. Somebody thinks “things went too far”. There are as many reasons as there are words to explain why conspiracies don’t work.

Yet, to the American public there is a conspiracy under every rock. And more to the point, they are almost always massive, involving tens of thousands of co-conspirators and lasting over decades and sometimes longer. We have always loved conspiracies, for some reason they make us giddy. It’s as if we and we alone have uncovered this intricate, vast, complicated plot. We feel deliciously smart. Yet we are actually silly, and not a little unhinged.

We are prone to believe that inexplicable events can be explained by reference to covert groups of various sorts and sizes. They effect our political, social and economic well-being. In the end, it’s just easier to posit a conspiracy than to dig deeply and see all the various factors that contribute to any particular situation. It’s also a good way to attack something when you have no other good reason for doing so.

Ulterior motives figure prominently in the creation of conspiracy theories, and that may be the key to understanding why they are so popular. You tell me that President Obama is not a legitimate president because he was not born in the USA. The evidence for that may be weak to non-existent, but of course since I hate him for my own reasons, I’m more than willing to believe this conspiracy exists. For indeed, if it’s obvious that he is not a citizen, there must be those who are “covering up” that fact for “nefarious” reasons. The conspiracy widens and deepens as you adopt it.

Usually conspiracy theories relate to the government. But there are two big ones that don’t. One is the conspiracy to teach evolution when as everyone really knows, God created the earth as enunciated in Genesis. This theory is held by fundamentalist Christians and includes by requirement that the not only biology scientists are involved in this massive conspiracy, but also astronomers, physicists, geologists, archeologists, paleontologists, and a host of others are also in on the deception.

The other one, that tangentially involves the government is that of climate change. This is a direct attempt by Democrats to favor green technologies and give them tax breaks in lieu of oil and gas interests. It’s all about getting grant money for scientists in universities.

These conspiracies cross all countries and are international in scope. They involve scientists who are all “part of the lie” and who are by choice wasting their professional careers to help sustain them. They have gone on for a couple of hundred years in the case of evolution, and a good hundred years when it comes to climate change.

Here are a list of general categories of conspiracies prominent today or recently:

  1. The central banking institutions are the means by which large organizations seek to impose a “one-world government”.  Just assume that everything is being orchestrated by  shadow people–including wars,  and depressions.
  2. False-flag operations are devices used by the OWO groups to deflect attention from themselves. If the terrorists in Boston are all killed, inevitably, whatever answers law enforcement gives as to their motives, some will assume it is to deflect attention from the real reasons, and the real perpetrators. There are some who believe there is such a false-flag conspiracy regarding 9/11. The same is true of the Kennedy assassination.
  3. Wars are sometimes thought to be begun by the “military-industrial complex” for their own purposes. Iraq is often believed to have been started not for noble goals of eradicating WMD but for oil. There are some who believe that our own Civil War was started for other purposes than those who learn as children.
  4. Most assassinations are subject to conspiracy theories. JFK of course, but also RFK, and King and Malcolm X are commonly thought of as conspiracy cases. Diana, Princess of Wales is another death thought by some to be the result of a conspiracy.
  5. There is the whole “Clinton body count” which claims that Clinton regularly assassinated his enemies and there has been a conspiracy to cover it up.
  6. The unbelievable list of Obama conspiracies–his birth, his college record, his law license, his religion. They have may twists and offshoots.
  7. Various conspiracies involving religions–Jews drink the blood of Christians, Catholics sacrifice babies, Jesus was married.
  8. Various claims that we have technology that is being deliberately supressed, such as electric cars, super cheap energy, cures for diseases.
  9. Conspiracies to hide the fact that the government is developing cloaking technology, invisibility, mind-control, time travel, weather control, man-made earthquakes.
  10. Conspiracies that involve military technology gone awry–which accounts for various “accidents”-death rays, electromagnetic weapons, and various other top-secret weaponry that sometimes causes things like the Haitian earthquake.
  11. Media technology is being used by some to institute Big Brother or mind control. The use of movies and television shows to “desensitize” us to some events so that the government can conduct such things in the future.
  12. Medicine routinely suppresses “cures” to keep their businesses going, as well as creating diseases to destroy races or groups of people.
  13. Alien conspiracies which posit that alien races have visited the earth regularly and are involved in shaping the earth to their purposes, evil or otherwise.

There are more. The groups involved that you hear about regularly include the Bilderberg group, Freemasons, Scull and Bones, the Illuminati, Jews, Opus Dei, the Trilateral Commission, the Mafia. There are more of these too.

Of course, after Boston, there will be more. What makes us so prone to this stuff? Are we just looking for the “quick” answer? Are we unwilling to delve into the myriad threads that actually cause events to occur? Are some conspiracies more plausible than others? If so, is it because we like the claims of some and not others?

Jump in and share your thoughts.

List of conspiracy theories–Wikipedia (source)

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What a Difference a Mind Makes

witchcraftYou know it’s really funny. Prepare you face for it. To laugh that is.

When I talk about faith or religion here, it brings out the new atheists and their smarmy yak-yak about believing in fairy tales. When I talk about faith or religion on my actual religion blog, Walking in the Shadows, I sometimes get folks who deign to explain to me that I’m not practicing the right kind of Christianity from their point of view.

Yesterday, I was asked, after making a number of statements regarding various fairly technical aspects of Christian theology (atonement theory, faith/works), the sort of things that some of us love to discuss, whether I was a “follower” of Jesus.

I guess it caught me oddly since I can’t imagine why anyone would spend all that much time on a subject of which they had no interest. But then I thought of a few rather well-known scholars who had started their studies in faith, and then lost it, and remained in the discipline. So I guess it wasn’t so odd.

Which brought me to the well-known principle that on just about every subject known to man and woman, people see things very differently. To this person’s mind at least, because I didn’t believe as she did, I must not be a follower of Jesus as she was. There was one way to follow Jesus, and I wasn’t doing it.

Similarly, whether it be economics or climate change, or any of a host of human and worldly problems, you discover that people have views that seem idiotic to you. Yet, when you talk to them, they have the same passion as you do. They are just as sure. Well, I guess that’s not totally true. I always figure that I’m never totally sure about much of anything. Doubt to me is part of the package. Those who are diametrically opposed to what I think, they seem to be very sure.

Therein lies the rub as Shakespeare was wont to say. The “follower of Jesus” if asked, would assure me that her belief is absolute, without question. That seems to me to be the total opposite of faith. For to me, faith is such in the face of doubt. It’s a choosing to believe even when there is no proof that you are right, just no proof that you are wrong.

It led me to conclude that that is probably true about most people who are given to being “absolutely sure”.  I’m also engaged with a very reactionary type who is “very sure” there is no such thing as global warming. Even though logically he can’t be, since he has no training in any science even remotely related to the subject. He is adamant that he is right, because the people he aligns himself with say what he wants to be true.

A scientist will tell you that you can’t be absolutely sure that the sun will rise tomorrow. Something catastrophic could always happen. Is it true that only the reactionary right are “sure” about things? I wonder.

I’m not completely sure where this comes from. One can refer to the fundamentalist mind. People think it refers to super conservative church people, but it actually is a mindset. It refers to a person who likes things in neat little boxes, all tidy and a whole world gets constructed of rights and wrongs. Once they have established this nice world, they can finally relax, they have all the answers. Nobody is allowed to jeopardize that with actual facts to the contrary. They must be defeated, and they are, by naming them as suspect. They are “purveyors of lies”, they are “Marxists” or “socialists” or “one-world government” nuts. They are hucksters conspiring  to obtain grants based on known falsehoods, for the “money”. (of course nobody explains how tens of thousands are all in on this conspiracy and waste their careers getting grants to do things they know already are false). Nobody explains the lack of logic of it all.

One can refer to self-interest, and that explains a lot too. When you poke at the angry all too sure person, they generally erupt in a retort of “we’re going to be taxed to death, and all for nothing!” That is the crux of the issue when you puncture the pus-filled wound they carry around with them. They hate taxes, hate everything they perceive is keeping them from retaining every dime they make.

That is why the GOP mantra is so attractive. They not only support the angry right and it’s desire to pay less taxes, they give them all the reasoning as to why they need not feel guilty about it either. If you show them statistics that prove that raising the minimum wages doesn’t result in an uptick in the unemployment numbers and that it results in raising up the wages of all workers, they retort with a firm “no it doesn’t, all it does it deny poor black kids a chance at a job, and perpetuate poverty, which is all Democrats want because then they have a ready-made electorate who want those handouts.”

It’s so nice when people tell you aren’t racist, or sexist, or homophobic, or wrong period. It’s nice to be told that you are right in denying full rights to gay couples because “God wants it that way.” Nice to deny SNAP to women and children because it just “encourages laziness and relying on the government”. It’s nice to  leave the planet in a mess to the next generation because a few opportunists are willing to assure you that it’s really okay and you shouldn’t be scammed by and forced to pay more taxes to encourage green technology.

So, add another point to how to determine when you are hearing the truth, or when you are hearing what somebody wants you to believe for their own purposes. Are they sure? If they are, and they don’t have the background to make that determination, look for something else at play, and tread carefully when you make your decision of what you believe.

Belief and surety are not the same.

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Well We Weren’t Supposed to Be Here

piedrasSee, we were supposed to be exiting on Piedras just about now. The Contrarian had an eye appointment at the VA at Ft. Bliss at 10:20 am. They called to confirm last evening. They called to disconfirm this morning.

The doctor is “sick” or more likely off doing something that is way less boring that establishing an eyeglass prescription like he was supposed to do.

I hate it when my day is turned upside down, even when it means I have the day more to myself. I have to cook now. Instead of having leftovers. I like leftovers. They require little time in the kitchen.

I’m lazy.

I could have gone to the pool since I can’t go tomorrow. I have an appointment at Pet something or other over on Lohman and Walnut to learn how to clean kitty cages and play with the little buggers for a couple of hours. I’m being sent by A.W.A.R.E. (have no clue what that all stands for) but they are a rescue operation that offers kittens for adoption at all the various pet shops in Las Cruces. I know I’m not going to Pet Co or Pet Barn, so it’s the other one.

I’m going to be a volunteer. I may be the Sunday volunteer if I can get in at 9 a.m., since my church is fairly close by, and I could go after mass. If somebody is there that early to let me in. Being retired is sure tiring.

Don in Massachusetts has a list of Murphy’s laws. I’m going to reprint it in its entirety, because I don’t want you to have to link to see the whole thing, and they are all good, and I’m lazy, so it makes a great filler. Don is a great little blog so do visit AFTER you have read all of me. I am way more gooder than he. I’m also being silly today as you can see. Screw up my schedule and I become silly. Remember that for future reference.

MURPHY’S OTHER 15 LAWS
1. Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
2. A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well.
3. He, who laughs last, thinks slowest.
4. A day without sunshine is like, well, night.
5. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
6. Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don’t.
7. Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool.
8. The 50-50-90 rule: Anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there’s a 90% probability you’ll get it wrong.
9. It is said that if you line up all the cars in the world end-to-end, someone from California would be stupid enough to try to pass them.
10. If the shoe fits, get another one just like it.
11. The things that come to those who wait, may be the things left by those, who got there first.
12. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will sit in a boat all day drinking beer.
13. Flashlight: A case for holding dead batteries.
14. God gave you toes as a device for finding furniture in the dark.
15. When you go into court,you are putting yourself in the hands of twelve people, who weren’t smart enough to get out of jury duty.
I can attest to that last one. It is my considered professional opinion, that the combined IQ of a jury is less than the highest IQ of any of its members. Remember that one. There will be a test. And it will be a POP Quiz, which somehow  came to mean a test that was not announced before it was announced. In other words, I guess it just “popped” into the head of the mean teacher as a fun thing to do to students.

I’ve been wondering about another thing too. How long does it take you to realize that somebody is really really stupid? I mean ever met someone who you thought was normal and then sloooowllly you realize they aren’t? It’s like “whoa this is a fool, I’m talking to!” And then your smile, sort of becomes a pasted on thing, as you try to figure out how to escape before he/she erupts in a cackle and brandishes a machete? You know what I mean? Just a thought. Remind yourself of it next time you’re walking alone in the park.

I was told yesterday on Facebook that I could probably pick up my black arm band at the local DNC to further my mourning of Hugo Chavez. I find that weird. Just weird. But it came from a reactionary who denies climate change and thinks Milton Friedman is a god. I find reactionaries weird. Well actually, I don’t find them so weird as I find them simplistic. Their motto seems to be, “if it puts a dollar more in my pocket today, I’m for it. Screw YOU”. Now it is catchy I admit that, and easy to remember.

I figure selfishness is highest among “onlyies”. I’m an only. You know, only child. You don’t even begin to learn sharing until you go to kindergarten. That’s a bit late. You can get hit a lot by other kids, for not, you know, sharing. To an only, the world is “all mine.” I’m much better at sharing now, but I admit I still get a twinge.

I think liberals are people who have twinges. Reactionaries are pretty much numb to such conscience-poking ideas. That’s why conservatives are self-reporting as “happy”.  They don’t worry about how others feel much. Us liberals, we are all full of angst at the unfairness of life. We’re happy being that way though, and I think that counts for something like happiness.

I’m making a burrito pie for dinner. It’s comforting to eat casseroles doncha think?

Take care until tomorrow.

 

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Germany May Be On to Something

homeschoolingI was just minding my own business when this popped up:

A German family racked up some $10,000 in fines, police visits and forced removal of their children when they refused to stop homeschooling them. They fled to America, and asked for asylum. That may not happen.

Now, I have not have good experiences with homeschoolers, let’s be clear. We demand that our teachers GO TO COLLEGE and be CERTIFIED to teach in our schools. Yet for some reason that defies all common sense, we think, (in some states at least) that it is perfectly okay to “edu-kate” your youngin’s with a high school diploma.

I mean it defies logic.

Now I have no quarrel, as I said in the past, with those who live so far from the school that such a plan makes sense. I’m also, I guess, okay with those who can prove to some standard that their available schools are so substandard that although they don’t have credentials that would allow them to teach, the can prove that they can do a better job than the local system.

I am unwilling to extend the offer to those who simply want to indoctrinate their kids with THEIR religious opinions, and prevent their darlings from learning about the real world, until they have had enough time to brainwash them into their way of thinking, and can safely send them into the enemy camp.

Germany apparently simply doesn’t allow it. When you look at the issue across the world, you find great variance. It seems to have little to do with form of government or population size, or anything else that I can discern. But in MOST of those countries that allow it, it is moderately to severely monitored, and in many cases, you have to show a real need in order to qualify.

While studies don’t suggest that homeschooled kids do badly when compared to their schooled counterparts, (in fact they score better on standardized tests often), they don’t do nearly as well in math and science, subjects that a high-school graduate is more likely to not have the requisite expertise. And of course, when they are being taught religious doctrine to wit: evolution is not true, climate change is a hoax, and similar anti-science drivel, it is  little wonder that these kids are not going on to become tomorrow’s scientists.

This has led some argue that homeschooling is a form of child abuse. While that is strong language, I do feel that there is some merit to the argument.

We have, in this country, a strong thread of “child ownership”. We believe that parents (for which there is no education at all) somehow, by osmosis know “what’s best”. As so many of us can attest to, that is not the case. An all too large number of adults today would admit that they were raised by people who were essentially incompetent.

We are not talking about physical abuse, although surely that exists as well (and of course homeschooling is a great way to avoid detection there too), so much as we are talking about emotional abuse, which is rampant in American families. We can it “dysfunctional families”. We are not talking about evil people, we are talking about people who are wounded themselves attempting to raise a well-rounded emotionally healthy child. Too many parents are as I said, emotionally damaged themselves and woefully uneducated as well. They do the best they can, but they don’t have the tools to do the job well.

Yet, because we have this strong sense of children “belonging” to people, we are afraid to touch this holy grail, even when it means that our children suffer. I know from personal experience of friends whose were fundamentalists and raised their children in such an atmosphere. When their children grew up and got into the world, what happened? They decided that their parents had lied to them, and a rift in the family occurred which never was healed. This is not an unusual outcome either.

Look at the ranks of the atheists. A strong percentage of them were raised in fundamentalist homes. They feel, as they explain it, abused and lied to. They reject, as a result, all religion and faith itself.

How many potential great scientists out there are nipped in the bud by parents who don’t believe in those “Eastern intellectual elites”? Much of the Madison Avenue sell to parents as to why they should homeschool is based on warning them that their kids are being indoctrinated by homosexuals, taught faulty science by atheists, and threatened by liberal elitists  whose intent is to turn their children into Marxists. “Keep you kids home and educate them in our Founding Fathers principles of God and freedom!” they spout.

Surely we need to improve our school systems across the land. Every parent has the ability to supplement their child’s education in dozens of ways. Every parent has the ability to indoctrinate their child in their religious views. But does EVERY parent have the right to keep their child from others and use them as some experiment in “my world view”? I say no.

I leave you again with the words of Kahil Gibran:

I think this sums things up rather well.

Your children are not your children,

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,

which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

you may strive to like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,

and He bends you with His might

that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies,

so He loves the bow that is stable.

Kahil Gibran

Other posts I’ve done on homeschooling:

So You Wanna Homeschool?

Is It Child Abuse?

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Where’s My Fire Extinguisher?

war-on-women-in-one-graphic-fullIt really strikes one as insane, except to the insane I guess. And the GOP is home to a whole lota insane. After taking a drubbing in 2012, you’d think they would be about figuring out how to appeal to the groups they lost badly to, LIKE WOMEN!

No, instead, they are still doing the big daddy shuffle–no no missy, you just don’t trouble you pretty little head darlin’, I’ll do what’s best for you.

And they are, to the tune of moving all in in their war against Planned Parenthood. In good old Wisconsin, home of the Koch-addicted Governor Walker, has just managed to cut funding for PPH by a whopping one million, forcing them to close four clinics in rural areas.

Upwards of 2,000 women will lose the only health care they have.

All in the name of preventing PPH from its abortion agenda–which accounts for a mere 3% of its business.

But big daddy knows best.

I would like to kick big daddy in the balls. Actually, that’s a great idea, and a great contraceptive method. More women need to do it to Republican legislators around the country who think they know best when it comes to women’s health. . .or lack of it.

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I spent considerable time and precious time (for my time is quite valuable) yesterday trying to rid Firefox of its pop-up problem. And it is their problem, most of the windows are Mozilla creations. They can’t fix their own stuff, so I downloaded some malware fixes and that didn’t work either. So I have transferred most operations to Explorer (finding Chrome very ugly to work with) and figure to dump Firefox. I assume the dang program is corrupted. If anybody knows an easy way to transfer “favorites” I’d be appreciative. I have so far not figured that baby out.

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I was mildly intrigued some time ago when I heard of the paleo diet. The Contrarian often regales me the fact that he “drinks” anthropologically–with great draughts of liquid much as our ancestors did at the old drinkin’ hole. One needed to get in and out quick before some saber tooth came along and made you his midnight snack. But I’ve never had a satisfactory explanation of why grains were not allowed since grains were certainly available to paleolithic people in the form of wild rice and wheat.

There is a movement about that suggests that we are evolutionarily speaking still more cave-lady than 5th Avenue in terms of our genetics, and this mismatch of cave and five-inch heels is the source of much of our unhealth today. It sounds right, but is it? Some call it the paleofantasy. If you’re intrigued too, then read more about it here. Common sense conclusions are very often wrong. Were we every “perfectly” adapted to our environment?

If you don’t believe in evolution, then ignore the above, and just ask “what would Noah do?” AND BITE ME!

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Do you have a list of books you are “going to read?”  I don’t mean the stack next to your chair which you can’t wait to get to. I’m talking about the books that make you feel guilty because you know you should have read them, yet you just can’t get past the first ten pages without wanting to tear out your hair. Do you keep saying one day you WILL read James Joyce? How about Proust?

Anyway, I was just wondering if there are others out there like me. Do you die in guilt? Or are you doing anything about it?

I’m nosy like that. Probing through the folds of other people’s grey matter.

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Speaking of probing brain matter. Let me ask you this? No not, you dear reader, you are sane. I’m talking to stupid in the back. Come on UP stupid.

I have a question for you. Do stupid people actively sit around thinking up stupid things, or do stupid thoughts just fall into your head and stick there until you are forced to expel them verbally?

Missouri seems to have a virus floating around of stupid.

A GOP’er (aren’t they always) has introduced a bill in the state legislature (perhaps it’s really the state day-care center for the mentally infirm), that would make it a FELONY to propose any law that would in any way restrict the rights of gun owners under the 2nd Amendment.

Yes, it’s now illegal to make constitutional laws.

Or it would be.

If there are enough stupid to match the gargantuan stupid of Mikey Leara.

Can anybody top that?

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Not to be outdone, just out stupided, is Kansas, dear old Kansas or KANS ASS as you might wish to think of it.

It seems there, that the GOPer’s are busy introducing bills that would require that teachers teach falsehood–namely that there is some scientific controversy about the existence of man-made climate change.

Yessiree Bob, we got us some climate deniers here, and they have adopted the ALEC-supplied legislation and introduced it.

So, who will win? Missouri or Kansas?

Don’t you Texans feel just a might better now?

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Saw the last show of the season for Downton Abbey last night. All I can say is bummer, dude. And I’m pretty darn good at spotting things ahead of time. That carefree driving down a country road happy as a lark? It’s the harbinger of death. Always is. Now the long wait until the next season.

Oh I forgot. Liberals are supposed to hate Downton. For it’s classism no doubt. What a crock of poo.

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The Era of the Robber Baron–Good or Not So Good?

henry-ford-with-son-edselI’ve been engaged for some days in a debate with an arch conservative. Eventually, I made mention of the era of the robber barons, that time of the Gilded Age, when industrialists of one sort or another came forth and fought each other for supremacy, and while doing so, became largely responsible for bringing about the American industrial age of greatness. It is a greatness that continues to this day, though it may now be on the wane.

The question becomes, at what cost? It seems to me that conservatives are all too willing to let the ends justify the means, finding as the argument went, that the good these men did makes them heroes and the bad they did, well, it’s the price of genius. I suppose it remains to be seen whether any of them was in fact a genius or rather just brilliant at playing the game of king of the hill. I don’t find their ends justified.

Arguably, each exhibited the personality traits that better fitted them to be serial killers, but for the grace of having a different avenue to display their driven self-centered megalomania. They were men who felt born to lead, and born to succeed. And given their complete lack of emotional attachment, they were prepared to succeed whatever the cost. In building their empires, they brought America into a new era, an era that I believe would have been achieved in any case, but of course it’s impossible to know how changing the dynamics would have changed the outcome for good or ill.

I should note that this is likely to be a two-parter, because I want to delve into the life of one of the players, Henry Ford, who came on the scene, arguably at the tail end of the era, but his story is instructive. And I feel fairly qualified to do so, since I was born and raised in Flint, Michigan, home of GM, and just down the road from Detroit, home of Ford. I worked in Detroit for two decades, and am familiar with the Ford legacy as well as all the old haunts–the Rouge plant and the Highland Park plant. I’ve been to Greenfield Village, the museum developed by Henry, on more than one occasion, and seen the homes of Edsel and Henry II or as he was known in Detroit, “The Duce”. I’ve read histories of the family. I grew up in a union family wherein most everyone in my family and in my neighborhood worked for GM or one of its supporting industries. I know the terrain.

The story of Henry is to me the story of a deeply flawed individual who was not worth the knowing, but who accomplished much. His talent was in his drive to “be somebody” rather than any particular innovation. Born in Dearborn, to a farming family, Henry’s interests lay in machinery and how they worked. He was allowed to go to work in the city at age 16 and soon became involved with others in the development of the new craze, the automobile. Some 250 other car companies were started at or about the time Henry set up the Ford Motor Company. Securing investors he began his quest to develop a cheaper but reliable car.

Henry’s quest was not merely motivated by a desire for fame and fortune, in fact he cared little for money. He enjoyed fame, but he hated the regular elites of Detroit and elsewhere, including bankers and lawyers. Ultimately when the money rolled in, he chose not to build his mansion in Grosse Point, the elite residence for Detroiters, but he build Fairlane in Dearborn, the then still farming community where he was born and raised. Henry, being of rural beginnings did want to bring a cheap and serviceable vehicle to the farm, where distances to town were long and often arduous. He wanted to make lives easier. But of course, a cheap car would also be one that become available to the average person, not just the rich, and THAT would vastly open the market to unbelievable  sales.

Everyone knows of the success of the Model T, the car that revolutionized America in so many ways. But perhaps people don’t realize that development started with the Model A. Successive models were mostly failures for one reason or another, until he got to the letter T. Being driven to succeed goes with the territory of the robber baron.

When the Model T took off and the orders came streaming in, Henry set his mind to thinking how he might make more and at a faster rate. It is unclear to me whether the idea of a conveyor belt and stationary workers was Henry’s idea or one of his gang of developers, but in any case, it started with one part, the magneto which was broken into pieces and then worked into a piece by piece assembly. They looked for another part to add, and then another, until in the end, the modern assembly line was born, allowing the production of a vehicle in literally half the time or less.

The problem became then, that the work was so boring that his attrition rate was awful. Men quit after a few months. That is not cost effective. So Henry hit on an idea–pay them more. This didn’t mean more in their weekly salary. Oh, no. There was a catch. They signed a contract, worked for a year, and received the equivalency of the $5 dollars an hour in one lump sum. Immigrants who made up a large portion of his workforce, were required to attend the Ford school to learn English. Of course it was hoped that that lump sum might burn a hole in the pocket and be dumped off quickly at the nearest Ford dealership!

This is where things get murky, in the sense that one enters into the dark recesses of Henry’s mind. For Henry believed that he was better than most people, and that belief gave him an insight on how a person ought to live. In one of the most bizarre results, this is what happened when an immigrant “class” finished its English training. An event was scheduled. A very large  ( and  I mean very very large) pot was constructed. The immigrant “graduates” were required to dress in their native country clothing. They marched up a series of steps to the top of the pot, and descended down into it. Two men then went up with long sticks and simulated the “stirring of the pot”, after which, the immigrants re-emerged now dressed in American garb of suit and tie and bowler, descending to the floor again. Weird? To say the least.

But it did not stop there. A unit of the FMC was set up as a “social” monitoring division. Men went out to seek out the homes of workers and “investigate” them. Henry had a series of rules about how people were to live. The monitors were to determine that people were lawfully married, that they did not drink, that they kept their homes properly clean. Violators were warned. Second violations were met with dismissal. Henry knew best you see how humans should live.

Henry thought the Model T the perfect vehicle. After GM was formed, and then Chrysler, new cars, a range of models and prices, began to be seen on the streets. Edsel, Henry’s son and titular head of the company (in name only of course), urged that a new model be developed. Henry refused. Why? Because in Henry’s view, nobody needed anything more than the Model T. Henry knew best. This was to be illustrative of the relationship between son and father–the father bullied and dictated and the son made the best of it.

NEXT: The Rouge Plant, and Henry’s really dark side, and a finish with the Contrarian’s fun with names!)

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Wackos of the World Unite: You Have Nothing to Lose But Moronic Thinking

I was recently called donald-trump-duck1a wacko. Nothing could be truer and if the person who so named me, had known me well, I would have laughed in agreement. But he knows nothing but a smidgen of my politics, and his opprobrium was limited to that fact alone.  To that sir, I take umbrage!

I have heard, and it seems to be folk wisdom, that one becomes more conservative with age. I guess it stems from an accumulation of anecdotal observances of friends and family as they age.

It may well be true.

I know it was nearly true of me.

At one point in my life, I found my life in a place that was not pleasing. I was living in an urban setting in a city known for violence. I was tired of house break-ins, and all the petty crime that life entailed. I was tired of my job, tired of the people I worked with and we were embroiled in a fight within our organization over wages and rights.

And I found myself slipping into conservative mode. I wanted out, and that required savings, and anything that impinged on my ability to save money was something I was against.

Life got better. And it continued to be so.

I realized something as life got sweeter. My normal liberalism was returning. My life is great today. And my liberalism is flaming, in fact I’m not sure I’m not sliding well into anarchism. (please do look that up before you report me to the FBI–I’m a Chomsky type anarachist and I’m just beginning that journey of discovery, so don’t hold me to it. Being the eclectic I am, I am always trying to learn something new. I almost became a nun for goodness sake!)

Which suggests that something more is at work here.

I’ve become involved in some discussions with old school mates as of late. The discussions have often involved issues of the day. And I find a very curious thing. Perhaps I’m reading the tea leaves wrong, but well, judge for yourself.

I view the Tea Party as a loose amalgamation of disparate spirits. There are your fiscal deficit hawks. There are your, don’t tax me (but do fix the pot holes). There are the “it smacks of socialism/fascism/communism” to me even though I can’t actually tell you which is which, but I don’t like it. There are your basic racists and any anti-Democratic group sounds good to me given that THAT guy is in the White House types. There are your basic survivalists who just hate government, but are also itching to shoot it up. There are your religionists/fundamentalists who think the US of A ought to be based on the bible as they interpret it, along with all their ideas of social living arrangements made mandatory by God, speaking through them. There are probably more.

It makes for a messy group.

But in discussions, I find that those who are most impossible to engage in anything other than sound bites direct from Breitbots, Daily Caller, Blaze, WND, and the ever reliable bellicose grifters, Coulter, Limbaugh, Hannity, and so on, are people who over time, you perceive to be just really really unhappy individuals. They have fallen into their conservationism as a defense to their miserable lives.

I paint this portrait with the proviso that not all need apply, but as they say, if you find yourself answering yes to three or more, you may have a problem that is leading you to be a Conservative:

  1. You are divorced or separated, and you feel that you are not at fault, having spent your life working to provide for your spouse who is an ungrateful _________.
  2. You have no education past high school, or if you do, it was toward a trade or low-level technical job.
  3. You are self-employed and have no more than six people who work for you.
  4. You have long given up an dreams of opening a second shop, franchising your business, or crossing that threshold to being a “businessman”. In other words, you still are working along with your employees.
  5. You work long hours, and while you make a decent living, you still can’t afford all the things you dreamed of having at this point.
  6. Every dime you pay in taxes becomes a dime that keeps you that must further away from “retirement”, and a chance to finally enjoy life. Emphasis on finally because you don’t expect to enjoy life until you have “made it”.
  7. You have few hobbies or enjoyable down time, because you “don’t have time” or can’t afford it.
  8. Life has definitely not turned out the way you expected it to, and you are close or at retirement age.
  9. You increasingly see that most people don’t work as hard as you do, yet they “get stuff” for free because they are a minority, a woman, an undocumented worker (illegal).
  10. You know that if the government didn’t take your money, you could have been wealthy like all the rich people you so admire. You’ve read all their books, and you know you are just like them.

What this all leads to is extreme anger. It’s not my fault I’m not living the life I deserve. It’s __________ fault. It’s got to be somebody’s fault you see. I just has to be. For it cannot be mine. I work too hard for it to be mine.

Of course, it begs the question that you have perhaps listened to the wrong people. I could explain that you are believing exactly what the corporate masters desire you to believe. You are blaming who they wish you to blame. You are mired in self-pity, because it is not your fault. And it truly isn’t your fault. You simply based your beliefs on those whose interest it is to keep your striving in place,  and misdirecting your anger away from them.

So I think of it as a badge of honor to be a liberal at my age. I have successfully avoided the pitfalls of self-interest in the name of what I call being human. I see the human experience as one of striving to be more human, and that means being more open and giving and sharing with the lives that surround me. There is nothing so very noble about it. It’s a constant struggle to pull away from purely selfish interest to include “the other”. I don’t always win that battle, but the struggle enhances my ability to win more than I lose. And as a citizen of planet of earth, I find that a positive step forward.

Evolution is about change over time. Try to be mindfully engaged in that process. I think God likes that. But that’s me, the wacko speaking.