"Temporarily Embarrassed Millionaires"

"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires..." --John Steinbeck

This is one of my favorite quotes because it explains what's wrong in our world. It says We the People, a.k.a. the American workers or the proletariat, don't help ourselves out of our bad straits because we've fallen for the lie of the system--a system that tells us the two major political parties are our only choices. Somehow, they are "different" from each other and one or the other of them will help us. If you suffer from unemployment or underemployment and have few health care benefits (if you're lucky enough to have any through a job or parent), why do you continue to respect and support these two factions and the system which upholds them and does nothing for you? Expecting a different result from the same system which screws workers over time and time again is a good definition of insanity, don' t you think?

That's our theme this week, one I've been pondering for some time. Some of my fellow bloggers wrote along similar lines recently, so I recommend you check out their great pieces on the subject (links below). You will learn a lot from their insights. (I did.) Read and share the information with others who continually beat themselves up because they play by the system's "rules" and yet they always seem to be penalized in the "game" and can't figure out what went wrong. Well, nothing went wrong--it's how the system works.  To quote the late great George Carlin: "It's a big club--and you ain't in it." But we can change it through political revolution and staying awake and aware of how the system manipulates us.

From John Laurits's blog -- Children of the Great Recession: Will Millennials Ignite the Class War America Needs? https://www.johnlaurits.com/2017/children-great-recession-millennials-class-struggle/

The Price of Hellfire Missiles: Everything Americans Could Buy at the Cost of Drone Strikes & “Freedom”  https://www.johnlaurits.com/2017/hellfire-missiles-drones-defense-spending-price/

From Dirk Droll's Beanstock's World-- We Better Don’t Overlook the Fundamental Enemy of Democracy and Justice https://beanstocksworld.wordpress.com/2017/05/11/we-better-dont-overlook-the-fundamental-enemy-of-democracy-and-justice/

Another good article: Trying to Explain the Disdain for Poor Americans https://www.nationofchange.org/2017/05/15/trying-explain-disdain-poor-americans/

Requiem for the American Dream by Noam Chomsky
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/43587-requiem-for-the-american-dream

And now in the spirit of "equal time" (because, after all, alternative journalists believe in giving both sides of the story and not just snippets of propaganda for the ruling elite), here's something for the "hard working" one-percenters out there having trouble getting us "lazy" ninety-nine percenters to do as we're told.

How to Build a Better Slave, er, Worker

By  C. A. Matthews

By following this simple three step process, you'll be well on your way to making record profits in no time and purchasing your twentieth yacht and fiftieth mansion or private island resort you've had your eye on. Happy endless profiteering!

First Step -- Education

Educate your slaves as little as possible. Make higher education expensive and milk them with high rates of interest on their student loans--preferably by appointing a billionaire housewife to head the Department of Education whose family has a stake in the student loan business. Encourage slaves to only learn skills you feel appropriate or necessary to increase profits and nothing more by short changing public schools of federal funding, especially in poorer areas. 

Discourage the teaching of critical thinking skills or how to "think outside the box." This can be easily accomplished by ruthlessly slashing the funding for the arts, such as classes for painting, literature and music, and the sciences (except for teaching technical skills needed in your plants), since these liberal arts types of courses encourage the development of critical thinking skills. Ridicule and belittle creative thinkers, and encourage your other slaves to do as well. Squash all enthusiasm to better one's lot and help create a better world. (What "better world"? They won't be able to obtain water without paying the Nestle Corporation outrageous prices for a tiny bottle before long.)

Second Step -- Instill Apathy/Discourage Empathy

Instill apathy in your slave toward his/her own lot in life and discourage all empathy for fellow slaves. You want to create slaves who don't care about improving their own prospects and who couldn't care less about the suffering of others. These ideal workers can be treated poorly over and over again and will not speak out or protest the abuse. Added bonus: Over time, abuse hardens the slave's heart and makes him/her deaf to the cries of their fellow slaves. They simply won't revolt or rise up because they simply don't want to disturb their dystopic status quo. Their apathetic mindset tells them it's better to stick with the horrible world they're familiar with than to strive for an unfamiliar world, which may or may not be happier for them.

If slaves should start to express anger about the depressive "dog eat dog" atmosphere you've created to motivate them, don't let up. Don't allow them to think they're "special" or entitled to "unalienable rights" and can organize to overthrow their masters. Remind them constantly you can replace them with cheaper overseas workers or, better yet, robotic ones. Nothing assures cooperation more than a threatened shut-down of a factory or store or educational institution (a.k.a. "learning factory for making profits"). Always, your bottom line is paramount, so go ahead and move your interests offshore or install the robots as you've planned on doing all along--just don't let the slaves know your plans beforehand.

If slaves begin to act out their frustrations against the system, start rumors about how one sub-section of slaves are "stealing" jobs, food, benefits, etc., from the others. Try using long held prejudices  to divide slaves into antagonistic groups against people of color, women and gays--these tactics work great. Differing religious preferences work well, too, since you can use the "God excuse" to get them kill each other in His name, saving you the trouble of doing so. Allow the slaves' pent up hatred and frustrations to escalate into violence between slave groups, and you will have ample justification in sending in militarized police to quell dissent. It's a tactic called "divide and conquer," and slaves without critical thinking skills will walk right into the trap, providing centuries of controlling conflict to keep the ruling classes on top (where we all know they truly belong).

Third Step -- Bread and Circuses

This is perhaps the best method to keep slaves distracted and silent about their futile existence. Feed them just enough physically, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually but not an ounce more. On a starvation diet of literal and figurative junk food, the stamina and ability to think creatively and question the morality of the system starves, which is what you want. You certainly don't want slaves who think God loves them other than as exploited workers for their "righteous" masters, the one percent.

Throw in mindless entertainments emphasizing competition, non-cooperation and senseless violence, and you've got your slave class just where you want them--constantly bickering over "my team/sport is better than yours!" while you take away their freedoms of free speech and net neutrality. "Reality TV" showing buffoonery of other social classes make the slaves feel better about their lot, so never let on that it's all manufactured and scripted and is about as real as saying, "All men are created equal." (We know they're not.)

Video games will take away valuable thinking time and keep slaves physically and emotionally separated from their fellow slaves, crushing any budding union-building ideas or the gathering of forces to start a political revolution in their favor. Added bonus: Video games will increase hand/eye coordination in some and make them into better drone pilots and "boots on the ground" in the Military-Industrial Complex's endless war for oil and increasing profits.

Sure, you will lose some slaves in military conflict, but they're plenty more where they come from. You will have removed their right to choose and stop providing any access to affordable birth control by this point. Breed your slaves like cattle, and you'll have an endless supply of "meat" for your purposes, even if all you want to do with them is to hunt them down like the soon-to-be-extinct white rhinoceros. The Nazis made lampshades out of human hides, so why can't you?

I hope as a member of the one percent you take these steps to heart and practice implementing them while denying them with a smile on your face. This is especially useful is you plan to run for public office, but why put yourself through that charade? It's just as easy to buy a slave/puppet to do your bidding in government. Call up your lobbyist slaves and have them get to work on it for you. Threaten to cancel their favorite Reality TV show or move their favorite professional sports team to another city if they don't deliver the goods. (You were going to do those two things anyway, weren't you?)

George Carlin gives We the People the low down. (Warning: Adult Language)

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From the March for Science: We’ve spent the last couple of weeks crunching the numbers and using crowd science techniques to make an official estimate of the total number of participants in the March for Science around the world. We’re excited to announce that the March for Science events around the world amassed an unprecedented total of more than 1,000,000 marchers -- making the March for Science the largest global science event in history. The March for Science also included: Approximately 10,000 volunteers and organizers 740,000+ views of the March for Science livestream More than 600 marches in… All 7 continents 66 countries All 50 states And 5 penguin marchers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium You can check out the crowd science behind our estimates here. It’s up to ALL OF US to keep this incredible momentum going. Learn how to continue your advocacy by checking out a couple of these resources from our March for Science partners: Learn how to effectively communicate and collaborate to make an impact with the AAAS Advocacy Toolkit. Host a science teach-in with the help of the National Council for Science and the Environment’s toolkit. Participate in the American Geophysical Union’s Five-Week Action Plan. Thank you to everyone who has supported the March for Science so far. Let’s #KeepMarching! -- The March for Science Team