history

Are people poor because they were born to be poor?

This post is a response to a question posed in its full format as follows: “What can we say for those people that worked hard but are still poor? Is it because they were born to be poor?”

The first place to begin one’s assessment of another’s fortune is with an honest apprehension of the environment affecting all fortunes by all people who inhabit a (somewhat) closed ecosystem.

To suggest some external source of magical influence like fate to factor in any of this merely distracts from an objective apprehension of the dynamics leading to disparity.

It is precisely this kind of magical thinking that every “Confidence Artist” (“conman,” “swindler,” “scammer,” fraud) throughout human history has relied upon to enrich themselves at the expense of their victims.

Making matters worse for the victims is the belief that they’re responsible for the actions of others who impoverish them.

This thinking epitomizes victim-shaming.

It’s no different than blaming one’s attire for “causing” a rape.

It’s precisely the thinking a homicidal monster utilizes when they claim someone else’s actions forced them to commit murder. They twist the notion of self-defence into a justifiable weapon to dismiss responsibility for their actions.

This perverse thinking permits people like Derek Chauvin to suffocate George Floyd until they stop breathing. It empowers all the evil monsters in our midst to invoke sociopathic rationalizations unrelated to the incident in question to justify the commission of murder.

Inmate who stabbed Derek Chauvin 22 times is charged with attempted murder, prosecutors say

It ignores the causal nature of reality. Even the Bible’s Genesis chapter and “list of begats” acknowledge causality.

Bible, King James Version

People are not poor because of some cosmic assignment handed down to them by an authority, as if it were a justifiable assessment of their character at birth. People are poor because humanity has not learned the lessons of our primitive existence — namely, that we managed to survive our cave-dwelling origins only because we worked together as we hunted in groups. Each contributed to the welfare of the whole in ways that allowed everyone to benefit equally from the collective labours of synergy.

Margaret Mead has most succinctly identified the dawn of human civilization in her example of a knit bone discovered during her anthropological studies.

The worst aspect of all of this is that the evidence is abundant. There is no mystery as to why so many people struggle with poverty today.

In our early history, widespread poverty primarily resulted from natural scarcity due to environmental conditions such as an early frost wiping out an entire harvest or poor land management practices such as those that led to “The Dust Bowl” and the “Dirty Thirties.” Ironically, the magical thinking of “Manifest Destiny” driving an initial bump in prosperity contributed to the impoverished conditions that contributed to “The Great Depression,” which contributed to the stressors driving global aggressions leading to a Second World War only decades after the first global aggression.

Dust Bowl: Causes, Definition & Years | HISTORY

The fuel behind all of the poverty and aggression is the same fuel contributing to an increasing number and degree of violent protests occurring worldwide today — income disparity. We have surpassed the stage of income disparity that triggered our first global aggressions due to the stresses of exacerbated conditions of poverty.

This cycle of class disparity has triggered aggressions throughout human history, and many of our popular stories are based on them.

We should know better by now, but we seem incapable of learning this crucial lesson from history.

What makes matters worse is that in today’s “post-scarcity world,” we produce more than we can consume. We have no excuse for poverty today beyond human failings, as expressed through our politics.

Can we feed the world and ensure no one goes hungry?

None of this is a mystery — or should be a mystery to anyone today. Yet, here we are looking for excuses to victim-shame the vulnerable in society who struggle to feed themselves every day.

The information providing clarity exists in abundance. Few people are ignorant of the fact that eight people have as much wealth as the bottom half of the whole of humanity. No one is oblivious to the magical sound of the designation we venerate of a “centibillionaire.” It’s like a status of godhood on Earth that people seriously believe is a consequence of effort and ingenuity and not a dysfunctional system that impoverishes the vulnerable.

Few people perceive that obscenity in terms of the threat to global stability that it is. Few people perceive that amount of power within the hands of an egotist as a direct threat to their livelihoods — unless, of course, they’re one of the thousands who have been displaced on a whim by a megalomaniac who spent $44 billion to own the world’s most enormous megaphone so that they can capture global attention every day.

Few people look at graphs like these two and become horrified by their implications.

Yet… here we are, sending ourselves on a path in which the logical conclusion of the trajectory summed up by these two graphs is the end of human civilization as we know it. Instead of focusing on how to correct our course, we’re looking for reasons to victim-shame the most vulnerable among us.

It’s entirely disgusting that so many people are so willing to demonize the victims in society that it is mind-boggling how such utterly primitive thinking can exist in modern society.

Centuries from now, if we survive this insanity, this mindset will be viewed as the horrific equivalent of witch trials from our history.

Can a Democrat define their go-to mime: “Threat to democracy”?

This post is a response to a question posed in its full format as follows: “We have to be impressed by the Democratic Party’s ability to ‘Fool some of the people ALL of the time.’ Could those in their pocket kindly define their go-to mime: ‘Threat to democracy?’”

After this question, the next question you posted on your profile qualifies as a “threat to democracy,” as does your ideological mindset in which you divide society into an “us versus them” dynamic.

Your understanding of a law intended to protect everyone equally is broken and favours the application of subjective biases that disenfranchise half of the population. Furthermore, you have no respect for that half of the population as you endorse stripping them of rights you take for granted for yourself.

You place all of the onus of responsibility onto that half of the population while perversely ignoring how demeaning the very concept of life is by elevating tissue in development beyond the degree of value you should be placing upon the life and lives affected by that process.

Women are not different in every state, with different needs or rights to protect according to the political whims of zealous religious hypocrites dehumanizing them as incubators for the production of children they can dispose of once they’re produced.

There exists no valid justification for the segregation of fundamental human rights by state because abortion is not a state issue but a human issue.

States’ rights, in this case, erode democracy and reduce critical functions within human lives to commodities serving the vapid whims of political ideologues rather than the universal values of human life in a uniform fashion.

It would be best if you were far more concerned with how “states rights” are intended to address issues affecting localized areas, not universal matters.

It would help if you protected the clear divisions between geographical and universal human concerns.

You don’t do that, though, because you have already indicated your primary concern is to pit citizens and neighbours against each other with your ideological division of society, and that, right there, is the greatest threat to democracy.

It would be best if you fought alongside your neighbours to protect all equally, not against your neighbours, to win an egotistically subjective degree of superiority over them.

While you are busy gloating over what you dismiss as a non-issue, the betrayal of women’s rights and democracy as a whole, you reveal a horrific degree of nation-destroying sociopathy.

The reality is that reversing Roe v. Wade has already had a devastating impact on the lives of fellow citizens you don’t seem to care in the least about.

This is not “nothing.”

It’s a horror show, and you show yourself to be a horrific monster by pretending this doesn’t matter.

In reality, states should stay out of people’s lives and let them live according to their universal right to self-determination.

It’s not a state’s right to overrule universal rights. It is a divide-and-conquer strategy that undermines an entire nation as a fundamental threat to its stability as a democracy.

The worlds of all these people have fallen apart. You have chosen to overlook the pain and suffering your attitude causes them in favour of banging your ideological drum while disparaging your neighbours in the process.

That makes YOU a threat to democracy. YOU are too full of yourself to realize how badly you betray it. YOU are more interested in achieving ideological dominion over your neighbours than in supporting the social contract and working together to resolve common problems.

Why are progressives communist sympathizers?

Upon reading this question, I first thought you had no clue what communism is beyond maybe the bread lines. Even then, I doubt you would know why that happened or how unrelated it was to Marx’s vaguely defined description of communism.

I thought of you as just another Pavlovian dog who’s been programmed to barf up “communism” about everything you hate, like most MAGAts who don’t wash their panties often enough.

As part of my investigation into profiles I block, I often check out their followers because… Why TF do people follow morons? I also frequently get a chuckle over Chucklehead followers while finding many blockworthy candidates. I learned this practice from Billy Flowers because that idiot creates a LOT of profiles that follow each other. I doubt there are ever any real people in their sewing circle.

At any rate, beyond usually finding catfish to block so that I don’t get the typical message on my answers that goes something like this: “Gee. I loooooove your posts but can’t seem to follow you. Pleeeeeze follow meeeee and I promise to like you.”

You didn’t have many of those, but what you have as part of your follower group is quite sad. It makes me think about my latest sub-category of troll:

In this case, however, it’s not quite so funny because it’s a stereotype that’s a huge part of the reason why we have generational trauma running through the whopping majority (70%-80%) of dysfunctional families.

Almost all of your followers have suffered beatings as a child that you interpret in the downplayed term of “corporal punishment.” You seem to be part of that group who interprets the physical abuse you suffered as “normal” and that you “turned out fine” when the reality is that you haven’t.

Your question shows that, but I doubt you would understand why.

The clue is that it’s in the misanthropic nature of your attitude toward “progressives.”

Progressives want to see progress in society because they want a world where kids are disciplined through reason, not violence. There’s no need to be violent with a child. Ever. That’s a lazy parent’s approach to restraining a child’s behaviour when they don’t want to make the time to do it correctly and through words.

They don’t consider how what they’re teaching their children is that violence is acceptable. That’s what you and your followers have learned. That’s why generational trauma exists.

Although I used the term “lazy parent” above, that’s not a correct way to point out the perpetuation of trauma, but it’s a pointed statement done for an emotional effect. It helps to focus attention on a serious issue affecting all of society.

In your case, you’ve been taught that getting what you want through violence is not only acceptable but an effective means of achieving your goal. From the starting point of physical violence in your repertoire of imposing your will onto others, doing that with words becomes second nature.

That’s why you rely on trigger words like “communism” because you’ve been taught to react emotionally to something you don’t understand beyond “It’s bad, m’kay.”

Since you can’t go around beating up on people who want to see progress in society, you restrain your angst by using words that can simulate the adrenalin rush you would otherwise get from physicality.

If you succeed in putting your “Idiotological Enemas™” in their place by calling them “commies,” then you’ve achieved your goal of giving them “the ol’ wut fer,” and that’s a win for you… at least an emotional win if they can’t come back with a witty response that shuts you up.

Chances are excellent that more and more of you “anti-commie” types are finding that happen these days. I remember only a few decades ago that it would be an effective conversation terminator that allowed people like you to feel like you’ve “won your debates.” I’ve never understood the value of that no-prize beyond a temporary dopamine high gained through ego-stroking. It was never my drug of choice because I grew up with idiots who couldn’t get enough of it at my expense.

At any rate, that’s the reason why you posted your question.

You have no clue what “communism” is, but you know you can use that word like a hammer.

You have no clue what a “progressive” is or what their goals for society are, nor do you care, even though those goals would benefit you directly and give you a life of dignity. The math is too hard on your hamster to add it up and see a plus to personal benefit on the bottom line. Besides, you’re too busy hating progressives because they drink lattes and eat avocado toast. You’re either jealous of the latte and disgusted by the avocado toast, or you don’t like their fashion sense.

It wouldn’t surprise me that you’ve yelled out, “Get a haircut, you hippy!” at least once in your life, or “Go back to where you came from!” because no one who isn’t a part of the cult you belong to deserves to live in your neighbourhood and get all of the benefits you take for granted.

For the record, “communism” has never really existed in the way that Marx vaguely described it as the next step in an evolution for governance beyond socialism.

Neither has democracy, for that matter.

Both are just concepts that different people define in various ways. While we, the leetul monkeys of society, argue what democracy is in reality among ourselves as we fling bananas and feces around to keep us distracted from the oligarchs pulling all our strings.

They love that you and so many of your tards barf up communism left, right, and centre like it’s your favourite rock song by Dead-Headed Zeppelins.

It’s much easier for them to keep stealing Trillion$ out of our pockets while you’re barking “commie, commie, commie” up and down the streets. That’s why they feed you “Anger Biscuits®” on TV while raking in billions from the morons who glue themselves to their favourite hate-porn channels.

I doubt you have ever watched a documentary in your life, but you think Idiocracy was one without realizing that if it were, you would be the main subject of that flick.

No one “sympathizes with communists” because whatever exists of people who support it are primarily academic in their support. There isn’t any real political movement toward communism, but I think that you would probably disagree while claiming North Korea and China are communist countries — even though they’re not.

As a political system, communism died last century as the authoritarian versions of it that were implemented proved themselves to be utter failures. I know you might think that communism failed, but it didn’t. It was an authoritarian government that failed like every authoritarian government throughout history.

This brings us back full circle to your upbringing because you endorse capital punishment, and that’s precisely the attitude of an authoritarian.

If we are to equate authoritarian governments with communism, then that means YOU have more of an affinity with communism than a progressive.

If anyone were to be described as a “communist sympathizer” based upon the style of communism, you’ve been taught to fear. It would be you and your fellow MAGAtards℠ who rationalize authoritarian approaches to government.

If you have a pipe, now would be the time to pack all of this into that dirty bowl and start smoking.

Cheerioz Numbnutz

Which political system could replace democracy with fewer flaws?

The original format of the question this post answers was written as follows: “Which possible political system could replace modern democracy and have less flaws than democracy and still benefit the many?”

This question makes it seem as if how we manage our affairs and have a dialogue over how best to peacefully coexist in productive societies that encourage us all to achieve our best potential as individuals and as a society is just a matter of a change of clothing.

That’s now how this works.

Societies do not succeed or fail based on the system we use to govern ourselves.

Societies fail because we fail to govern ourselves as individuals.

Societies fail because human corruption leads us to failure.

Societies don’t fail because we pick the wrong system.

Systems fail because we fail to raise humanity from the muck of our primitive urges as individuals.

Haitians in Springfield are not living in fear today because democracy has failed them but because corrupt human beings have chosen hatred over understanding.

The only system that will ever work is the system that cures us of horrifying statistics such as one in five of us is a mentally unstable individual or 70%-80% of families are dysfunctional, or the primary cause of people leaving their jobs is because of abusive leadership in their place of work.

The only system that will work is the system of people who refuse to tolerate monsters corrupting human society, and that extends far beyond simple politics and well into every other aspect of human life and what we colloquially refer to as “civilization.”

The only system that can ever have a hope of working is the system that focuses on developing human potential, which means education, healthcare, and the ability to succeed on one’s merits in a system that encourages and develops our ability to achieve success through self-determination.

We don’t need to be ruled. We should know better how horribly wrong every other system has turned out to be. It doesn’t matter how messy democracy is because that’s not a problem with the system of democracy. That’s a problem with human beings.

We need to fix ourselves as humans and as a species sharing this mudball with billions of other species if we want any system to be stable over time.

Democracy as a concept is not “flawed.” It’s the best idea we have ever had. The problem is us. We must focus on being better individuals before we can better organize ourselves within any system.

We need to stop pointing the finger of blame at anything and everything that is not us and start taking some responsibility for who we are and what we are. If we can’t manage to do that, then we deserve to send ourselves over the brink and into oblivion.

Why fascism always appears in economically struggling countries.

Freikorps members flying the flag of the German Empire during the Kapp Putsch, Munich, 1920.

When people suffer from economic struggles, particularly over a prolonged period, they become desperate for someone to step up to the plate and offer solutions they cannot devise for themselves. People become conditioned through desperation for a strong leader to take charge and “lead the way to prosperity.”

Desperation causes people to lose perspective, while critical thinking skills suffer from a need to quell the pain. Anyone who can convincingly present themselves as a saviour will be welcomed with open arms.

Even though the solutions to economic problems may be obvious, they’re also too far out of reach of hope to implement them.

In today’s world, we are dominated by a handful of wealthy people who control all our systems with deaf ears to the cries of the suffering. Most of their focus is on their well-being, fortunes, and plans for their futures and legacies. The rest of us matter only insofar as we can be useful to them.

As our economies have become global and our economic infrastructures have become multinational entities, we have lost our communities.

Only a few decades ago, our communities thrived by our connectedness to each other.

We have lost that, while those who have been the greatest beneficiaries of a global economy have lost their sense of community attachment because the entire globe is their playground.

The plutocrats among us who are most responsible for the economic hardships suffered by millions are entirely due to their wins at the expense of the millions suffering today. Their goal has never been to raise humanity out of poverty, even though that has been the promise of capitalism.

They have their armies of servants at their disposal to secure themselves against resistance and to continue reshaping the world into their image. They are perceived as being too far beyond the reach of laws to allow the little people any sense of hope for justice.

Anyone who can present themselves as a leader capable of alleviating their suffering is welcomed with a total investment of all their hopes and dreams, while a widespread perception of one capable of rising to that need is one from among the untouchable class. That’s why someone like Donald Trump can succeed in assuming control of an entire party through a cult level of worship.

The trouble is that leaders who claim to be their solution also demand their unquestioning loyalty and obedience. That’s the key which opens the door to fascism because the only way for a single leader to wield enough power is to align themselves with the existing status quo of power.

Donald Trump — “Nobody know the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.”

Why does the USA want to be one country instead of each state being its own country?

“United we stand, divided we fall.”

This phrase was first coined by a Founding Father, John Dickinson. His pre-Revolutionary War song, “The Liberty Song” was published on July 7, 1768.

“Then join hand in hand, brave Americans all, 
By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall; 
In so righteous a cause let us hope to succeed, 
For heaven approves of each generous deed.”

The Liberty Song — Wikipedia

It’s a bit dated and difficult to listen to now, but it reflects the spirit of the people who rebelled against an oppressive ruler and founded a new nation.

The meaning of “united we stand, divided we fall” is timeless.

It speaks to the survival success of the human species. It invokes Margaret Mead’s insight when she describes a knit bone as the beginning of civilized humanity. We have survived by uniting together and we began that journey of survival by being united when we hunted large animals in groups to feed and clothe ourselves.

To be united is more than just a word describing proximity. To be united is a pact we make to survive and prosper as families, friends, local communities, cities, regions, states/provinces, and nations.

Now that our world has shrunk to the level where geography is no longer a boundary between people, to be united now means continents and continental trading blocks. As our global environmental emergency escalates, united means the entire globe must come together as a species to restore our home to its natural state of sustaining humanity or we may not survive the culling. Our current efforts to mitigate environmental destruction already indicate many millions won’t if we don’t begin taking bold steps to fix our mess now.

Insofar as the efficiency of managing groups of people is concerned, the larger the group, the less efficiently they can be managed, and the less able any administrative body is to meet the group’s needs.

This dynamic creates a tension between individual needs and group needs that scale beyond individuals and their tribes into tensions of needs between tribes and regions, regions and their nations, and a global community comprised of a nesting doll of associations.

Even corporate structures are defined by layers of independence within a hierarchy of authority. Sections, departments, divisions, regions, and boards represent independent areas of authority limited by scope and subordinate to an escalated chain in a hierarchy of authority.

The human mind also works similarly within a structure of escalated authority in processing information. Our AI development efforts mimic that structure because it is the most efficient way of processing and managing escalated levels of complexity at escalated degrees of abstraction.

At any rate, after all that preamble, there are limits to what any state is capable of simply because of limited resources. In Canada, the differences between provinces are a little more obvious in my mind simply because of my familiarity with differences in resources across regions. In the western province of British Columbia, forestry is the primary industry and source of economic growth for the entire world. Next door in Alberta, the oil industry has generated its wealth. Its rich resources have had its provincial politics polluted by greedy Americans like the Koch brothers. Next door to Alberta is the province of Saskatchewan, which has a farming output that has fed the world. Manitoba has a greater diversity of resources to exploit but has had essentially enough to sustain its economy. The same is true for Ontario, where national equalization payments across provinces have helped to stabilize the country’s economies during periods of instability.

I’m not as clear on the specific details of U.S. methods of assisting member states — but the point of being united, over and above the typical answer of a military force to protect the nation from foreign aggression, is the national security arising from economic stability across all states.

Each state has the freedom to operate and manage its affairs as the citizens of each state determine what is best for them.

Freedom, however, and as this question implies — along with all the numerous exclamations by many people and groups like libertarians and anarchists fail to appreciate that freedom is not free. Freedom is always defined by limitations and accompanied by obligations.

For each state to exist as its own country would make each state vulnerable to numerous enemies ranging from foreign agents (including all other states), economic volatility, and bad actors within each state. Operating as a united states means all states are members of a community working together to ensure mutual security, stability, survival, and prosperity.

Many Americans have lost sight of the significance of community synergy and have allowed themselves to buy into the toxic competitiveness that justifies selling their own families down the river for a few extra pennies in their pockets.

These Americans, Canadians, and essentially the whole of conservative ideology all across the globe today have lost sight of the value of the community while pursuing a cutthroat agenda of “I’ve got mine so fuck you”.

It is this perversion of individual desires above the needs of the many that has led the nation down a path of toxic fascism that threatens the end of 243 years of democracy. If Americans lose their crucial battle for freedom in their next election, if they install a convicted felon as their head, then that will serve as a severe blow to freedom for all people all across the globe. The hegemony of plutocrats and their medieval infrastructures of authoritarian operations we casually refer to as corporations will assert their ascendance above all who are reduced to disposable cogs in a modern facsimile of ancient serfdom.

Each state should want to be an integral part of a larger community if it wishes to survive as an independent community. It’s as much in their best interests to be united as a nation as it is in the best interests of their citizens, families, and communities, as it is also in the best interests of all citizens as a united whole.

For the reasons cited above, the citizens of the U.K. are now suffering from their childish error in judgment by voting for Brexit. They are learning to cope with their grievous error of impetuous judgment, like the petulant child in a family who decides they can cope well enough with a treacherous world to survive on their own while they still haven’t reached adulthood. They often can’t and are converted into forgotten faces buried within statistics.

The way forward for the survival of our species is not to fractionate ourselves into warring tribal units but to unite as a community to stand tall as we meet challenges far more monumental than we have ever faced.

Here’s a song based on the phrase “United we stand, divided we fall” in an easier-to-listen-to version of the expression as interpreted by “Flower Children” from the “Age of Aquarius”:

“For united we stand
Divided we fall
And if our backs should ever be against the wall
We’ll be together, together, you and I.”

As a child growing up in an era where television programming ended at the end of each day with a closing message, this song inspired me even as I struggled within my fractured community.

It still holds meaning for me, and I believe more firmly than ever before in my life that this is the way forward because the nightmare of toxic individuality we have been cultivating is responsible for creating a world of psychopaths I do not want to live in.

BONUS:

While doing some basic research to answer this question, I discovered a modern variation of the expression “United We Stand, Divided We Fall” by the group “Two Steps from Hell”. Of the three musical examples provided, this one is far less literal, far more emotive, and far easier to listen to:

I also learned it was music used in an advertisement for the MCU release of Captain America’s Civil War:

Temet Nosce