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The Rationale Quest - Philosophy and Religion latent state challenged in global economic arena
Philosophy and Religion latent state is challenged and explored in the global economic arena. Suffering and Healing Prayer part of the Religon section.
Some posts are not necessarily the view of Tapsearch Com Editor and Artist Ray Tapajna
Ray Tapajna Chronicles
Globalism comes through the back door while we get caught name calling
My friend Tom Palaima, Professor of Classics at U.Texas, tells us how name calling is used by labeling someone as a socialist or some other term that has a negative connotation.
Following his article below, I respond to him in a different way. ( If we get caught up in the connotations of terms that no longer cover the problems, we open the door to a new ism that has come through the backdoor without any announcement. It is Globalism. Strange things are happening in our times and we do not need any conspiracy theories to know that Globalization and Free Trade have not evolved in any natural fashion and are being driven by elite powers in government, big business, international banking and even the academic community
.
The elder President Bush was the first in modern times to announce The New World Order. He initiated the programs that would make Free Trade and Globalization a formal process of our government. President Clinton followed and pushed these programs through Congress. Evidently, the tools for this New World Order were to be Free Trade and Globalization. So we had a Conservative Republican President set the stage and a Liberal Democrat and a Democrat controlled Congress pass the programs formulated by the elder President Bush. Then President Bush, the second, came and hid our economic crisis by his pre-emptive wars. Our eyes were taken off the Global Economy and Free Trade to watch the "shock and awe" war on TV. Then President Obama took over and apparently was passed the baton for the so called New World Order. He immediately bailed out the money changers who directed our global economy.
We now have people like Glen Beck telling us how the Progressives since President Wilson, have tried to take over the U.S. but, he does not talk about the most essential problem of our times. Free Trade and Globalization is the cause of our economic crisis with our economies based on making money on money instead of making things are burning out. This is happening while both sides call each other bad names like from the far right to the ultra radical left.
I say as long as we get caught up in debates like this .... in another "shock and awe" way, the bad guys are ransacking the free enterprise system which is the core of our society and the common good..... ane people like Glen Beck explode the real connotation of Social Justice.....see more of my reply below following Tom's article. )
Here is Tom's article first followed by my reply.
Palaima: Capitalizing on socialism's bad name
Among techniques to prevent informed discussions from taking place on critical issues that are facing our country is the timeworn strategy of demonizing the opposition through personal attacks or by linking them and their views to some notion, practice or philosophy that a good many people view as bad or evil.
As terms of opprobrium in American society, very few words have had over time the staying power to damn thoughts, ideas and thinkers that the words "socialism" and "socialist" continue to have. Foxbusiness.com on July 13 reports: "Obama's a socialist. That's the view of 55 percent of American voters." Nationalreview.com four days earlier followed "socialist" with a cascade of related and more violent adjectives: "Marxist, fascist, Nazi, communist."
It is clear that being described as a "card-carrying socialist" (cnn.com) is not a compliment. The iconography of images for "Obama socialist" on Google drives the point home.
One image has a smiling Obama in front of an American flag. Instead of 50 stars on a blue field, it has a Soviet hammer and sickle on a sickly purple (reddened blue) background. Another image shows Obama orating in front of larger scale busts of the unholy triad Marx, Lenin and Mao. Yet another shows that the label of socialism is not innocuous. The word SOCIALISM appears in red at the bottom. Above, a red cartoon drawing of a man points a gun, execution-style, at the head of a like figure in blue. The blue man holds a round black bag with a dollar sign on it.
The nebulous term "socialism" is effective because it provides entry into a pool of stronger terms like "Nazi" and "communist." It can also be juxtaposed with violent images like the gun to the head. And it has a long history.
Back in 1942 three young economics instructors at the University of Texas had the courage to present themselves at the kind of orchestrated mass meeting we now call a "Tea Party." The meeting in Dallas was organized to denounce the 40-hour workweek, the New Deal and organized labor. The instructors wanted to offer explanations.
They were denied the right to speak. But a Dallas federal judge wrote the UT regents requesting "changes in the economics faculty" because "our university (is) swinging away from true economics and routing our children into the camp of state socialism." UT President Homer Rainey, who resisted regental requests to fire tenured and untenured economics faculty who taught New Deal economics, was eventually himself fired for "recommending ‘homosexuals' for teaching positions, countenancing the teaching of communism, and supporting socialist economic philosophies."
Read these accusations out loud and you may want to wash your mouth out with soap. A better way to clear your mind and spirit is to read the following words of a true, committed socialist, the artist, craftsperson, poet, translator and thinker William Morris, recommended to me by long-time Austinite and craftsperson James E. Gardner. They capture the true high aspirations of some socialist thinkers.
In a lecture with the title "The Beauty of Life" (1880) Morris declared: "I had thought that civilization meant the attainment of peace and order and freedom, of goodwill between man and man, of the love of truth and the hatred of injustice ... not more stuffed chairs and more cushions ... and more dainty meat and drink — and therewithal more and sharper differences between class and class ... If (civilization) does not aim at ... giving some share in the happiness and dignity of life to all the people that it has created ... it is simply an organized injustice, a mere instrument for oppression."
Idealistic? Yes. Simple-minded? Perhaps. But noble, gentle and consistent with the message of Jesus Christ — and impossible to confuse with the actions of a mob hit man.
Palaima is a classics professor at the University of Texas; tpalaima@sbcglobal.net
...... here is my reply continued from above..........
Tom's connotations related the use of socialism or for that matter any ism are outdated. A new ism has come through the back door and it is called Globalism. Globalism accomodates Socialism, Communinism and Totalitarianism. Its tool is Free Trade where production is moved from place to place anywhere in the world for the sake of cheaper labor. Currently a large majority of products sold in places like Walmart come from hundreds of Chinese factories in a Communist land. The money changers of our times are not bothered by what ism is operating in any of the wage slave countries. They just care about growing money values.
The only time Jesus is noted as being angry is when He confronted the money changers in the temple. So I would imagine He is very upset about the current global economy. Now economies based on making money on money instead of making are burning out. A new working poor class has replaced the middle class in the USA and an impoverished working class has been put in place in around the world. And if it is only human nature to shop for the cheapest items no matter how they evolved, then it does not matter who is what.
Once President Obama bailed out big money and the investement community, he established a strange variation of Socialism and Capitalism. It can easily be called Socialist Capitalism where Federalism rules the game with governments become brokers and dealers in a worldwide monopoly game. President Obama married the two systems.
So the term Socialist is actually something now without any real connotation that can be applied. The same goes for Capitalists where even Communists now Capitalists too.
Peter Maurin the co-founder of the Catholic Workers did not care what he was called and was for anyone or anything that strove for human dignity in the workday.
Much of the same can be said about Les Walesa who led the Solidarity movement in Poland and perhaps had more to do with the fall of the Soviet Communist empire than anyone else. He now says that the U.S. has lost its moral compass. He also said that he knows every little about business or economics but he does know that when 10 percent of any population that controls 100 percent of the wealth, something is very wrong.
I consider myself primarily a Al Smith Democrat meaning that I am a post Franklin Roosevelt Democrat who was a radical liberal who was not in tune with the Free Enterprise system. He did more to destroy small businesses than any other president. When he imposed ceiling prices and other federalist regulations on business during the war, he in essence knocked out the Free Enterprise system. President Roosevelt created what I call the lost leader economy. During the war, small businesses had to resort to the black market or lose everything they had. In my many years in several business endeavors of my own, the worst problem was government. The next largest problem for me in my own businesses was unfair competition where Capitalist used every means to knock out small business.
The mess multiplied when the elder President Bush announced the new world order and established the order of Free Trade. Then President Clinton came and consummated all of Bush's programs. So we have a Democrat so called Liberal President and a Democrat Congress that passed both NAFTA and GATT betraying the common man and workers everywhere. Now we are in a global economic crisis - in a back to the future mode, it is 1938 all over again when the New Deal was failing and only way out was World War 2!
You can call me anything you like but I am an ardent advocate for human dignity in the workday and fair trade with both the ultra Liberals and Conservatives acting as one in the biggest scam of the century - Free Trade - and behind that is Globalism that has merged all isms together for the money changers of the world. President Obama is one of them and had the baton passed to him by President Bush. As long as we go at each other about who is a Socialist and who is a Capitalist - they will win. Whoever would have expected President Obama to bail out big money and the financial communities while ignoring the suffering of workers and the common good.
Ray Tapajna Chronicles
Tapsearcher exposes real world issues - links
Real World News from Ray Tapajna Chronicles
Reasonable Economics - shopping more directly locally and shunning the transnational - big box - chain stores
Our economy based on making money on money instead of making things is burning out. Still the free trader globalists call for more of the same. President Obama bailed out Wall Street and big money interests while ignoring those who lost everything due to free trade and are fading away in a silent depression. Are we part of the problem?
An economic professor told me once that there is no such thing as a bad or good economy and economics is only about measurements and statistics. These measurements are meaningless to those who lost their jobs and their worldly possessions. For them the economy is bad no matter what.
Only local value added economies work in balanced geopolitical settings. People gather together in cities, states and countries for this reason. Free enterprise is supposed to serve these communities in a fashion where all share in the rewards of their efforts in a balanced proportions. Imagine a family sharing a meal where only one or two get a piece of bread while the rest get a full meal. We are part of a larger family society when we gather to share the rewards of our work.
Across the country , workers as consumers are beginning to realize that they have been shopping their way out of their jobs for more than ten years. We have voted more at the cash register line than we have in the voting booth about what kind of society we want to live in . Shoppers are joining campaigns to shop at local businesses. Some towns have put restrictions on chain stores building in their towns -
Towns shut out chain stores - Ethics Box
Jun 13, 2010 ... Economic Ethics in small towns - towns shut out chain stores - Ethics ... Ethics Box - New: Published letters by Ray Tapajna foretelling the ...
Towns shut out chain stores - Link
Dozens of towns nationwide held "Independence Week" promotions tied to the Fourth of July celebrations, asking people to remember how small businesses help keep communities unique and prosperous.
We make some free websites for local businesses like -
LAKEWOOD HARDWARE
The Palmer family have been part of the small business community in Lakewood for many years. They bravely opened the first new hardware store in Lakewood. ...
Pets General Store - Tapsearch Com top choice for best pet store ...
For you friendly neighorhood quality pet shop - and go to Lakewood Hardware - see Lakewood Hardware Link ( Welcome this new hardware store ...
Locally owned pet store- Link
However, this is not enough. Years ago, we published these articles and no one seem to listen :
--> Is the new world economy a race to the bottom?
Our economy is like an orchestra without drums...... Unions not what they used to be from Tapsearch Com · ---> Art that talks : American Dream Reversed art ...
Economy without drums
and see more at Ray Tapajna Chronicles Link
We need to restore our local value added economy which has about five levels of added value from raw products to the end user or retail level. We need to include as many levels as possible and save our free enterprise systems from being devastated by global free traders .. Free trade is really all about impoverished workers and it is not really trade.
By Ray Tapajna - follow his journey in the global economic arena
From The Imitation of Christ, Chapter 39 -
THE THIRD BOOK - INTERNAL CONSOLATION
TIME TO ABSTRACT THE GOOD FROM THE BAD
For many of us who have lost our jobs, businesses or everything it took a life time to achieve, let us turn to the ulimate source of all things.
The Imitation of Christ by Thomas A Kempis tells us :
NOT TO BE FRETFUL IN BUSINESS
Commit your troubles and cause always to Me and I will dispose of it in due time.
( In China, reports tell us that more and more Chinese workers are committing suicide. Many workers make components for HP and APPLE - Many of the electronic gadgets you use are the result of impoverished workers who make only about $285 a month working more than sixty hours a week. )
( In the USA,
The 405 Club · Contemplating Suicide Due To Job Loss.Apr 20, 2010 ... Contemplating Suicide Due To Job Loss. A couple of weeks ago, ... Read about more helpful resources from The Job Enthusiast here. ...
Special resource - )
and
( Enraged man flies plane into IRS building in Texas | texas, span ...Jun 10, 2010 ... Top News: Enraged man flies plane into IRS building in Texas | texas, span, font, 11px, style, irs, austin, oneup, building, plane.
This is not an answer )
See :
human nature challenged by IRS plane crashFeb 20, 2010 ... Plane crashes IRS Human Nature Challenged - human nature challenged by IRS plane crash - The Rationale Quest.
Human Nature Challenged by IRS plane crash
Free Trade is not trade but it is mainly about the trading of jobs with the real commodities being human beings who are put on a world trading block to compete with one another for the same jobs.
Let us turn our eyes towards the Lord who says in The Imitation of Christ, Wait for My ordering of it, and you shall find your good therefrom.
Pray --- O Lord, most cheerfully do I commit all unto You for my thinking can little avail - ( It seems like I have run out of options and need Divine help. )
I do not want to just dwell on my misfortune but want to dwell on You as my Shepherd who takes care of all of His lambs. )
Sometimes, we struggle for answers and desire for some solution fast, but when it is attained, we find out that it is not what we were really seeking.
Things change and drive us from one thing to another It is not easy to forsake ourselves when trouble is all around us even in things that are small.
The old enemy ( Peter 5:8 ), hangs around during these bad times setting himself against all that is good. He tempts us with deceit and despair.
Watch and pray that he does not capture you in the bad times or good times.
When all seems to be lost, don't stop praying. And pray .....
Psalm 23 is not only for funerals... 23rd Psalm not only for funerals - Psalm 23 is not only for funerals - Pray The ... the view of Tapsearch Com Editor and Artist Ray Tapajna ...
Pray the 23rd
and...
Healing Prayer ... Come in and reside in me. Amen (Dedicated to the Wagar AC 10/30/1990 by Ray Tapajna ) The 23rd Psalm - A song. Antiphon 1 ...
Pray the Healing Prayer when all seems to be lost
By Ray Tapajna - journeys in the globalist free trade world and browse references and resources here
Globalism - Parallel Networks Crashing in Economic Crisis - Please pass this to all people of good will worldwide - tell them it's time to unite in a new Solidarity movement
Economic storms advancing faster and faster - global economy out of control
We live in a world of new networks but many of them run in parallel fashions never touching. Instead they contradict one another. The workday has been devastated. The free enterprse system is under attack by what is called the free market which is anything but free. Free trade is part of it and it too is not free. It is not even really trade as traditionally practiced and defined It is primarily about moving production from place to place anywhere in the world for the sake of cheaper labor costs. Our economies based on making money on money instead of making things in balance geopolitical settings are burning out and crashing. It is time to find other ways.
We mix our thoughts with major experts in the field of economics,
sociology, business and philosophy. Among them are Manuel Castells, Sir James Goldsmith, Jacque Maritain, Chuck Harder and Dr Pat Choate. We add this to our own life-time varied experiences which include more than sixty years in the work world.
Philosophy has been in a dormant state for many years and it is apparent that most of our current economic and cultural problems are tied to this missing discipline. Most of the philosophy studies today are just reviews of past philosophical insights. We have come to a time in history when someone running for president of the United States, says Jesus was his favorite philosopher. Philosophy is now confused with religion and faith Many in our society attack philosophy as being a religion but the ultimate pursuit of truth is based on the study of being as being. Philosophy can bring you to the door of faith but can not get you through it. Jesus is Faith itself and the only way to get it is to accept that Jesus is the way through the door.
A few weeks ago, I reviewed a book by a friend who is a Philosopophy professor at a semminary. In some respects, he is the token philosopher onsite because of the past dependence of philosophy that once confirmed man search for truth is not only based on faith but on a logical reasoning too. In re-reading parts of his book, It told me what is basically wrong with the state of things today including culturally , politically and economically. We are living in a time where the Sophist control events.
Socrates challenged us centuries ago about only accepting usefull goods
as a way to live rather than seeking the ideal and the common good. Useful goods and pragmatism keeps things going but in many cases can be intrinically evil and contaminates the order of things with many damaging ramifications.
As those who read any of my sites and blogs with many being online since 1998, they know that my main advocacy which I feel is my ministry is human dignity in the workday. It is the place where we spend most of our time and should be a place of active worship by offering the things we do in making a living to the Lord. It is a 100 percent deal with our Creator. God is not a part-time worker and our whole day belongs to Him.
We live in a time where elite groupings control events in a form of Globalism marked by the so called free market and free trade. All " isms
" are one being globalized by the money changers of our times. They
have unleashed massive productions of goods and services but it stands as a network all its own serving primarily the masters of money. Businesses can decentralize, relocate, automate, go offshore,
subcontract, outsource or whatever. Production, factories and farms can be moved from place to place for the sake of cheaper labor costs and the least amount of resistance and regulations. Everytime something is moved, a burn out community is left behnd detached from the whole. Another network takes its place running in parallel fashion leaving the needs of a given community open to many voids. In the end, as we see today, the social cost and the financial cost, in terms of burned-out people, burned out captial, burned-out societies, will drag down the business
productivity as well. (
From the thoughts of Manuel Castells more then ten years ago. )
And now we are seeing our economies based on making money on money instead of making things in balanced geopolitical settings, burning out. The money changers are anxiously throwing more money at the problems but it all goes up as smoke in the burning-out process.
The globalist free traders use Adam Smith to defend their ways but Adam Smith held labor and the workday as something sacred and the core of all society. The globalist free trader money changers leave local communities and workers behind as they rush to a new world order. Workers networks are isolated from one another. Local value economies are in a state of desparate conditions where people seek being rescued by even gambling casinos while the globalist free trader money changers play a giant monopoloy game in a gobal casino. There are no roots or anchors and society is fragmenting finding no way to bring itself together.
Hopefully, in the process of splintering, new smaller communities will come forth to counter the centralization process. Hopefully, these smaller communities will be networks that find ways to connect with one another.
As it stands now, the networks of our time are running in parallet fashion and not connecting with one another and if you are not part of any network in this globalist free trader money changer world, you do no longer exists. There was a time in Rome, when it was better to be a slave than a freeman. Today, the existence of a freeman is being challenged. They are being forced to go outside the cities and centers of control to find the life ideal.
The networks unconnected to one another are finding it difficult to protect sovereignty and governments act more like power brokers in a world of shifting alliances. Individual nations are finding it difficult to control their currencies or support all the entitlements created during the past century. The free trader globalist money changers contain all the "isms" of our times in one network in the globalization of money. It may have combined the "isms" under the the priority of greed but history tells us what happens when the state of the worker and workworld is degraded to the level of wage slaves with a world full of over production and not in sync with much of anything. It too is a parallel network going its own separate way.
We are still haunted by the bible rendition of community and the workday. The part that says they lived in community and shared everything in common is still many try to emulate. However, people like Alan Greenspan devotes a major part of this book - The Age of Tubulence bombing out the New Harmony workers community in the late 1880s as a failed experiment of idealists out of touch with the realities of what it takes to balance out human nature in the real world. He cites the free market as the only way but leaves out the part when raw capitalism takes over. Lech Walesa, the leader of the Solidarity movement in Poland , and who played a major role in the fall of the Communist empire, says the U.S.A. has lost its way . He also said, - I know very little about business and economics, but something is very wrong when ten percent of the population controls 100 percent of the wealth --. Greenspan says Capitalism is the best answer for the flaws in human nature. Human nature ends up being on trial for our economic crisis. Consumers are a parallel network out of touch with the whole too. Workers as shoppers, shop their way out of their jobs and vote more in the cash register line than they do a voting booth. Too many say that it is only human nature to shop for the cheapest prices no matter what. The globalist free trader money changers take advantage of this tendency.
In looking at all the problems we face today during an economic crisis that was caused by the globalist free trader money changers, we first have to ask ourselves some questions with the first being why do we gather together in communities, states and nations separate from one ananother. We do this because as a people, we evidently are not ready to handle things in any global fashion. We have found out that centralization of anything brings both the good and the bad in a quick way but the bad which was once more decentralized into more controllable segments. Any sophist approach to pushing useful goods in an forced method brings with it many intrinsic evil results.
Pope Benedict in his economic encyclical, says society should practice subsidiarity which means all things should be decided at the lowest levels possible. Liberatarians say as much too but somehow want this to happen in universal ways and one size fits all fashion. They hold the free market as something sacred but never really defined what is needed to make sure it is a level playing field. Liberals tend to make the parts greater than the whole and never seem to be able to latch on any first principles. Conservatives claim they are for the free market but stand aside in any anything goes business environment while making money off those who are suffering in this environment. Again they too are sophists in taking advantage of useful goods without discerning was is and what is not intrinsically evil in the practice of raw Capitalism. Communists and Socialists say they are for the greatest good for the greatest number but the number seeems to add up to only very elite grouping that controls the masses.
All these things are now smashing up against each other while the globalist free trader money changers still keep trying to force the issue. They have failed in their quest to gather all in one in the world and their attempts at the globalization of money as a product all its own have failed too.
As more and more elements and networks separate from one another, it may be time to think in new communitarian ways knowing that one size does not fit all and that decentralization is better than centralization as Federalism is finding it impossible to control all the parallel networks that are out of control. It is time to think local and practiced subsidiarity where everything is decided at the most lowest level possible. What we have now is out of control due to globalist free trader money changers who have no idea on how to stop the global race to the bottom. There really are no winners .
By Ray Tapajna - Follow Ray's journey in the global economic arena
Dysfunctional Globalists' Economy where the money changers rule
Who would ever think that President Obama, supposedly a liberal minded man, would bail out the money changers before worrying about the common man. Even President Bush gave something directly to the people to stimulate the economy. It did not work because of all the extra money given to the consumers was spent at the retail level and then fanned out to where the products are made and not much of is left in the U.S. to stimulate the economy in balance fashion. Consumers, with human nature on trial, do most of their voting in the check out line rather than in the voting booth.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke confirmed this when the told Congress during the first stimulus hearings that the best way to stimulate our economy is to buy "domestically produced goods", but no one seems to be listening today as business as usual goes on through what is called free trade where production is moved from place to place for the sake of cheaper labor.
While President Obama gives money away to the money changers, the circle of despair in a real silent depression grows for far too many. Now even the new working poor class is losing jobs while the push for illegal immigrants to take over the impoverished wage jobs continues.
As poverty grows across the U.S., giant retailers try to keep step with the money changers to deflate the value of workers and labor. Many workers in the service and retail sectors, need government assistance to survive while a vast illegal immigrant class stands on the sidelines to take over even lower paid jobs. If they become legal immgrants, more government assistance will be needed in a marathon race to the bottom.
In places like Greece, about 30 percent of their economy is underground while about 25 percent of all workers there, work for the government. Greece had to get a money transfusion and there is no reason while other nations including the U.S. will not go the same way.
There is very little reporting about the underground economy in the U.S. which most likely is at least 20 percent and we know that the mass of government workers in the U.S. , now represent the most powerful unions in the country and not much will change because our political leaders will not do things that would put them out of their jobs. We also do not hear much about how much of dirty money is being laundered through all the transaction of the money changers and big businesses doing their thing in the free trade world
So, today, we have President Obama, who is a globalist free trader, bailing out free trade since the money changers have lost many of their bets in a global casino. Philosophy is in a dormant stage while the Sophists money changers concentrating on useful goods no matter how intrinsically evil they may be.
As the circle of despair grows wider and wider. And we all know how Jesus responded to money changers in the temple. It was about the only time, He ever was angry.
By Ray Tapajna - Follow Ray's own journey in the Global Economic Arena
The Trojan Horse behind illegal immigration is Free Trade
The U.S. Federal Governmnet sponsored the moving of factories outside of USA starting in 1956. This temporary program never ended. If evolved into the Maquiladora Factory program that used impoverished workers in Mexico to produce commodities for the American Consumers. For the first twenty years, the moving of factories was a slow process but by 1992 prior to the passing of the NAFTA free trade agreement, there were more than 2,000 U.S. factories moved to Mexico. After NAFTA was passed, the number doubled to more than 4,000 with President Clinton also rushing billions of dollars to Mexico to save the peso and the Mexican economy in 1995. Free trade had failed on both sides of the border but the Free Traders continued the process triggering the economic crisis and the massive migration of workers flocking to the U.S. from Mexico seeking economic survival.
CULTURAL DEATH
Cultural Death - letter send to editors of Cleveland Plain Dealer who foster globalization. The paper did not publish this letter. The cover only the surface of the illegal immigration problem but never get into the causes and effects of the problem. Too many people of good will are out of touch with the real causes and effects of not only illegal immigration but with many other facets behind the failures of Free Trade.
The main cause behind illegal immigration is free trade. Ten Mexican bishops called the NAFTA free trade agreement cultural death. A Central American bishop told our U.S. Congress the same thing about the CAFTA free trade agreement. See NAFTA muy malo and Free Trade Paradox
The U.S. has moved more than 4,000 factories to Mexico. It was supposed to help the Mexican economy while supplying Americans with cheaper goods. It did not stop the tide of Mexican workers coming to the U.S. seeking economic survival. On top of this our dirty manufacturing was sent to even worst conditions and caused havoc to our ecology on both sides of the border. How can anyone ignore the stories of this and things like female workers getting a shipping box to live in as a reward.
Soon after NAFTA was passed, President Clinton had to rush billions of dollars to Mexico to save the peso and the Mexican economy. The first stimulus package went to Mexico, a foreign nation.
In the bigger picture, 80 percent of the 6,000 factories supplying Wal-mart are in China. So the money spent at retail in the U.S. does not stay here
to recycle our economy. One factory jobs creates about ten additional jobs. Just think if we still had all those lost production jobs in the U.S. We could have helped duplicate the success story in places like Mexico. Instead, we
now have retail workers in places like Wal-mart that need government
assistance to survive. Just think what will happen if illegal immigrants become legal. It would devastate our government assistance programs we have now. The working poor class that replaced the middle class will grow and grow and a vast new underclass will need all kinds of government assistance to survive.
Many American workers and businesses have lost everything due to Free Trade and there is nothing left for them to give. They gave all they had. NAFTA, GATT, CAFTA have proved to be a cultural death for millions of both sides of the border. It will continues as even American Catholic Bishops fail to understand the causes behind all this suffering. Now with many Mexican workers rejecting the impoverished working wages in the Maquiladora factories ,many of the factories are moving to China with China contracting desparate workers in places like Jordan. It is a borderless mission to the bottom for all.
A sophist useful good approach to the problem will not cover the intrinsic evil of it all.
Palaima: Pre-empted by the war in Iraq
Tom Palaima, Regular contributor,
Palaima is a professor of classics at the University of Texas
The legacy of what we done in Iraq
( The boomerang wars )
There are many ways we can begin looking at the likely legacy of what we have done through our pre-emptive use of military force in Iraq. We are in an end game achieved through a temporary upscaling of military force combined with making payments to factional leaders not to unleash violence.
This so-called surge of men and money was a temporary measure. It is hard to understand why its success is being taken as predictor of any long-term stability.
There are permanent legacies of the commanders in the field and the political leaders in Washington who sent them forth. These have to do with real soldiers and with contractors in charge of rebuilding the infrastructure in Iraq at great expense.
Recently my colleague, Tarek El-Ariss, a professor in Middle Eastern Studies, turned the attention of our Humanities Institute seminar to a blogger, ‘river' at Riverbend, a young Iraqi woman who wrote for four years — from Aug. 23, 2003, until Sept. 6, 2007 — from Baghdad. She describes in 2003 the immediate impact of the American invasion: a rapid influx of terrorists and religious extremists who flourish "in times of chaos and disorder." The repressive measures of the extremists undo the existing western-style tolerant harmonies among "moderate Muslims who simply believe(d) in ‘live and let live'."
Sunnis and Shi'a, Muslims, Christian and Jews had gotten along with one another. Half the college students and more than 50 percent of the work force were women. The war destroyed that society and took away freedoms from many women, freedoms that have not been restored.
Then the rebuilding began. Iraq had 130,000 engineers, mostly trained in Germany, Japan, the United States and Britain. They knew how to build good bridges using Iraqi labor and materials quickly and cheaply. They had rebuilt bridges destroyed in Desert Storm. The local cost estimate, generously calculated, for the new Diyala Bridge was $1.2 million. The bid by an American contractor was $50 million.
When her family left for Syria, in September 2007, "the dirty streets, the ruins of buildings and houses, the smoke-filled horizon all helped (her family) realize how fortunate (they) were to have a chance for something safer." The Iraq they knew was long gone, up in smoke.
At the same seminar meeting we watched Nancy Schiesari's magnificent documentary "Tattooed Under Fire," filmed at the River City Tattoo Parlor in Killeen. There soldiers returning from and deploying to Iraq get tattooed and tell their stories to the husband and wife parlor owner-operators.
If you think there is glory in the kind of fighting our men and women did or that they feel they accomplished something noble, listen to them explain why they want a tattoo of the grim reaper as a young child, or of a baby in a blender. See where they are going to put the last four digits of the social security numbers of the buddies killed before their eyes.
One medic speaks of the stress of constantly turning off and on the kill/save switch and of the two fellow medics he saw shot down by snipers while handing out soccer balls to kids. He recalls another soldier who died in his arms after having his legs blown away. That soldier said he wished he had made it home to see his daughter. One soldier who is deploying for the fifth time to Iraq declares a clear truth: "The more times I go over, the more of Iraq comes back with me."
You'll notice how young these soldiers are. As Schiesari poignantly remarked, referring to the heinous practice in some areas of the world of using children as young as 11 and 12: "Given how sheltered American kids are from the hard realities of life, these 18-year-old soldiers are our child soldiers."
Ninety-five percent of current soldiers have tattoos. This is one tattoo parlor in one Texas town at one time. The lasting pain and trauma are palpable. Extrapolate and you have another legacy of our pre-emptive war. It has pre-empted for honorable soldiers like those in Killeen the normal joys and sorrows of being young and open to what life has to offer.
Palaima is a professor of classics at the University of Texas-
( Note by Ray Tapajna - the Iraq war was not necessary. - It will take a hundred years for all the wounds to heal. In the Middle East many things can easily begin but never end. The U.S. once practiced the principle of Hot Pursuit when segments of a country attacked them. We did not attack a whole nation for some secondary reason but went after the principles involved in an attack. Now the principle of massive attack is in place which can go both ways like a boomerang . )
By Ray Tapajna Journeys in the global economic arena
Real causes of global economic crisis still ignored
Like nothing else in history, Free Trade and Globalization now has a long history of failures and all world leaders are in denial
The Eastern Establishment of economic theories still control the flow of wealth in the world led by Harvard and other Ivy League elistists. They act with a plantation owner mentality. President Obama is no exception. It is actually an economic cult and we do not need any conspiracy theories to know that Free Trade and Globalization has been driven by these elite groupings.
Even the Tea Party movement in America is in denial about the real causes behind the global economic crisis. What is the difference between a "trickle down economy" that comes down from big government or one that comes down from the private sector. With the bail out of the financial community and the Eastern Establisment Economic Elitists, President Obama has married big government to big money.
Nothing is said and very little is reported about the long history of Free Trade and Globalization failures. The duration of failures now have lasted longer than the Great Depression , so called Protectionism and all wars.
It boils down to raw Capitalism that is now mixed with Socialism, Communism and all the other old "isms" of the past. Human Dignity in the workday has been thrashed. A new working poor class has been created in the more prosperous nation and a vast underclass of impoverished workers in other countries.
Hurrican Katrina in New Orleans exposed a vast underclass in the USA living in a silent depression that goes untold. Instead of seeking out answers to the degradation of workers dignity, President Obama chose to push the health care issue which hid the real conditions that exist in the USA and other countries. Our economies based on making money on money instead of making things has burn out. Still, the Eastern Establishment of Economic Theories push for more of the same thing. The elder President Bush called out for a new world order and President Clinton followed and consummated the Bush Free Trade programs. President Bush the second came and hid it all behind his pre-emptive wars. Now President Obama takes over in the betrayal of American workers and workers everywhere with no one in the major media channels challenging the greatest scam of the century - Free Trade- that really has very little to do with world trade as historically practiced and defined. Free Trade is about moving production from place to place for the sake of cheaper and cheaper labor. And every time a factory is moved, it leaves a burn out community behind.
The basic question is this. What serves our human nature the best. Is human nature raw Capitalism and where a upper middle class of people thrive and live off the suffering of the working poor and the underclass. Lech Walesa, who led the Solidarity movement in Poland and who played a large role in the downfall of Communism in Russia, says - I do not know that much about business or economics, but I do know that something is very wrong when ten percent of our populations control 100 percent of the wealth. He says also that the United States has lost its moral leadership skills. Read the Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins and see why and how it all came about in our times. Money became the main end product of our times instead of just a means for making transactions. Wall Street has disengaged with Main Street America. And many miles of main streets in major cities across the United States now look like third world countries as our prison population keeps breaking records.
Philsophy and religion have lost their way in the Global Economic Arena.They have compromised their principles trying to fit the mold of Free Trade and Globalization. And Communism and Socialism are just one step behind raw Capitalism with all mixed together in a Bewildered New World.
By Ray Tapajna
Welcome to Socialist Capitalism - the marriage of Big Government to Big Money
In our society, many stand outside looking in. They shout out solutions to problems while ignoring their own part in the process.
They talk about the free market without defining what it is. They hide from the fact that the so called free market has ransacked the free enterprise system. Human Dignity in the workday has been betrayed. The two presidents in my lifetime who caused the most damage to society were President Franklin Roosevelt and President Ronald Reagan. Their political children turned out to be President Clinton, President Bush with President Obama marrying big government and big business in the celebration of Free Trade and Globalization.
The climax of the union of Roosevelt and Reagan came from two different directions. President Roosevelt pushed solutions for the economic mess in the 1930s flowing down from big government and federalism. President Reagan tried to do much of the same thing in his trickle down economic solutions from the private sector controlled by big money changers. In both attempts, workers remained standing outside looking in without any real voice in the matter. Now big government and the money changers control the flow of wealth. Something is very wrong when ten percent of the people control 100 percent of the wealth.
Rerum Novarum stood the test of history for almost a hundred years setting the stage for what the free enterprise system should be and how to provide a voice to workers who are outside looking in at the interactions of the money changers in both political parties and in the private sector. Free trade and Globalization came and smashed human dignity into pieces. Economies became based on making money on money instead of making things. Production was made portable -ready to be moved again and again for the sake of the cheapest labor. Workers were put on a world trading block to compete with each other for jobs down to the lowest levels of wage slave and even child labor.
The workday now stands out as the biggest problem in history. Our
forefathers tried to deal with it as such but again most of them too
were money changers and the starting line was economics and money not
freedom of the people. Adam Smith held workers as the core of society
and we still ignore this reality. Free traders use Adam Smith to defend their practices while ignoring Smith's reverence for workers.
Not until we define who we are and what we really all are about will we
be able to connect properly with one another. Church and communities are
what it is all about. It is about all stopping standing outside and looking
in. The church is an integral part of the workday because what happens in Sunday or Saturday worship should flow into Monday and the rest of the week. Communities and associations should begin this way. Worshippers who are employers who do not pay a living wage, failed in their faith. A president of a large chain of retail stores who personally works in a food kitchen feeding the hungry on a regular basis, but who does not pay a living wage to his workers, is a spiritual contradiction . Workers in places like Walmart need private and government assistence to survive. Still Walmart is pointed to as a model of economic success. This is a contradiction layed down by both big government and big business. And when worshippers become shoppers something else happens . They shop for the cheapest price no matter what while ignoring the sweatshops of the world. Most everything purchased to day has a trail of suffering behing it.
Today we live in a new kind Socialist Capitalism, where big government has merged with big money. Many from both side claim they are people of faith. All of us must considered our part in all of this and what we can do in big or little ways to change it.
By Ray Tapajna - About Terry Pluto, top Cleveland Plain Dealer sports writer, who also writes about spiritual journeys.
Terry Pluto reflects on what it is called the Dark Night of the Soul by St John of the Cross
I was overwhelmed when I read the latest biography of Mother Teresa. After being in union with God and in His consolation, she was stripped of all this and drifted into the dark night of the soul. She finally recalled that she told God she would give up all so that she could serve the poorest of the poor not thinking that His presence would be one of those things.
Yet, she served the poorest of the poor and her ministry grew in global proportions with Jesus being a stranger in the night.
God deals with us as His children one by one and just as a shepherd gives his all in saving just one sheep- He is there for us no matter what. Terry Pluto's prayer "OK God get me through this", can apply to almost everything in life. Live the Resurrection as you say this prayer. Pray for the power of Holy Indifference to handle both the highest levels of consolation and the lowest levels of the dark night.
Usually, we all have someone in our lives who tell us to stay on course and Terry Pluto keeps doing this in his role as a top sports writed and author. Here is his latest article:
Easter story reminds us even Jesus felt lost and alone
Many face 'Garden of Gethsemane moments' of doubt: Terry Pluto's Faith and You
By Terry Pluto, The Plain Dealer
March 27, 2010, 7:26AM
Not long after Mother Teresa died, some of her letters became public. In them, she talked about feeling distant from God.
"The silence and the emptiness is so great," she wrote to her spiritual adviser. "I look and do not see ... Listen and do not hear ... the tongue moves [in prayer] but does not speak ... I want you to pray for me -- that I let Him have [a] free hand."
Time magazine cited that quote a few years ago in a story about Mother Teresa's "crisis of faith."
Other writers used her doubts about what God was doing -- or even if God was paying attention -- to dismiss faith entirely. Some even hinted that she was a bit of a phony because while she seemed so upbeat in her public appearances, it was a different story in the dead of night -- at least, based on some of her letters.
A reader that I'll call Sam to protect his privacy e-mailed: "My wife left me. She told me that she stopped loving me years ago AND that her heart told her it was time to go ... I wish I could make a deal with God: 'I'll give myself to you if you give my wife back to me ...' I know it doesn't work that way ..."
We don't know what triggered Mother Teresa's despair, but it's not hard to guess. Her ministry in India was to care for the poor, the forgotten, the sick, and finally, the dying.
For Sam, it was the death of a marriage, the feelings of regret, rejection and abandonment.
I thought of these two stories when reading through Matthew's account of the Easter story of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Jesus knows he's about to be arrested. He knows that his father in heaven has asked him to die on the cross. He asks his friends to pray, but Peter, James and John fall asleep three times.
Matthew wrote in Chapter 26, verses 37-38: "[Jesus] began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, 'My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.'"
But his friends remain asleep and after three requests through prayer, Jesus accepts God's will -- to be crucified.
When Mother Teresa wrote that "the silence and emptiness is so great," she seems to echo the feelings of Jesus in the garden. She asks her adviser to pray for her, just as Jesus asked his friends. And just as Sam asked me, in his e-mail.
Real, honest to God faith, is raw and uncensored. It's King David writing in Psalm 142: "Look to my right and see, no one is concerned for me. I have no refuge, no one cares for my life."
The book of Psalms seems to scream of despair. Sometimes they whine. Sometimes they weep. Sometimes they praise, but there seems to be far more pain.
Having recently written about parents who have children with disabilities, many of them confessed to have their own Garden of Gethsemane moments.
Tony e-mailed about how through prayer he and his wife moved from asking "Why us?" when their child was born with Down syndrome to recognizing "God has blessed us."
Tony wrote: "Not many regular kids who would say, in the middle of the day; 'Papa, let's pray for So-and-So' ... then sit and fold his hands in prayer. Or 'Papa, I think Mama needs a hug' (especially if mama and I have had words).... He also told the principal she had a nice butt!"
Sometimes -- even when our "friends" are gone or asleep -- prayer carries us to where we need to go. But it's also OK to admit the road is dark and lonely, just as Jesus did.
To reach Terry Pluto: terrypluto2003@yahoo.com
We also compare the story of Mother Teresa with our current economic situation - see Confessions for History ......
Mother Teresa went to serve the poorest of the poor and in her we see a person with internal struggles that will not stop her from serving her Love in Jesus. She shows what people should do when the Free Enterprise system ( that Greenspan does not talk about) fails its mission. It seems too many of us in the Catholic Faith wear blinders and refuse to connect the dots. We still think from the top down and are afraid of approaching the poverty issue where it starts. We do not use Rerum Novarum as something practical and wonder about it as an ideal. Others in the Christian Faith, do much of the same worrying more about being "saved" and prosperity theology while on earth. Mother Teresa just jumped in without any reservations. It is no wonder she had a state funeral honoring her by the nation of India. The conflict surrounding the biblical account - and they shared everything in common versus the right to private property - still has not matured.
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