Why America Stopped Being Great - Corporate Thought

Here's what I'm seeing in life today. "Corporate thinking" has taken over our businesses, our social institutions, our religions, our government. Look. It's really not that capitalism is so very bad. It's that at some point, people stop acting decent and start acting like they are at war.

Okay, fine. Business can be like war and applying Sun Tzu's Art of War can be useful. So can Machiavelli's, The Prince. The problem is at some point they throw meritocratic issues out of the window and go right for the jugular.

And at that point, capitalism breaks down. THAT is where corporate thought kicks in. One no longer has a need or consideration of the "bigger picture." The picture, the situation that is all-inclusive. In the capitalist sociopath's point of view the picture is only as big as they are. They do things like get to where they have power and money and then, change the rules for all those who come after them, or try to dethrone them. Wonderful, right?

I would argue, that benefiting only one person or group, is dysfunctional. Because we are a country, a nation, America. The entrepreneur is supported on a cloud of the nation. While they try to sell the belief they have pulled themselves up by the bootstraps so no one else has any claim on their success or their money or resources.

Hey, if video and fun are your bag and this is kind of try, hop over to Amazon Prime and watch Kal Penn's show, This Giant Beast That is the Global Economy. Try Episode 2: Are Rich People Dicks or Do Dicks Get Rich.

This is (in part) why capitalism is broken: Rent-seeking ...an individual's or entity's use of company, organizational or individual resources to obtain economic gain without reciprocating any benefits to society through wealth creation. An example of rent-seeking is when a company lobbies the government for loan subsidies, grants or tariff protection.

That, is a mistake and that, is where America has been draining reality off of the middle class for decades now to the point of killing it off. Of making a duality of the very rich and the very poor and that is where we are headed. That, has to stop. And where that starts is the lack of responsibility by the individual sociopaths in business and the lack of concern or understanding of how we all really are tied together.

There is a MASSIVE infection of a lack of responsibility in this country. Whenever you push through to something, past reasonable attempts, to what you have no right whatsoever to, merely in order to make money, gain status, or increase your power over others, that is shirking responsibility. There is a huge difference between perseverance and being unethical or immoral.

Because of that, others who do deserve all that do not receive it. We are seeing this too in government from the conservative Republicans who have purposely skewed facts, reality, even our elections. Some with the help of Russian interventions in our social media, or worse. 

Pursuing those kinds of behaviors are harming them, harming us all. As well as the structures surrounding them, in society. Harming our country. 

Many times, if not most of those times, people who do deserve it, have actually put in the hard work, have attained the necessary personality and infrastructures around them, and the understanding of those things. All in order to be able to handle that responsibility. 

While those others haven't. 

That is what corporate thought is all about. It's why I despise it so much, corporate thinking. It's abusive. It's bad, as the old saying goes, for children and flowers and all living things.

An example of this is as recent and relevant as 60 Minutes episode last night on opiates. They had on Ed Thompson who owns PMRS who said that in 2001 the FDA changed the labeling on Purdue Pharma's Oxycontin. Basically heroin in a pill. Ed said that was illegal. I think he was right. He is now suing the FDA over this to change the label back, to make it correct.

Purdue pushed the FDA to bow to their wishes and go from indicating on the label that Oxy was for short term use (which research dictates) to long term use (which research says it is contraindicated for).

He also said that the FDA lit the fire for big pharma to make billions. I disagree. FDA poured out the catalyst, tossed gasoline on the tinder. But it was big pharma who lit that fire.

THAT is an important thing because we have to put the responsibility on the right agency or entity. To think that falls on the corporations is correct. To believe that the government is the one who needs to set the law for this to keep greed from overwhelming corporations is also correct. But let's face it. This is corporate thinking at it's best example.

Purdue and others simply refuse to be responsible, except to their wallets and stockholders. At the expense of literally thousands of citizens lives. At the destruction of communities and families.

That is corporate thinking. 

I can play the game, too. I've just refused to. Most decent people do. That's the problem with our GOP, the party of (mostly) big business. They are happy to take all they can. And with a man as POTU|S who is more con than business, they are following his lead.

It is all about attaining what you deserve to aim for, regardless of your right to it, or your ability to achieve it. Shoot for more than you believe, but don't steal from others who deserve it more. 

When rather than attaining it by your own personal skills, abilities, and resources alone, when instead it is accomplished by breaking rules, ignoring humane considerations, mores, and even laws? You should be brought down. As our Pres. Donald Trump and friends now should be brought down, brought to heel, brought to bear the full weight of national security and jurisprudence.

They are the crowd of the ends justifying the means. Some others will praise you if they know that, merely out of envy. Many will praise that if they don't know because...they think you'd earned it. Or they use plausible deniability and accept all you do for all they can get. It's the new criminal, breaking reality, tossing citizen's on the trash heap, the environment into the garbage, all as long as they avoid breaking laws (whenever possible, but not always, and that is our hope), so they don't get caught. So they can keep doing it. 

It doesn't have to be that way? We can make changes. We can force those appropriate changes.

I knew a guy like, who would do anything to rise above, back when I worked for the University of Washington. He shocked me one day by openly saying he didn't have my abilities or education so that gave him the RIGHT to walk all over anyone, to climb over anyone however he could in order to rise up that ladder to success.

I was stunned. I didn't see the writing on the wall with him that day back in the early 1990s. I didn't foresee a large group of Americans leaning that direction. I just assumed he was a one-off, a low life, a potential criminal. And indeed, he got booted out of that office and off the campus workforce. But, it had to be done in such a way that it was legal, but covert. Which speaks to our current dilemma today. These people are getting away with these things. The laws have been written to allow their behaviors and if WE try to do what is right? Then WE become the criminals. 

It is an upside down reality now.

Today's way is to not EARN a damn thing, merely to attain it by hook, or by crook. 

What the hell do you think "by crook" MEANS? THIS is now the foundation of the Republican party. Of Donald Trump. Of Vladimir Putin. Of many on Wall Street. And THAT is who you are if you support them. Or if you choose that path. 

And if you do? If you do you are disgusting. Statistically speaking you are also most likely a conservative Republican. 

That IS the party of business and corporations. And with the tax cuts they always pine over, it is also the party of giving them(selves) tax breaks so they don't have to make it on their own. It is a kind of socialism they will not point to. Not needing to accept responsibility.

When poor people need help? They can't as the odds are (purposely) stacked against them and so they suffer. That is growing day by day to include all who do not have vast buffers of wealth and money to insulate them from the damages, the lies, elitist plutocratic cultures. 

Some will even kill you for it. Indirectly and at a distance, of course. Our healthcare system is a prime example of that. 

It is a natural and basic function to destroy that which attempts to destroy you. This current defective format of our government, our business, our wealth distribution has got to be eradicated. 

Culture has got to learn that this is unacceptable. So our children don't think they are someone to imitate. How many children right now think Donald Trump in being POTUS is some a role model? How many parents actually ARE teaching their kids that? 

There is even a Republican politician, Ron DeSantis running a political ad about exactly that! It's humorous, but that does not excuse it. It is an embarrassment to America. 

We are now living what government is supposed to be about avoiding. The rule of the jungle. The rule of gangs. It is, what society is supposed to be 100% against. Because it leads to chaos and mayhem which Donald Trump loves so much. Destruction, uneven playing fields. 

A disruption of our society, our government, our Republica, our democracy. A breaking down of infrastructures such as we're seeing today. 

It is what corporations today are all about. 

It is corporate thought. 

It is why American has been stopped from being Great. We didn't need to make America great again. We've been on that path for over two centuries. It is turning us from the path of greatness. It has even been ending our greatness, that effort by the conservative base, the Republican party, the Trump acolytes. They have moved from political party to cult entity.

So stop thinking calling out disingenuous attacks against "socialsm", while having nothing to do with what is going on in American politics today, have any real bearing on your or other's abusive capitalistic practices, if not outright criminal actions. Just because your President in Donald Trump seems to be getting away with it, just because Plutocrats in America have been getting away with it and Oligarchs in Russia are running that coutnry too, doesn't mean we will continue to allow the abuses to continue. Either in America, or Russia. Both Trump and Putin need to find their seats in prison, and soon.

It needs to end. This invasion, this infection of corporate thought into all of our American ideals and ideologies, has got to stop. 

And it can be done. WE can do it. We will do it. 

Modern American Ignorance Defined

Pres. Trump and the Republican party today are spreading and seeding ignorance to further their own agendas and those of the Russian president Putin. Accidentally or on purpose, it damages America and their own base who are one or another kind of ignorant. But what exactly is ignorance and how many today are truly what we once understand ignorance to be?

A few of my personal quotes from the past on what we see so rampant in America today, especially from #Trump the oval office and the #gop, real or worse feigned #Ignorance. These were gleaned from my blog pages Quotes Along the Murdock I, II and III where you can see other quotes I've posted or published elsewhere over time.

Ignorance is the provenance of Anger.

If as has wisely been stated, travel is the antidote to ignorance, Donald Trump is most definitely going to need a starship. And he should take most of Congressional Republicans with him.

It's sad when you're talking to someone new and you realize, your own ignorance is still far more informed than their best "facts"

Ignorance is the greatest threat humanity faces.
Beware always those whose words may claim even to crave knowledge, but whose actions deny it.

Religion is the Art of using Guessing and Desire to explain Ignorance, rather than trying to find and use Reality based Explanations for that which we do not yet understand.

Ignorance is noble but as practiced today, it's disgusting.

Ignorance is noble. Everyone starts out ignorant.
Sustaining ignorance, however, especially in this day and age, is a cancer that is easy enough to fight against, with knowledge. But you have to want to fight against your own (and your group's) bias and agendas, which is another cancer.
Knowledge, by the way, is actual information, verified information; not just what sounds good to you or yours.

Beware of false ignorance, it is ignoble and more dangerous than knowledge.
[The opposite of false ignorance is not knowledge. To be falsely ignorant would be one who is being ignorant, but not really, so that they have chosen their ignorance. This presupposes a kind of agenda that actually propagates false knowledge. It is a kind of behavior that is both insidious and fundamentally, dangerous.
Example: "Monsanto was exhibiting false ignorance in their understanding that the chemicals could not give children deformities."]

"Ignorance is noble. Stupidity isn't."

"Ignorance is not a pursuit. Stupidity is."

Finally and most important:

"Everyone is ignorant, it's a normal state of being. Stupidity, however, is consciously choosing to remain ignorant."

I Am Not Anti ANY Americans, However....

I say this every so often and now in the face of apparently partisan and ill mental health bombings and mass shootings, it really seems a good time to repeat it.

Conservative or Republican, I am not against any Americans (or those of other nations and where I am it's usually their government, not citizens).

I have only recently voted Democrat because of #Republican illiberal abuse of our elections and government... bordering on if not at times surpassing being criminal. Their actions have damaged America, unbalanced us and today you see the results.

Usually, I've been as independent as I can be, not wishing either to align with independents for various reasons. My family whom I grew up with was Democrat and Union.

What I am against is conservatism as currently practiced in America. It's not historical conservatism at all. It's a bastardized form, frequently disgusting to well-educated people who haven't been educated in a modern American conservative bubble.

Regardless of how you perceive conservatism, especially if you consider yourself one, it IS what is practiced and how it is applied in Congress and SCOTUS. What we see, it supports old style, anachronistic beliefs.

Today the 45th President Donald Trump came out to say we need to use the death penalty on people like the Pittsburgh Synogague shooter. We do not need the State murdering citizens. Issues on abortion, prisons, the economy and trickle down economics as defective agendas...are failed, incorrect and downright wrong. Conservatives continue to take the wrong direction time and again.

I AM against people who are abusive to others. Speak, don't hit. Vote, don't kill. Get involved in politics if you're that passionate. We need you. On both sides, because that's where balance is.

Love the sinner not the sin, essentially in my post-Catholic upbringing, pro-Buddha Dharma mentality. No, I don't even follow common Buddhism, but an originalist form as I have discovered it.

Conservatism is a retrograde form of political thought.

You always have to move forward in a changing world. To maintain a (frequently defective or broken) status quo is counterproductive. Conservatism is not a form to be adhered to as a primary principle. As a governing factor of a political principle (conservative Republican, Conservative Democrat), sure. But to claim to be "conservative" is to cut oneself off at the knees to be able to see clearly what is really needed. Add partisanship and here we are.

Same in a way for a progressive or liberal. But not as much a serious concern as the conservative form by a long shot, as it can lead to thinking as we see now. Isolationism. Or abuse of others we have no right to abuse. Or kill. it is too akin to the religion it spawned from it. both being severely problematic in government and diverse social concerns. The Christian evangelical movement has also been culpable in all this. Evangelicalism itself has been acquired by politicians to subvert and pollute our government.

Prime example is the defectiveness inherent within it...it leads to a Domad #Trump (I should say, Donald $Trump, but that doesn't carry as far, albeit it's far more accurate).

So... we are all Americans who are American. We NEED to disagree, then to moderate, to compromise. Republicans want only their point of view because apparently, God is on their side. That is backed up by their actions in Gerrymandering, in abusing our electoral system, in voter suppression, in too many underhanded undemocratic actions.

One can (easily) see just how ridiculous that all is. If we just look.

Return America's Motto: E Pluribus Unum

E Pluribus Unum... Out of many, one.

This IS our guiding light, our ORIGINAL motto. When we wrongly, even delusionally changed it in 1956, out of fear, we began this, our long decay into today. We need to change it back. There is a petition for just that now at WhiteHouse.gov. Feel free to sign it and get America back on track!

Do not trust in a deity for they reside in the ether, if anywhere. They too much reside in our imaginations. And we need to reside in our reality. That is why we are in this morass of poor decisions today.

It has led to liars being our leaders. To lies being our governing method. Odd it is that belief in what should be great, has been made to be so petty and weaponized. Against those it was meant to protect, but those who were once so oppressed in such an ancient and forbidding environment for all but those in power.

Trust instead in oneself, in one's neighbors, in one's fellow citizens to do what is right. Under the umbrella of our nation, together. Inclusively, not as we are now, divisive, partisan, with leaders who work to separate us for their own benefit. Even using our current motto, In God We Trust, to polarize us.

Something oddly enough our enemies greatly desire, and our current #POTUS is doing to us with great aplomb and satisfaction.

WE are America. Not, We ARE America.

For in the alteration of a single word's emphasis, we are unbecoming who we have for so long...been.

We need to be a country together, once again. We need to be a country once and for all, now, as we never have been before.

To that effect there is a petition on WhiteHouse.gov asking to turn SCOTUS, our highest court, to be the trim tab on the rudder of America. Go there, sign it. It is a step toward a court once again representing us all who would never support something like Citizens United, curbing American's freedom for the wont of the few.

"In God We Trust" is the official motto of the United States of America and of the U.S. state of Florida. It was adopted as the nation's motto in 1956 as a replacement or alternative to the unofficial motto of E pluribus unum, which was adopted when the Great Seal of the United States was created and adopted in 1782.[1][2] Wikipedia

#gop #Trump #Republican #conservative #Democrat #Dems #Liberty #Justice #ForAll #Democracy #Freedom from tyranny for all