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. 

Socialism of the New American Republican Right

I keep hearing from the right how the Mueller investigation is off the rails, going on a fishing expedition, how it's not doing what was initially intended and...it should be stopped.

Uh huh, right. Seriously?

Remember Ken Starr and Bill Clinton? Went after him for everything and anything, never got anywhere, kept shifting, pleasuring and satiating conservatives, horrifying progressives, until finally settling on getting Clinton to lie under oath about a sex act between consenting adults? Even if she was an intern.

HOW off the rails was that? Republicans didn't seem to have a problem with it THAT time. Why is now different? It's not. Unless...oh yeah, now it's they who are on the hotseat. And I've (so many of us in America) have been waiting  decades for this turnabout. And it was only a matter of time considering the path the Republican party has been on. Each president they give us is lower and lower on the political evolutionary scale if not, as with Donald Trump, the cultural and actual evolutionary scale itself.

I don't care what Mueller gets Donald Trump on, just that he does it, does it soon, and removes him from office, and hopefully finds away to imprison him . Sooner than later. But why doesn't it matter?

Because of what the GOP has done to America overall and most specifically with this current nightmare example of someone who should never even have been allowed to be invited to the White House, and certainly not to reside there.

Get this POTUS on cheating at golf. I really don't care. Get him for lying to America about his weight and health, and take down with him, the White House doctor Ronny Jackson if he indeed lied to America about the president's health. Whatever works. Clinton wasn't even this much of an issue or a problem. There was so  much conflation involved in the long enduring "Clinton scandals," the right wing's dream crimes, that it's ludicrous.

And yet, this time we actually do have a real and substantive problem in Mr. Trump and Republicans can and do actually even SEE it. Many are even quitting over it.

Whatever it takes to end this mess and punch the Republican party and supporters in the face, knocking a few teeth out along the way so that in going forward both they, we and others like Russia and Putin will constantly be reminded about all this so that they can and will continually remember that... we don't stand for this in our country!

We NOW do have a call to arms to "Make America Great Again". But it took putting someone, another questionable person, another Republican in the oval office. Someone who first had to tear our nation down both domestically and on the world stage for the need to Make It Great Again, because they stopped it from being great in the first place.

And frankly, I don't care if Mr. Trump's supporters ever get out of this trick and their one trick pony in Donald Trump, or not.

You see, you may call someone in to fix your job or career in order to raise your wages, to save your family... but if in the process that "fixer" rapes your wife and daughters and cages or kills your sons and grandparents and friends, destroying your family's reputation, their physical and mental health, but hey, out of all that now you have $10 more in your paycheck...just how badly again did you need that job fixed in the first place?

That's an excessive statement, but it makes the point. Like Michelle Wolf at the Correspondents Dinner, it's appropriate considering the disgusting man Donald Trump is and the moral ineptitude he's brought into the White House.

After all, this is the destructive Donald Trump administration, with a man who is a vulgarian who doesn't care WHO he harms, who he denigrates, who he offends. I fully 100% supported Michelle on her Correspondents dinner delivery. Her joke on Kellyanne Conway and on Sarah Sanders were spot on. Her jokes on the Trump as POTUS could have gone further, but she only had so much time.

There are indeed some things one shouldn't do to get out of a situation. You don't ask the Mafia (certainly not the Russian Mafia, or Putin, or a foreign country like Russia) to help your finances unless you want to ruin your reputation, your family life, or your life itself. Or as in this case, our country.

There are reasons for morality and ethical behavior and there are some lines, certainly for a POTUS, that shouldn't be crossed. The ends do not always justify the means. Something the Republican party seems to fail to even recognize anymore. In that, they have seemed more and more Russian day by day.

Rather than bringing in a criminal to fix your career, try getting another job. Broaden horizons. and remember that one's old reality isn't always sane in a new environment.

There is a Russian proverb appropriate here about the Trump Administration and Donald Trump himself:

Simplicity is worse than thievery (crime). That is... A fool can do more damage than an enemy or criminal. Yes, that is the concern with Donald Trump. Not to mention with Putin in the backdrough dabbling in our culture and government, all to disrupt and damage us, which Trump seemingly smiles and enjoys the chaos as he is so very fond of it since it opens doors for him to continue his questionable practices and potentially, criminal behaviors.

Bringing back coal miners? How stupid an idea was that? But then, the question really is was, how stupid are Trump supporters? Because it worked for him.

Sometimes you just have to alter your status quo and move on... potentially to an even better one. But it can hurt for a while in the transition. And America has been in transition for some years now. You may even have to learn something new. Oh, my God, educate yourself? Say it's not so! And therein lay the problem.

Rather than educate the America people through this period of transition, Republicans have chosen instead (and Putin) to play the fear cards in order to gain and retain as much power (and money) as possible. Regardless the destruction and misery it is causing nationwide.

We actually are in a transitional phase and perhaps we should consider making more money available to more or simply redistributing it, even paying those who do not have jobs available any longer.

THAT may be our new reality. What IF there simply are not enough jobs for everyone? Then what? Let them starve? Because that seems to be the conservative mantra.

Instead the Republican party denigrates those citizens who are suffering because of those destructive conscious Republican actions in the first place. Their allergy to anything that smacks of being a social program, so often necessary because of their actions to move money away from those whose money it was in the first place, who need it the most, are actually the "social programs" of the right and the entitlements they give instead to the rich and the corporate.

Something conservative types cannot fathom, is that their holy status quo of bigotry and ignorance should remain the same just so they feel comfortable and can continue complaining about how bad things are, when it is they who are the ones who are so dysfunctional in the first place and have made them bad, or made them seem bad, to begin with.

This, is not the America we were intended to be.

We just need to find our dignity once again, reorient what is real and what is propaganda, and put down this destructive Republican style, old Soviet and new Russian style, ways of thinking.

Make America Great Again, indeed.

So Begins the War on Capitalism - Finally

Years ago I said I was a capitalist. I didn't know what else to call it. Then I wised up. I also used to say we need a businessman to run this country like a business so it runs smoothly because obviously politicians can't do it. But back in the 90s I figured out that was a huge mistake.

Now I'm seeing capitalism is the cancer we are infected with and we've been fighting the wrong things. The riots in Hamburg today are on the right track as anti capitalist protests. They've got it, finally and will it spread from there around the world? Hopefully.

Now we have a capitalist running the country (running? LOL, okay okay).

Look they got people to chant stupidly how bad socialism is. But that's not the case.

It's not that socialism is bad, it's that pure socialism is bad. I've been saying this for decades. Pure capitalism for that matter is pretty much as we're seeing, pure evil. AS we're seeing....

Pure nothing is good for living things. Pure oxygen kills you, and rots things. Living purely on water kills you, robbing you of nutrients. Sure, there's exceptions to every rule. But that's not the point, that's taking the capitalist's platform. Pure humanity doesn't work, it needs some capitalist, or something. Pure capitalism forgets humanity. As we're seeing.

Capitalism breeds binary thinking. Bottom line thinking. Profit thinking. And most dangerously, Corporate thought.

The point is, we need as we have had, a hybrid of things to make the country run smoothly.

But we have to start with eliminating big money from elected officials in making rational decisions. We need people making decisions for people and not a few. We need to stop thinking we're rich, when we're not. We need to all start thinking.

First up, eliminate those we can clearly see aren't thinking by our standards.

Seriously. It's not rocket science. Well, maybe to Trump.

Monetary Distrubtion

If we consider in theory that no single person, entity, religion, company or corporation should ever have as much money as even the smallest of nations, it puts into perspective the problems we are faced with today. It is easy to lose the consideration of the individual and of those who have no power or money in the face of such vast wealth and power.

Socialism isn't our biggest problem by far. Capitalism. is. And capitalism isn't our biggest problem so much as the actuality of entities cradling so much limited wealth within their power.

Entities that have cornered the entire planet's wealth in that of a few who repeatedly do not make the best decisions for everyone. The money of the planet may belong to those who can ingeniously acquire it, but the actual wealth of the planet belongs to all of its citizens.

Even if that's not reasonable or doable, it gives one an orientation of what we are dealing with today and how much control needs to be taken back from these corporations and the wealthy.

It is not a matter of the abuse of terminology in phrases like "wealth distribution" or even "socialism", but of the reasonable allowance of the cornering of monetary availability overall.

We have suffered far too long with those such as Republicans and capitalists who twist reality to their own benefit at the disaffection and outright destruction of all others for their own benefit.

In 2015 Monaco's GNP was 5.6 billion Euros.

Only the Vatican is smaller in size but much bigger overall in wealth.

The Vatican Bank, which has about $8 billion in assets, has often been at the center of scandal and corruption since it was founded in 1942. Pope Benedict began the process of cleaning the bank up, and Francis has continued that work.Sep 24, 2015. The Vatican itself has shown deficits off and on since at least 2011 but doesn't include the value of the entire Church itself.