what's wrong with america? hint: it rhymes with salvation

[xchrom]

http://www.nationofchange.org/whats-wrong-america-hint-it-rhymes-salvation-1361456243

…but it's just the opposite. An antonym. Call it a form of state-sponsored exploitation.

America is in thrall to a secular religion. By definition, religion is not secular, except when an idea outside the realm of metaphysics is so fervently embraced by a society that it crosses a line. The line it crosses is what separates a worldly concept like Adam Smith's "invisible hand" from an unverifiable belief like the "virgin birth". Adam Smith's intellectual heirs have aptly been called worldly philosophers – economists whose ideas have contributed so mightily to the remaking of modern society.*

The "dismal science" doesn't have to be dismal and is only a science, ironically, when greed is kept out of it. Ideologues with vast resources can grab an idea and spin it for selfish purposes; and the original idea – however well-grounded in science – can be reinvented as a kind of religion.

Which exactly what the Neocons and Wingnuts have done to capitalism, which they equate and conflate with deregulation and the zany belief in a fictive "free market". Or the even zanier notion that what the biggest bad-ass capitalists of all – the multinational corporations and banks too big to fail – really want is competition! If you truly believe that you are:


a) deluded;

b) stoned;

c) rich;

d) too young to leave your mother;

e) all of the above

Calculation, tribulation, deregulation – three not-so-little words that rhyme with salvation. Calculation. Meaning "2 b:", according to Merriam-Webster: cold heartless planning to promote self-interest. Calculating is something we all do all the time, but we don't all, for example, obliterate the line between looking out for ourselves and turning our backs on everybody else; or contrive new and ever more devious ways to separate people we don't know from money they can't afford to lose or property they don't own.

[kooljerk666]

1. shit all I got was masturbation & salivation....../NT

[Romulox]

2. Essentially "free trade" guarantees the lowest standards in labor, environment, and ethics.

Because all of those things cost money. The "efficiencies" captured by deregulation/free trade are essentially eliminating the basic safeguards for things like pollution and labor standards.

Enjoy your Hyundai, though.