8 Ways the Prophets of Capitalist Greed Justify Their Success and Your Slide Toward Poverty

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/8-ways-prophets-capitalist-greed-justify-their-success-and-your-slide-toward

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1. The "Get a Job" Critic

This usually well-connected person criticizes the jobless for being lazy. But in a recent poll that asked if "the government in Washington should see to it that everyone who wants to work can find a job," 68% of the general public agreed, while only 19% of the wealthy were in agreement.

***SNIP

2. The Illusionist

It all started with a "world is flat" reverie, by which every individual in the world is empowered to accomplish great things. Then on to "create your own job" hyperbole, and on a global scale to the capitalist's belief that "a billion people have been lifted from poverty through free-market competition."

***SNIP

3. The Self-Made Man

Wealthy individuals pride themselves on their successes from meager beginnings. Many of this self-congratulatory group grew up as educated white males in the richest nation ever in the most productive time in the history of the world. They rode the technology engine for thirty years, benefiting from federal funding that provided almost half of basic research funds into the 1980s, and half of research in the communications industry as late as 1990.


***SNIP


4. The Government Hater

This candidate opposes government intervention of any type, unless it's for national defense, homeland security, surveillance, prison funding and the drug war, any subsidies to oil and coal and agricultural companies, bailouts and Quantitative Easing, tax expenditures that mainly benefit the rich, and anything to do with women's bodies.

[krispos42]

1. You have #3 in there twice

K&R

[xchrom]

3. thanks. nt

[napoleon_in_rags]

2. Gotta love the "get a job" / "living in mom's basement" crowd.

They outsourced all the jobs overseas, and looking over mass youth unemployment they created, the defence of their treasonous business choices is to blame the youth as lazy.

[krispos42]

4. Been there, still there.

I had to abruptly move back into my parents' house (yes, the basement, my old room) after my ex left the country. She fell for a Canadian trucker twenty years her senior and left her second husband for him.

I was living in Minnesota, and when the crap when down, I made the best choice for my kid.

Worked for over a year for a startup makeup company, still owed a year's pay for that one.

Finally got a legitimate job at a small private company that I love. Yay me.

[krispos42]

5. And I got the job through family connections.

Family friend heard the company was looking to finally hire a quality control guy after a string of bad parts, and called me ASAP. I was down there, resume in hand, the next day.

This was after I had been applying for various other jobs without success.

[ProfessionalLeftist]

6. Rec + shared. n/t

[Newest Reality]

7. Excellent and timely!

Why don't our corporate persona's just get it over with and run for office? The Supreme Court might just go for it.

That way you can have real transparency, get over this obvious debilitation and vilifying of the "People's" government and have true transparency and better cost efficiency? Corpreta Haven vs. US?

Major corporations already run this world and will eventually no longer need the facade of beliefs that people hold to the contrary. Why should they waste millions of their collective trillions on manipulation when it is close to the point where it can be done overtly? No need for ALEC, manipulation of the easily influenced one-third that assist the Right.

So, I predict that GE will eventually be President and Exxon Mobil will be Vice President. The cabinet will be easy to figure out. The way is primed and citizens are now predominantly referred to as consumers. Monsanto, for instance, would be appointed head of the FDA. Lockheed Martin would be Secretary of Internal Defense, etc. (there won't be an external threat anymore). Senators and Representatives as people would be replaced by smaller corporations, of course.

They could appoint the major pollsters to the Supreme Court so that they could pretend more realistically that whatever they decide is what we want even though the model is to manufacture our consent and dissuade us from knowing that we are manipulated into wanting what they decide. Yeah, Orwell would approve this message.

I'll bet that many of you can come up with interesting extrapolations from this logical extension.

[raouldukelives]

8. +1 Think of the market rally! nt

[Newest Reality]

9. And the dillemas!

Do you vote by brand, sector or profit margins?

Well, we can sort that all out when the time comes.