The Ownership Society vs. the Common Good

[housewolf]

From DailyKos

The Ownership Society vs. the Common Good
Mon May 23rd, 2005 at 20:27:39 PDT

For many years, I have been concerned with the context of power and the power of context. Studying domestic violence made me consider the dynamics of slavery, and that seemed connected to the Reagan era's loathing of the poor. I think that the Ownership Society is a new name for the old trap in which the greedy and powerful habitually lock themselves. Don't misunderstand me. I am no apologist for the master class; in fact, I despise the notion that oppressors are as much to be pitied as their victims.

What I want to understand is the magnitude of destructive self-deception it takes for the Have Mores to function

<snip>

The delusion that life offers only two roles, the fucker or the fuckee, is a self-fulfilling prophecy that has poisoned our society. America's shift from the egalitarian, cooperative Left to the hierarchical, competitive Right has fueled classism, racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, poverty and elective war. For these grasping, fearful people there are too many undeserving "them" and an ever shrinking number of entitled "us" frozen in loveless, precarious lives that neither fervent prayer nor frantic consumerism can thaw.

<snip>


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/5/23/232740/238

[rwenos]

1. And the F*ckheads Don't Care that 40 Million . . . .

Have no health insurance either, and the rest of us pay through the NOSE for insurance, as the coverage is reduced every year. For more premium.

Eventually this country will have Single Payer. After a few million people have died because they had no health insurance.

It will be overwork for undertakers, that will finally cause the government to DO something.

[serryjw]

7. As a Breast Cancer survivor

with other health problems including asthma.; I need county hospital because I only make $15k/yearly. I was in the emergency room twice in the last 6 months for an asthma attack....The bill was about $2000. Needless to say I can't pay this...and my co-pay is $40! Now I can't pay $2000 but even I think $40 is silly...I would have thought 10% would have been fair...this is why the county hospital are bleeding red.....

[funflower]

2. Is that the Christian worldview?

:sarcasm:

[rwenos]

3. RW Christian View

Summed up in Ayn Rand's novelette: "We the Living."

[funflower]

5. RWers are the ones who go on about the "Christian Worldview"

whatever that exactly means.

Haven't read the Ayn Rand book; I'll have to check it out.

[sweetheart]

4. Slavery was never defeated in the civil war

It was just perverted in to another guise. And a democratic ownership
society is one where the teenagers have equal votes to the parents,
one that is inherently disfunctional. Rather, a civil ownership
society is one where all members of the family have rights and a say,
but where the parents have all the votes.

The republicans would have the parent with the greatest income with
the most votes, as they "own" the family. The democrats, i'm not sure
these days... but i would hope, that they would enfranchise all adults
by merit beyond captial contribution. Surely the housewife/husband
should have "more" votes in the business line of the family being aware
of the state of the kids.

In the microcosm, we have the failure of american business as well,
where the shareholders get equal votes by kapital ownership, rather
than by business line function. It is where a hospital does business
by what is most profitable rather than by the hipocritic oath. Without
the unstated superiority of the business line to the owners, the
business is controlled by risk adverse accountants seeking a SOX
rating... and sound advise to any would-be parents out there is to
not have kids. They are high risk.

The ownership society is just another version of slavery, repeated
like a mantra by generations of cultural americana in its desire to
create the perfect enslavement of the willing, and to export it to
every nation on earth by franchise. An increasingly, all of life
is to be magnified through the lense of profits, that no other
ethical basis interfere, and such a society will crumble in a
generation, as the mistake has been made before in the declining
empires of dusty ruinous death.

[rwenos]

6. Good Job Connecting Unlikely Ideas!

I hadn't linked up Bush's "ownership society" horsebleep with slavery, an absolute moral evil.

Congratulations and good work. We're all in your debt for that connection.

[serryjw]

8. Think about it......

As long as Corporate America controls your job, your housing, your health care, your retirement...We are slaves..
There is no 'ownership society' when the banks charge you usury for everything including that house, credit cards, your transportation, your kids education...

There was once a day in America when people actually did OWN their homes....not any more. Now you get a tax deduction for renting the home you theoretically own.

[rwenos]

9. All Dictatorship Begins with Illusion

Your remarks are dead on. And the corps are cutting back all the time. I was just downsized from an insco last fall. Now in private practice, hustling like mad. And paying $1,200 a month for COBRA medical benefits.

Corporate fascist pigs.

Sorry. Had to let that out once tonight.

But where's the outrage?

[serryjw]

10. But where's the outrage?

RWENOS..I have been outraged for over 4 years....It is just business as usual..The assaults don't stop and I'm getting used to them.I am beating them at their own game..I live in a cute apt in D/T Denver, 2 miles away from work, I have county hospital that I use ONLY when it is life threatening, have no credit cards or car........I just don't care any more....I'm 55 and have little fight in me left.

What the hell is a insco??

[sweetheart]

11. Voluntary enslavement is to be too exhausted for outrage

When you get home from a double shift and collapse on the bed, too
tired to microwave a meal, its the end of outrage.

When you run a private practice for a year and make a few bucks over
the contribution towards paying to keep a house and medical care, the
profits only make you more a consumer and who gets outraged at Target?
Its a voluntary scam, with a button for food pellets at the end of
the rat cage.

If you stop with the voluntary contribution to the consumer religion,
then you are merely a slave who never knows the dream of the american
capitalist "upside" (a night in the master's house)! And then get
back to thy field, slave.

The economic theories they use really do reduce the entire population
to a bunch of rats, running on wheels to generate false transactions.
I've a book here on marketing, advising companies to make products that
wear out fast, so they can keep their customrs buying more, suggesting
the critical nature of making sure that nobody escapes the wheel.

And sure enough, dental pain, physical injury or some such will drag
any rat back to the wheel soon enough, as the pain of no medical
treatment is just a bit more than the pain of no home. And those
40 millions of americans without medical (and surely without dental
and optical as well!), are those who's feet run the machine. They
have no choice or to be homeless as well... and maybe they are not
slaves of any individual owner, slaves of USA inc; tired exhausted
slaves too beaten by a system designed to break them; too tired to
be outraged.

[Pockets]

12. I absolutely agree...

For many, the cost of necessities including food, shelter, and medicine are so extremely high that one must work nonstop.

Not for everyone. If everyone were in the same situation as me, for instance, there would be a massive revolt. But there are just enough well-off, and oblivious, people to prevent a revolt from happening.

I am college educated, work 11 hours a day, and am not able to save enough for a single month's rent for an emergency. Needless to say, if I ever get sick I would not be able to afford the medical bills or to take time off. I don't own anything except my car to get to work, so the only thing I have left to lose is that and my apartment. I doubt the economic system would allow me to lose those since those are needed for me to work.

I am an indentured servant.

I am trying to develop a product and start my own business, but corporations have cornered the market on almost everything. So it will take an extreme act to be able to overcome.