The shrill cry from the Liberal Establishment about the environment, health, food, energy, education is deafening at times - and inaccurate most of the time.
A group that can clearly see the "root causes" of poverty and crime go deaf, dumb, and blind when it comes to the root causes of the above mentioned issues.
The problem of American obesity was caused by the food industry? No doubt this industry has its hand in the cookie jar at the end of a string of systemic constructs that conspired to make America overweight.
The problem, as it is envisioned in article after article, is all that nasty processed and fast food we are eating. A "no sh#1, Sherlock" moment if ever there was one ensues. It never occurs to the people promulgating these articles/propaganda (remember, Jeffers media theory... no article makes its way into the media without being paid for and then vetted by the Liberal establishment) that the food industry is responding to demand from the market place. A market place filled with people that work 8 or 9 hours per day (on average) and commute over an hour per day (on average). How does one shop (for a family, after all the article is talking about obese kids, right?) for whole foods (not the f***ing store. I am mean the thing that that corporation took as its name) that require someone to actually plan, acquire, cook, serve, and clean up afterward if one has left the house at 7:45AM and returned home at 6:00PM? It cannot be done. I don't give a good fart how many articles these same scum bags post titled "20 wholesome meals in 20 minutes!!" It is not humanly possible to shop for nutritious family dinners, bring the proceeds of the necessary shopping into the home, organize it, plan the meal, cook it, sit down with the family and eat it, and then clean up. What freaking planet does the schmuck with the 20 minute thing come from?
It is as simple as that. We have designed a system whereby most people cannot even afford to feed their children (look, 1 in 6 Americans are on Food Assistance from the Federal Government - nearly all of this goes to families with children), and in a system where both parents must work outside of the home in order to fund their future divorce, social security for their parents (notice I said for the parents of today's workers... the government is absolutely, positively going to default AGAIN by raising the age for benefits AGAIN. Raising the age of benefits (changing the rules AFTER taking someone's property) is the very definition of reneging and defaulting), health insurance (I will get to that cluster f**k in a moment), and property taxes (to fund the pensions that government workers have that The People will not have).
The Liberal Establishment refuses to delve into this as they simply must censure this discussion as it might lead to an examination of corporate servitude, the gender roles within the family, and the undoing of the family itself. If they do not censure this discussion their political base might well come to its senses and the Liberal Establishment cannot have that.
(Americans NEED immigration because Americans cannot afford to raise children. Think about that assertion for a moment. The more educated and achieved an American is, the less likely they will procreate at the replacement rate (2.1 children per woman), but this decline in fertility has now spread to the lower middle class/working class/poor. Hence the never ending battle over immigration.)
While our "Lifespan" has been extended greatly in the 20th century, our "Healthspan" has not. People regularly live into their 80's now, but they do not regularly work unimpeded past 60 or so, the Healthspan of the average American. Oh, they may "work" but people that age are dramatically less productive than they were. Americans are entering the work force later and later, ostensibly for "education", but they do not get those years tacked on to the end of their careers for the most part (there are exceptions, of course) leaving less time to pay off that mortgage, raise those kids, and save for old age.
(I love that euphemism - "Retirement". Americans just can't say Old Age or TFO (Too F***ing Old) when the fact is that every person with good luck will eventually be TFO. The unlucky don't life long enough to worry about that. My father used to say "They make old fools and bold fools... they don't make old, bold fools". If you are lucky you will experience old age, not retirement.)
Our kids are fat, we are fat, for 2 very good reasons. There were not enough workers for the Corporations from the 60's until 2000. Women were dragged away from their families to work as Corporate Servants. Feminism claims responsibility (and I used to believe they were correct) for this, and considering how much I despise that group I am tempted to stick the blame tag on them... but it just ain't so. Feminism DID convince women that this was a good idea and that it was in their best interests, which was complete horse sh#!, but that is another story. The second reason is TV. Not just watching it as a sedentary slug but the influence it has on our lives.
Think about it. If women stayed home (I am NOT telling anyone what they should do! I am merely making an observation of our recent history and the outcomes attendant) and had and raised children there would not have been enough workers to staff the Corporations and the jobs traditionally held by women. Simple as that. By forcing the breakup of the family the corporations got their servants. Of course, no one was thinking about the impacts on the kids of the 1970's thru 2010 (there would be some delay for kids from the job surge of 1960 - 2000) and I think that the Obesity/Ritalin/Addiction/Incarceration spike in the population was simply an unintended consequence of millions and millions of unsupervised kids being fed copious volumes of junk and fast food, as well as being fed copious volumes of propaganda and bullsh#! from the TV/Media/Hollywood.
Now, here, in this time, post 2000... the Corporations do not have need of all of those workers. Somehow, it never dawns on the Left that the reformation of the family unit solves a number of problems caused by the Corporate Servant demand surge of the 1960 to 2000 period. We are not creating jobs sufficient to employ all of the new entrants into the labor force. If the system dragged women away from their families during that period of increased Corporate/Institutional servitude, perhaps recreating traditional roles will solve the unemployment and obesity problem in one fell swoop along with a number of other issues.
The American Left simply cannot survive without Feminism, The War on Men, and the Abortion issue. None of those can survive the revival of the family unit. This makes for one interesting battle.
BTW... this is not a hope for a revival of what has become the American Right. Those folks are easily as daft as the Left. I do hope for a revival of the individual and the family and a culture of personal responsibility with empathy and support for those that cannot care for themselves. In the best of all possible worlds those of us in the middle would drop kick the crazies at either end of the spectrum, and I think that that is at least as possible as anything else that will come out of the technological paradigm shift happening to the employment markets.
One can hope.
The Next Big Lie: Health and Health Insurance
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5 comments:
You should still blame Feminism. As I have been saying. Though you are dead on with the assumption that the left would be dead if it wasn't for feminism. The 60's Feminist managed to take over every civil rights group and movement and turn them into their allies against the White Male Patriarchy. Which is the real power behind the Left today. What you are painting as their refusal to see is actually simply a cover story. The things they claim are nothing but a smoke screen for the real reasons the "Low information voters" keep supporting the left. In the end it is simple hatred of White men.
This is why I believe a collapse is inevitable because their hatred will never go away no matter how much money you throw at them.
PP:
Well, since you are the individual that got me thinking about all this I won't disagree.
I DO blame the Feminists for many things, but NOT for driving women out of home - or at least for all of it.
The explosion in Corporate employment simply could not have taken place without women joining the work force. And I am not passing judgment on that. I am merely pointing out probable cause and effect scenarios.
Greg - Good point you have there. You are right you cannot blame Feminist for driving women out of the home. Yes I think the Feminist wanted that but you have hit an important point. The 60's Feminist were not the first feminist to attempt what we they have managed to do today. There are as you have reminded me many sub groups and other interests that managed to combine together to form what we have today and many of the outcomes are mutually beneficial to more than one group.
I guess since I so strongly agree with your "Left would be nothing without the Feminist" statement I tend to under blame other special interest groups.
There were losers in the push to get women into the workforce. Mostly, they were black men and uneducated white men. Another big push was to get women out of the house and PAYING TAXES to support the Great Society. The work that women did in the home wasn't paid by the hour, but if you could get her a job, she was taxed. And, as the remainder of that income was spent on daycare, easy prep food, etc. it was taxed again. Even now, if you look at where the second income goes, it is generally equal to the tax bill. And, for all of the $Trillions, the poverty level hasn't budged much since 1964. There aren't words profane enough to describe the way I feel about the Socialist Scum in this country.
Regards,
Coal Guy
Greg,
Interesting series of posts. I'll post on the first one here.
There are a lot of forces at work. You have nailed some of them.
I'm no fan of feminists as you define them. I believe that the idea that women should be respected is a good one. Part of respecting women should be letting them make choices about what is best for them. However, society, as you point out, coerced them into choosing the "freedom" to become wage slaves, like the rest of us. I think this was by design. You may or may not hate the "hippies" and counterculture, but they did react against this forced wage slavery. Some of their communes, maybe a very few, are still in existence.
You have to give them a bit of credit for working the land, and having lots of kids. Maybe some of them turned out crazy, but their experiment should be researched a little more.
Before writing this comment, I tried to find a reference to an amazing book I checked out of the library about 2 years ago, when I really was researching a way out of this crazy society. Some architects and social theorists wrote this amazing book on the best way to plan a town/village, and even how to plan your house and living environment to be most conducive to human thriving. They introduced me to the idea of "situated work." The idea is that as you get older, you need to have as a goal the creation of a way to be involved in "situated work," which is a craft or labor that is done by you, for you, and in your own space or workshop. The idea seems to be that even people of advanced age are motivated and able to do such work.
Think of the old boat-builder, still building boats in his 80's or 90's. Think of the painter, or showmaker, or pianist. Heck, Horowitz was the best in the world in his 90's.
One of my favorite singer-songwriter-poets is in the middle of a resurgence in his career, in his mid-70's! His name: Leonard Cohen.
It would seem that if you do work you love for the sake of the work, and are not (yes, in the Marxian sense) alienated from your labor, you have a much better chance of doing it longer, and enjoying life, and living longer.
My mother is still working at her own business in her early 70's. My dad retired too early, due to peer pressure, in his mid-70's. He was a dentist, and still highly effective and skilled. Despite that retirement, and his addictions and horrible health habits, he still lived to be 86. The colon cancer didn't do him in, the chemo did.
He died the day he was supposed to visit for my son's 2nd birthday party. Such is life.
I hope I am not being too verbose. I haven't had much time or energy to blog, due to the still somewhat new job which doubled my income.
Guess what: that's still not enough! My wife got hit by a car while riding her bike last spring, and the aftereffects have been difficult. Traumatic brain injury. In one sense, she is lucky to be alive: she was thrown into the air when a car that didn't signal turned left into her. The brain injury has caused her to suffer headaches and jaw pain, and perhaps in the beginning to lose concentration, etc. As we are learning from high school football injury stories, these seemingly minor brain injuries can be quite debilitating.
Anyway, so I'm the sole breadwinner now.
There are good points: she cooks dinner most nights. She picks up and drops off our son. She does homework with him, and takes him skiing, etc. I'm not complaining. But my word: no matter how much you make in our society, it's never enough.
So: develop a skill and craft that you actually want to do until you drop. You will then be useful to others even when old, and will be the wise old carpenter, or boat-builder, or radio repairman. Whatever. Find something that isn't what you do when you are slaving away at a meaningless cubicle job for the man. Don't go home and watch TV.
I have more to say, but I suspect this is way too long for the comments section.
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