A debate about income inequality, a safety net and the indictment of the 1% as the source of the problem took place at Candice Casass wall the other day. I proposed taxing the wealthiest as a way to recoup their theft of the labor of the bottom 40% but Id also be in favor of a court action that sued them for their theft and demanded the money and resources be returned and restitution made (and while we are at it, reparation for genocide for Native Americans and reparation for slavery for African Americans). When I accused the wealthiest of theft, I was called bitter and lazy. I am neither. I actually have worked hard most of my life, I acquired an exceptional and privileged education and while it took longer than I wanted, I now have income and assets that put me in a highly privileged position compared to most people on earth. But if I were to sit on that laurel, I would be a poor sociologist indeed. C. Wright Mills called an understanding of the bigger picture, and the ability to see how the dots connect, sociological imagination. It is more rare today than when Mills proposed the need for it in the 1950s. I am beginning to think that President Eisenhower had a superb sociological imagination. Many know his last speech in which he addressed the pitfalls of the military industrial complex. I just found his first presidential speech in 1953: This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. War and fear of war is the mechanism of theft and the major means for the 1% to gain even more wealth and power. Our government is not broke. The debt we have is due to unnecessary military build up and unnecessary wars, both overt and covert. There is more than enough wealth in this nation and in this world to provide every human being the basic needs and rights outlined in Roosevelts Second Bill of Rights and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We pay for torture and we still live in fear. Eisenhower warned us. Kennedy listened. His death and Johnsons escalation of Vietnam War increased the military industrial complex. By the 1970s, we ignored all of Eisenhowers warnings and plunged into perpetual war. We had a window of opportunity in the 1990s to reverse course, but we did not pursue or embrace a peace dividend. Instead of pursuing justice we opted for war in the face of terror. This suited the powerful just fine because fear us the fastest way to control and exploit a population. Now we are paying the price with our lives and our livelihood. Understanding how we got here is a first step to change. Of course, it would be nice to move beyond first steps but if you dont understand where the dots connect or if just want something to point others to help them understand, this speech is worth a listen.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Dec 2014 20:52:15 +0000
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