GENERAL MOTORS FIRES 15 PEOPLE LINKED TO RECALL SCANDAL time/tag/general-motors/ I heard, on my TV machine, several relatives of the dead -- people who were killed because of GMs faulty automobiles -- plaintively query and cry out, Why did this happen?! We still want to know why this happened! I feel for those folks, really, I do. I rage for and grieve with them. Though, I couldnt help but wonder why these folks wonder. Why did this happen?? Words by the one of Americas most percipient artists _ ever _ recurred to my mind: American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it. -James Baldwin, The Price of the Ticket People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster. -James Baldwin, Stranger In the Village Too, Im reminded of when people, particularly politicians and/or pundits, ponder an puzzle at the possible motivations of such plutocrats as the Koch Brothers. Why would they so monolithically oppose such economically ameliorative, consumer aggregate demand spurring social/government provisions as Unemployment Insurance Benefits and a Minimum or Living Wage? Why do they monolithically oppose Unions which manifestly helped to create and buttress Americas Middle Class? Why do they monolithically oppose environmental protection? Why do they monolithically oppose Universal Healthcare? Uhm, begging your pardon, but, ah... Okay, Ill just say it: DUH! What motivates the Koch Brothers is the same thing that motivated those at GM who willfully withheld from the public and the government the truth about its fatally faulty ignition switches: CORPORATIONS CARE MORE ABOUT THEIR PROFITS THAN THEY DO ABOUT LIVES. If, as WallStWillard Mitt (R)Money contends, Corporations are people, then they are not your caring neighbors, they arent even nominally nice people next to you on public transport -- they are endemically selfish, oft rapacious people who are sometimes (even often) willing to allow you to die rather than not maximizing their profits. What is so difficult to apprehend about that? It is rather manifest: Corporations have a philosophical commitment, indeed, a fiduciary responsibility, to generate maximum profit for shareholders. Left to their own devices, with a track record of relative impunity, GM management and executives (those who have been fired, and those who have not) are flagrantly financially incentivized to prioritize the short-term saving of the $0.90 it would have cost to fix each of those faulty ignitions switches over the life of a kid driving to the prom. The Koch Brothers and their mercantile-marauding ilk prioritize maximizing their own short and long term profits over their employees purchasing power and access to affordable healthcare, and the quality of the environment in which their employees must live. Moreover, consider: If there are no such mitigating social/government provisions as Unemployment Insurance and a Minimum or Living Wage; if there is no Social Security, no Medicare, no Medicaid; if there are no Unions, or OSHA, or Labor Laws to advocate for and protect workers -- in times of financial crisis, people will have no alternative but to accept whatever jobs with poverty and below poverty wages, and little and vanishing-to-nothing workers rights, safety, and benefits the likes of the Koch Brothers deign to offer. For thats all there will be, by way of even marginally supporting (if that at all) their families, for the unemployed and working-poor. Furthermore, in times of economic nigh collapse and financial distress, the Koch Brothers and their global, plutocratic posse relentlessly lobby their governments, contending that the only way to save ourselves is to abolish all those social provisions -- thats called Shock Doctrine, explicated in Naomi Kleins excellent book, SHOCK DOCTRINE: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine It is manifest. And yet, so many (some conscientiously, some in Kabuki query) continue to ask, Why? DUH! Welcome after. And, my condolences.
Posted on: Thu, 05 Jun 2014 21:23:16 +0000
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