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July 1, 2007

Trailers for sale or rent...

Once upon a time a very smart man watched as a very bad thing happened in America called “The Great Depression”. Now, the very smart man knew that the reasons for what he’d seen happen were really quite simple; there existed a flaw in the method through which wealth was distributed throughout the masses working together within the confines of the capitalistic economic system. Oh yes indeed good friends, although the American way was a lot better than many other processes at work in the world it was not the perfect utopian system that many thought it to be.

Now, the very smart man knew that those who do not learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them and having just watched what happened during the great depression he wanted to send a warning to the future that would alert people in times to come that something bad was happening and how to recognize that bad thing when it started to happen in the world around them. So he created the game Monopoly.

That’s right boys and girls. Did you ever the read the inside box top of the Monopoly board game? You see, the reality of the game is that it isn’t really a game at all; it’s a message in a bottle. It is a warning against doing things in a certain way that appears all well and good but in reality is a recipe for disaster. Now, I’m not going to go into a lot of the economic lessons contained in the game of Monopoly but I will list a couple of the insights we need to be very concerned about right now.

1. In spite of the preaching’s of conservative prophets like say, Rush Limbaugh for instance; the concept of “infinitely renewable resources” is in error. Just like the board game of Monopoly there are only so many parcels of real-estate available and a limited number of players capable of vying for them at any given moment. Just like the board game there are also limited available resources for developing the properties.

2. As long as the little green houses of individual ownership are the primary buildings dotting the landscape the game is in pretty good shape for all the players concerned. As long as a balance exists in the ownership of the properties and the buildings upon them the game is good for everyone. It is when the properties begin to become overdeveloped with the big red hotels of the corporate entity that things begin to turn ugly.

3. The Regan theory of trickle down economics is wrong. When you keep giving more money to those who already possess a disproportional amount of the available cash flow they do not pass any of it on down to those who are truly in need of it. They just spend it buying up even more of the property around them and replacing the green houses of individual ownership with even more of their big shiny red corporate monoliths. Oh they think they are so very clever and so very rich.

4. Here is the clincher. The more money is in the hands of fewer individuals the worse it is for the game. The more foreclosures remove private individuals from their homes and land the fewer players remain in the game. That’s when it really gets ugly folks. You see, the few folk holding all of the cash and resources just don’t realize that if there are no little green house people left to spend money on things that the game comes to a screeching halt. Suddenly, all the accumulated resources of the corporate winners lose their value because the economic movement of the game has ceased. The game stalls and the wealth the winning players hold is worthless. The banks close, the rich jump from the roofs of tall buildings and everything has to be redistributed and the game reset.

From what I see upon the game board of America right now we are nearing the reset phase of the economic game. Greed has once again corrupted the corporate entity and the shiny red hotel people have forgotten that they are not the economic engine that drives the economy but merely those who benefit from it the most. The truth, it is the little green house people who are the real engine that drives the economy. The less of us there are spending money, the less money you greedy red bastards can accumulate.

The great red selfish corporate machine is doing desperate things to keep their game afloat but here is truth. For every Mexican you import and displace an American worker with you push another green house off the board and you lose a customer. Every job you send overseas leads to yet one more loan default and one more foreclosure on a home. Every automobile you repossess, every piece of property you reclaim and every family you turn out penniless into the world only serves to bring your own well deserved ruination one day closer.

Did you not hear us in the last election? Did you not hear our anger and desperation? Are you truly so arrogant and insensitive to the people of the land? Have you become so disassociated from your fellowmen that I, me and mine are all you truly understand? Arrogant fools! Then let me leave you and yours with another message of warning from the past.

One man, one family driven from the land; this rusty car creaking along the highway to the west. I lost my land; a single tractor took my land. I am alone and I am bewildered. And in the night one family camps in the ditch and another family pulls in and the tents come out. The two men squat on their hams and the women and children listen. Here is the node, you who hate change and fear revolution. Keep these two squatting men apart; make them hate, fear, suspect each other. Here is the anlage of the thing you fear. This is the zygote. For here ‘I lost my land’ is changed; a cell is split and from the splitting grows a thing you hate-‘we lost our land.’ The danger is here, for the two men are not as lonely and perplexed as one. And from this first ‘we’ there grows still a more dangerous thing: ‘I have a little food’ plus ‘I have none.’ If from this problem the sum is ‘we have a little food,’ the thing is on its way, the movement is on its way, the movement has direction. Only a little multiplication now, and this land, this tractor are ours. The two men squatting in a ditch, the little fire, the side-meat stewing in a single pot, the silent, stone-eyed women; behind, the children listening with their souls to words their minds do not understand. The night draws down. The baby has a cold. Here, take this blanket. It’s wool. It was my mother’s blanket-take it for the baby. This is the thing to bomb. This is the beginning-from ‘I’ to ‘we’.

If you who own the things people must have could understand this, you might preserve yourself. If you could separate causes from results, if you could know that Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin were results, not causes, you might survive. But that you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezes you forever into ‘I’ and cuts you off forever from the ‘we’.

"The Grapes of Wrath"

by

John Steinbeck


My friends, our fight is not with the Mexican who is simply another pawn in the game of the corporate entity. Our fight is not black against white nor male against female. Our fight is against those who are making us hate, fear and suspect each other. Our fight should be and must be against those who keeping us at war with each other so that we do not unite and turn our attention to the real enemy of our well being, the corporate entity that has grown so fat that it consumes our lives, our homes and our families in order to fill appetites that have become unholy, unrealistic and insatiable.

How much longer will we simply sit by and swallow the lie that shit simply happens? How many more of us must come together in the ditches before we truly remember the power of ‘we’ versus ‘I’? At this point, what do we really have left to lose?


Happy Independence Day...



6 Comments:

Blogger Pepper said...

Another great post.

I remember sitting down and talking to a gentleman I met while in Central America. It is not Steinbeck. First the Mayans did not disappear they just blended in.

They lost their religion. Towards the end of their civilization, everyone was practicing religious ceremonies that once were practice strictly by the Mayan Priests. They depleted their resources. There was animosity between those that had and those that did not. There were “fights” between the Mayans and then later wars. I am not a writer, I cannot take a pen and create images, but the message I am trying to convey is “history does repeat itself.” The end of the Mayan Civilization is similar to what we (Americans) are facing today.

July 01, 2007 10:45 AM  
Blogger Kati said...

Also agree that this is another fabulous post, Dirk!!! Very thought provoking, and very true.

This is what gets me about a lot of the survivalist types, is that they too are "I, Me, MINE" types. They think they & their immediate kin (wife & 2.5 kids) will be the new noah for a new generation. In reality, what it's going to take is a whole bunch of small towns remembering what it means to be a community, supporting each other through good times & bad, and helping lift each other out of the shit-hole we've dug ourselves into. (On the other hand, folks like my SIL who aren't willing to help make life better but only take, should be treated as the grasshopper was by the ant in the origional version of the story.)

Again, very thought provoking, and very timely. Hope you & yours have a great 4th weekend, remembering what our nation was origionally all about. (Freedom for all, not monetary domination by a few.)

July 01, 2007 7:33 PM  
Blogger C-dell said...

Wow, I never knew that. That was very smart thing of him to do. An everlasting message. Thanks for informing me on this

July 02, 2007 1:29 PM  
Blogger Muhd Imran said...

Happy 4th July!

July 03, 2007 12:20 AM  
Blogger Judy said...

Excellent post, Dirk. Nice to have you back, and I think fatherhood is already having some influence on your choice of topics.

There is one thing I take exception to: that importing Mexicans displaces American families. Maybe true in some places, but where I live the dairy farms can not find "Americans" to milk cows and do field work. Illegal Mexicans are willing to risk life and limb to get all the way here and do these jobs, sending their pay back to their families. Without them, our farms would be up Shit Creek. These workers dare not leave the farms they work on because State troopers and Border Patrol are eager to arrest and deport them, so another "American" business has been born: a guy in a city two hours away imports Mexican foods and some clothing items and brings them to the North Country, going farm to farm to sell them to these workers.

Other than that one comment, I think you've hit the nail on the head.

And now I'm off to a July 4th picnic on one of those farms. There will be Amish and Mexicans joining in the festivities.

July 03, 2007 8:01 AM  
Blogger DNR said...

I never knew that about the game either. Interesting that in winning the game one experiences joy at another’s defeat and bankruptcy. This too is a lesson learned by the young that play it without reading the lid. I never read the box lid... maybe having done so, the lessons learned would be as intended.

It is indeed good to have you back. The thinking you force me to do is revitalizing. Happy (belated) Independence Day to you and yours.

July 05, 2007 12:07 PM  

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