satyrosphilbrucato's Space

Hello, Officer.

I try to respect you. And generally, I do.

I’ve needed you, been glad to see you, still have a few friends and family among your ranks here and there. Even when I don’t agree with the laws you represent, I realize that enforcing those laws, day after day, is one of the shittiest jobs on earth.

I get that.

It’s hard to be a cop. To see the worst of humanity day by day. To have so much fear and hate and misery directed your way that it seems as though your fellow cops are the only ones who might understand.

I can’t possibly know what it’s like to be a cop.

But I do know this.

Wading into crowds while employing mace and billy-clubs – this does not help you.  

Taking massive corporate “donations,” and then pepper-spraying people who protest those corporations - this does not serve you.

Herding people onto bridges, and then rounding them up for blocking said bridges – this does not honor you.

Breaking the skulls of veterans, then tossing flash-bombs at the folks who try to help them get them to safety. Arresting customers who want to quit giving business to their banks. Running over people with motorbikes, tear-gassing kids, tossing the property of private citizens into waiting garbage trucks.

These are not acts worthy of police officers.

They do not serve or protect the citizens. They do not keep the peace. In fact, they seem designed to provoke violence.

These acts, and so many more captured on camera and in words these past few weeks, are the actions of corporate minions.

The actions of mercenaries. Oppressors. Thugs.  

They are unworthy of the badge.

They are unworthy of respect.

Dear Officer, they are unworthy of YOU.

Every shot fired, every tent smashed, every human being pounded into the pavement because he or she dared to believe that the 1st Amendment applies to people other than corporations... every such incident is a disgrace to your badge. 

Each person you push face-first into a wall or sidewalk because that person decided that enough is enough with regards to the rape of our paychecks, our families, our jobs, our future, is a person who learns to hate your guts and the guts of every other cop that person ever meets. 

Each incident of this sort is another indictment of your honor as a police officer. 

Such acts put you on the wrong side of history.

And they make your job harder, not easier.

Not just now, but for the foreseeable future.

They wreck police morale. They weaken community bonds. They undo, in seconds, every GOOD thing a police officer does for his or her community. 

They waste the sacrifices you make. 

You see – and Officer, I hope you DO see this – such acts make people hate you. Fear you. Despise you.

Even people like me, who want to trust you.  

In one more of the many sad ironies of 9/11, in the shadow of its tenth anniversary, the New York cops who became heroes on that day have became villains out there now. “Bribe one cop,” people say these days, “and it’s a crime. Bribe the department, and it’s a donation.”

Officer, are you a line on someone’s balance-sheet? Or are you a human being trying to do the toughest job on earth?

And if the latter, why make it harder for yourself?

That’s what this DOES, you know. It makes life harder for every cop on earth.

Like the dog-wielding cops of Selma and the skull-cracking cops of Chicago, police officers who do the things we have seen this month wind up on the wrong side of history, relics who defended something old and ugly that needed to be swept away.

Is that the man or woman you want to see in the mirror?

Is this the job you want to do?

Is this the image you want to suffer for, even when it’s not your hand holding clubs or pepper spray?

If not, then please KNOCK IT OFF.

Don't be that person. Don't do those things. Prove those who hate you wrong, not right.

STOP “just following orders.”

Be the hero, not the thug.

Don’t assume that you win when you do such things. You DON’T. YOU LOSE.

And in losing, you destroy everything you strive to uphold.

Any history book can tell you that.

So Officer, you have a choice:

Do you want to be today’s hero, or yesterday’s pig?

Your call, Officer.

But if you choose the latter option, don’t expect my continuing respect.

Or, perhaps when you look in the mirror, your own forgiveness for the things you chose to do.

You get what you pay for. Nice things cost money, but quality is worth it.

Rich people understand this – better, perhaps, than anyone. And most of them are willing to pay well for quality. 

Why, then, are so many people – rich and poor alike – convinced that spending money on our nation is wrong? 

Where’s the disconnect between the ideas of buying quality shoes, and funding quality schools?

Is it because things you buy for yourself are yours alone, while things you buy with taxes are part of your community as a whole? 

And really - if it is, when and how did such selfishness become a virtue? 

It’s certainly not a virtue in the Bible, most especially not in the words of Christ. Jesus and the prophets have stern things to say about folks who hoard wealth for themselves at the expense of their souls, society, and fellow human beings. 

It’s not in the writings or actions of our Founders, either – many of whom invested their fortunes, risked their lives, and in several cases lost everything for the sake of the nation they built for us. 

(Please notice that the years with the highest taxes are the years when most of our existing national infrastructure was built.) 

Selfishness is not a virtue in any creed save LaVeyan Satanism, nor in any philosophy save the rantings of third-rate authors who did not even live the things they preached.  [1]

It’s not ever truly a virtue in untamed Nature, where “survival of the fittest” does not mean “those which kill everything off,” but “those which ADAPT TO THE BALANCE OF THEIR SURROUNDINGS.” 

Despite the lessons and legacies of history, science and culture, there’s a popular idea out there right now that investing in our society, buying quality for our nation and its people, is wrong. Immoral. Even illegal. A concept that somehow it’s better to cut funding for schools, for cops, for firefighters, for clean air and safe roads and a future for our children, than it is to tax a millionaire. 

Where did we GET this idea? 

Did you ever think that maybe it was being sold to us? 

That people with something to gain from it had a vested interest in impoverishing the rest of us so that THEY could continue buying more nice things for themselves? 

And then, if you DO consider that possibility, why would you still think it was a good idea to live in a shoddy nation so that a handful of people could continue to buy nice things at the expense of your present and your children’s future? 

Let’s be real: Taxes are necessary. They are investments in a society. They keep the bills paid. 

No human society has existed without some form of required contribution from its members: money, labor, inspiration, guidance, military service, very often all of those and more. [2]

Anyone who has shared a household knows that you need to keep the bills paid, the food stocked, the garbage cleared away. People have to do chores, chip in, keep the place in order. It’s not something you do when and if you feel like it – it’s something you regularly if you want to keep that home intact. Otherwise, everything falls apart. The lights go out, the water goes off, the trash piles up and everyone goes hungry. This was even truer of the households of “rugged individualists on the wild frontier” than it is today; back then, if you didn’t do those things – and do them OFTEN – you’d just simply die. [3]

That’s what taxes do. They keep the power on, the water clean and flowing, the kitchen stocked, the house clean and safe. 

They pay for you to live in a nice country.

They provide for your home. 

And like I said, you get what you pay for. 

Want a nice country? It’s not cheap, but it’s worth it. [4]

If you want a shoddy, selfish, cheap-ass country, then go find another one. YOU go live there.

I don’t want to be stuck in one with you. I’m willing to do my share. 

If you’re not, then kindly get the fuck out. 

The rest of us don’t need you having nice things at our expense. 

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NOTES

[1] Nietzsche was a demented mooch from a wealthy family; Ayn Rand had no problem accepting welfare and tax-funded medical treatments; Ragnar Redbeard was a bad pen-name invented to shield someone without the courage of his convictions; and LaVey was a childish pseudointellectual leech who bilked money from losers before dying bankrupt in a Catholic charity hospital. None of them provided shining examples of the philosophies they proclaimed. 

[2] Another popular myth insists that 53% of the population pays the taxes that the other 47% life off of. Nonsense. Even if 47% of the U.S. population actually WAS exempt from income taxes (which we’re not), we all – even homeless people on the streets – pay sales taxes, licensing fees, permit fees and so forth… all of which are forms of tax. Even people without money contribute work, caretaking, education and the like, often in all-but-invisible ways. The handful of people who contribute nothing whatsoever to our society is proportionately microscopic… and most of them are too mentally or physically sick to make reliable contributions, anyway. 

[3] The archetypal Mountain Man still needed to buy the gear we couldn’t make himself; trade with people for supplies; hunt for himself and… if he had one… his family; deal reasonably with his neighbors; obey local customs – or at least not violate them; and work out some equilibrium with his natural environment. A man or woman who lived only for self-interest became an outlaw – hated, hunted, and eventually killed by Man, Beast, or Nature.

[4] Hint from history: A country where everyone that isn’t not rich is starving, ignorant, living in poverty, dying of disease, and supporting the rich minority is NOT a nice country. Nor does it survive for long without collapsing in a bloody heap under the weight of its own misery. 

Some time ago, a theatrical malcontent and his followers took drastic action. Enraged by the corruption of church, state and the marketplace, they attacked the merchants, trashed their goods, and occupied the temple where the marketplace had set up shop. Once there, this malcontent used that temple as a staging-ground for sermons and healing. He mocked the authorities, condemned their sins, and drew their fury against him.

We know him now as Jesus Christ.

Perhaps you’ve heard of Him.

The tale of Jesus and the money-changers is well-known. What’s not nearly as famous, though, is His occupation of the Temple at Jerusalem. According to Matthew (21:12-25; 22-24), Mark (11:15-33; 12-14), Luke (19:41-48; 20-22 [1]), and John (2:13-18), the Christ didn’t simply take out a whip, smack a few guys around, yell a sentence or two and then leave. The Bible makes clear that Jesus and His followers stuck around a while:

And he taught daily in the temple. But the chief priests and the scribes and the chief of the people sought to destroy him. And could not find what they might do; for all the people were very attentive to hear him. (Luke 19:47-48)

Let’s be clear: The authorities did not want Him there. Jesus taunts them, lectures them, insults them in their place of power. Surrounded by a mob, he disrupts their trade and humiliates them in public for days on end. No wonder they wanted Him destroyed!

Through the scope of hindsight, it’s easy to miss the anger of the crowd that demanded Jesus’ punishment. We see now the triumphant Christ defying corruption, not the rebel whose followers attacked sacred institutions. The man many people regard as Savior and Redeemer was in His time an outlaw, literally crucified for treason, blasphemy and dissent. His followers were hunted, His legacy shamed. Like the vandals of Boston Harbor, Christ’s victory came in hindsight. At their times, both were anathema.

Yet many people who consider themselves Christians oppose the 99% movement – often in terms more befitting to the Pharisees. That so many of these folks also link themselves to that Boston Tea Party, a similar act of vandalous disobedience, solidifies their inherent irony. [2] Somehow, a number of these folks have turned the Christ who fed the poor and ministered to outcasts into a poster-boy for unfettered capitalism.

Haven’t these people read their Gospels? Maybe they should do so again.

Are you one of them? Perhaps you should, too.

Someday, we too will be seen in hindsight.

How do you wish to be remembered?

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NOTES

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[1] Luke’s account is the most detailed, and contains both the “render unto Caesar” statement and the less-familiar parable about the master and husbandsmen of the vineyard (Luke 20:10-20):

What therefore shall the lord of the vineyard do unto them? He shall come and destroy these husbandsmen, and shall give the vineyard to others. And when they (the priests) heard it, they said "God forbid".

Bearing in mind that these words were spoken to the faces of scribes, lawmakers and high priests while Jesus and His followers occupied their temple, the significance of those lessons cannot be missed.

[2] That irony intensifies when we examine Christ’s words regarding wealth and exploitation - see especially Matthew 6:1-5, 19-21, 24; 12:33-37; 19:18-24; and MOST especially 18:23-35.

As for the Boston Tea Party, it was not a billionaire-backed protest against an elected president, but a costly, theatrical act of international terrorism conducted against the entrenched collusion between the English government and the British East India Company – a massive and predatory corporation. That’s the historical fact. As the man says, you can look it up.  

As we struggle to confront a range of impulses in this global revolution of ideas, we must confront above all else the idea that "Life is a war, and winner takes all." 

While this isn't a new idea, it has gained such traction in our world, in our governments, in our discourse and our minds that as non-violent protests are met with verbal, physical and philosophical bloodshed, we must look clearly at its roots. 

We are, always have been, and always will be a species of compassionate predators. We kill more readily, more willfully, and more consciously than perhaps any other animal... and yet we also show the greatest degree of altruistic compassion as well. 

(This isn't to say that other species are not cruel or compassionate - they can be both. But we institutionalize kindness and brutality as spiritual-cultural paragons, and gauge ourselves and our fellow humans accordingly.)  

Right now, today, we stand at the culmination of two diametrically opposed ideas:

* A global "apocalypse" [1] in which all things (save the chosen few who follow the [fill in the blank] godhead) will be destroyed/ damned/ cast into everlasting fire/ whatever. Such devastation is divinely sanctioned and ultimately desirable; or...

* A global redemption in which we stop short of self-demolition and reverse our current course of careless worlwide exploitation. 

Both ideals have been struggling with one another for decades - since at least the end of World War II. Yet to understand the driving force behind the "compassion is for pussies" [2] impulse, we must look at one resident elephant in our global living room. 

A massive case of PTSD. 

A kill-or-be-killed mentality that keeps driving us to the brink of self-extinction... and, as our Apocalypse fascinations show us, we feel on some levels we deserve. 

A trauma-induced reflex that has us leaping at shadows until everyone looks like an enemy and everything seems like a threat. 

A fight-or-flight drive to exterminate that which we fear threatens us. 

It's not a new part of the human condition. But the last five centuries have brought our inner demons and angels to the fore. And the fate of the next century may be determined by which one we choose right now. 

Although there has never been an historical period without any form of war, the titanic global conflicts that began with the Colonial Age in the 1600s and culminated in the three world wars (WWI, WWII, and the "Cold War") of the 1900s unleashed a staggering case of worldwide PTSD upon almost every tribe and nation. 

As the empires of that age grew larger, expanded further, and spent more time "pacifying the natives" (read: "killing people who didn't want them there"), the majority of men from each culture were REQUIRED to spend some period of their lives in military service. Those who managed to make it home alive were marked by the traumas of those wars, and passed down a legacy of harshness and cruelty to their families. The idea that "A Real Man(tm)" must be a brutal, ruthless bully was solidified as cultural identity during this period. It had existed long before then, of course, but was embraced and propagated by every cultural institution - and, since the Industrial Revolution, mechanized as well... thus spreading and intensifying the cycle of abuse to every facet of our world.  

The climax of this idea reached its near-ultimate form between 1915 and 1970, when more people were killed by war than had existed on earth for all of human history before that time. (Well over 200 million by the most conservative of estimates, probably far more than that.) We're still dealing with the "Kill 'em all" attitude, but in the shadows of Hiroshima, Dresden, London and Stalingrad (not to mention Auschwitz, Nankeen, Bataan, and so forth), we saw the very real potential for human extinction. 

From there, we as a species began to try and FIX the problem, to address it as a PROBLEM, and to find solutions to our self-destructive urge. 

There are still FAR too many people working under the old set of ideas, but the potential for something better is finally emerging: a therapy for the human spirit which it's not too late to embrace. 

That infamous act of global performance art we call 9/11 may have brought the issue to a head. In the short term, it unleashed America's demons and brought us face-to-face with our worst aspects; those aspects - both in the States and overseas - are now face-to-face across the barricades. In the streets, in our homes, on the internet, we realize that something implacably vast is at stake. 

It's heady. It's terrifying. And it's very, very real. 

Our species stands at the crossroads of Hope and Fear. One will allow us to survive; the other - regardless of ancient revenge fantasies - will not. 

A Big Daddy God will not swoop down from the sky to save us. To trust in this idea is as insulting to Divinity as it is corrosive to our existence. 

It's up to us to save ourselves. We made this mess, and it's up to us to fix it. 

I believe we can. And yes - that's a revolutionary act. As I've written elsewhere, HOPE IS THE BRAVEST REBELLION. And it is in our souls to be brave. 

As human beings, we must mature beyond our childhood fears and impulses before we can function as adults. As thrilling and worthwhile as some aspects of childhood can be, a child is incapable of certain essential acts of survival. 

Without losing the best elements of our spirits, or losing compassion for the wounds that pain us all, it is high time for us to grow the fuck up. 

To take responsibility for ourselves. To heal. To grow. 

We can do it if we have the will to do so. 

And we MUST. Because a wounded child in the body of a furious adult is a danger to himself and everything nearby. 

If for no better reason than that, we must win the challenge before us now. It's not just the banking industry or capitalism we need to reform right now: It's our self-inflicted global PTSD that we will either treat and move beyond, or embrace and be, by that, destroyed. 

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1 - The word actually means "revelation," not" end of the world"; still, thanks to a certain ergot-tripping Roman exile, the two meanings have become intertwined in our cultural vocabularly.

2 - The denigration of women and femininity - especially as a mark of "manhood" - is part of the baggage we really need to junk if we're to survive as a species. It's never really served us well, but it's long past whatever shelf-life it once might have had.  

Especially these days, all Americans should be required to take a real-world Economics course - in high school if not earlier.

I'm not talking about "Home Ec," that throwback to women-in-the-kitchen days that (last I knew) offers some practical household skills but teaches little, if anything, about real economics.

Nor am I referring to Advanced Placement business course, the Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) or other "egghead" courses for high-aspiration nerds (like I was in high school).

I mean a real, practical overview of economics: history, principle, cultural factors, real-life application, and core economic ideas like value, exchange, and money itself.

Because I have realized that Americans don't know the first fucking thing about how economics work.

If we did, we wouldn't be where we are today, mortgaged up to our asses and staring at a great big hole in our future while wondering why we can't go back to Golden Ages of American Prosperity (specifically, the 1950s and 1990s [1]).

This goes double for the so-called "leaders" of our corporations and government. Hell, it goes to the tenth power for them, because if they had even a basic understanding about real-world economics, we wouldn't be where we are. We wouldn't have brokers who think speculation is value, CEOs who think margins are profit, stockholders who think profits can only go up, and congresscritters who think you can "reform" health care (and our economy) by requiring everyone to buy insurance whether they can afford to or not.  

Economics are founded on three very simple ideas:

1. Everyone wants/ needs things they cannot provide by their own efforts alone.
2. Everyone has the potential to create things that other people want or need.
3. Everyone can trade one for the other.

Without resources - labor, materials and expertise - there are no goods and labor to trade. Without trade - the exchange of labor and/ or goods for labor, goods or trust - none of the other stuff matters. Without value - the worth accorded to property, labor and/ or trust by society at large - the rest is literally worth-less [2].

All the charts, graphs, trends, tricks, laws, principles, techniques, psychology, glad-handing, grandstanding, favor-buying bottom-line-inflating nonsense mean absolutely nothing without those bedrock elements.

And Americans don't understand the first damn thing about how or why they work.

We have lost sight of the engines of economy, partially because of consumerist propaganda (read: advertising) but largely because of raw ignorance.

"Economics" is considered some arcane practice fit for power-suited mandriods with degrees out the ass but little real experience beyond alpha-male posturing. Obscured - like law - by complex codes of linguistic access (read: "complex terms you mere mortals couldn't possibly understand!"), economic learning is reserved for people who are willing and able to jump through hoops and master secret handshakes. The rest of us are expected - or we expect - to "leave it to the experts."

Yeah - and we see how well that idea worked out...

I guess it's because I've learned the hard way how to make nothing go a long way, but after roughly three decades of working for companies who usually existed in perpetual states of financial crisis (real or invented), running my own businesses, and working all fronts of the Retail Battlezone, I remain astounded by how little practical knowledge Americans display about money, trade, resources, labor and credit.

And yes - the higher I look, the more ignorance I see.

A few years back, I worked over half a decade for a certain book-n-media chain that felt it was good business to pay its "customer service" personnel the lowest wages it could afford to pay, and then to increase the workload geometrically, cut health benefits to non-managerial staff... and THEN to expect excellent work from them in return. Oh, yes - and store profits were expected to rise each year; "failure" to exceed the previous year's income was taken out of payroll.

Gee, what's wrong with this picture? And how long a list do you want?

The breaking point came when I offered my then-district manager a way to save tens of thousands of dollars in wasted money per store, and proposed shifting it to payroll instead. As an employee experienced in every aspect of publishing and sales, I showed her point-by-point where the money was going, how one minor change could redirect resources, how that change would save money, and how that redirection would materially benefit the chain as a whole. She agreed that I was right, went to Corporate, and gave them my plan. Then she returned, told me, quote, "They like the situation the way it is and see no need to change it," and then advised me to look for another job - which I did... taking six-and-a-half years of experience and a lifetime of consumer goodwill with me.

And now this company, like so many others, is facing financial problems. the solution: cut pay and lay off customer service people.  

This is typical American business practice. And no, it's not "all about the bottom line" - it actually cuts into the bottom line. The company would have been more profitable if the executives had looked, three years ago, at the proposal in practical terms of trade, value and resources. Instead, like so many executives who view "human resources" as charts and figures (not as human beings whose labor, skills and attitude fluctuate in accordance with the value they perceive being given by the company) and "profit" as abstract numerical goals (instead of a reward given by other human beings who value what the company has to offer), they chose to hold onto a business practice that actually wastes  phenomenal amounts of time, work and - yes - money.

It's not "good business" at all. It's ignorance dressed up in gobbledegook. It's not even good capitalism, because it costs more money in the long run than it saves in the short term.

The mythical "bottom line" is evoked for any number of counterproductive, even actively suicidal, business practices; then, when the bottom falls out (again), everyone runs around pointing fingers and going "Who could have seen this coming"? Anyone with a pulse could have seen it coming, had they only looked at what was going on. It doesn't take an MBA in Business to recognize a practice that violates the laws of physics; it just takes a pair of eyes and the knowledge - and willingness - to see with them.

Which is why I think every American should be required to take classes in practical economics, as early as possible and as late as necessary.

Because we are all components in an economy. We all have a stake in it, and its health or illness is a direct result of our behavior.

Because our current "wisdom" obviously fails on a regular basis.

Because other cultures in our global economy are not blinded by the memory of bygone prosperity and illusionary promises of more.

Because, quite frankly, without a firm grounding in real-world economics, we Americans are roadkill on the margins of this new millennium.

And there's a REAL bottom line.

NOTES
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1 - The economic boom of the 1950s-60s came about largely because the other industrial powers were in ruins after World War II. America was spared that destruction, and had factories running at war-level footing while the rest of the world was sorting out the damage. That boom ended when other industrial powers - notably Germany and Japan - recovered their industrial bases and exceeded American quality-of-goods. A good thrashing from OPEC and national depression after Vietnam didn't help matters, either.

Meanwhile, the 1990s boom resulted from a combination of the collapse of the Soviet Union, sudden innovations with information technology, and massive speculation in valueless illusion; that boom busted when other nations adopted the new technologies, massive amounts of American jobs were "outsourced" overseas, and reality caught up with speculation. Anyone with even a basic knowledge of history would know this already. Sadly, Americans as a whole really suck at history.

2 - As I wrote in my book Goblin Markets: The Glitter Trade: "On its own, money means nothing. A stack of burning hundred-dollar bills generates as much heat than a stack of burning toilet paper."

"I'm not part of the 99%." That's the catch-phrase of a counter-protest that misunderstands the entire nature of the Occupy movement. Buying the lies that 99% activists are just a bunch of unemployed hippies looking for handouts, people like the following young student trumpet their work-ethics, and chide the rest of us for not being them. 

Parodying the various signs held by Occupy demonstrators, this picture epitomizes a view that misses the entire point of the protests. "The 99%" does not refer to people who want handouts; it refers to the people who pay the larger share of taxes, work the longer amount of hours, do the harder degree of work, and yet continually have our pay, jobs, health, environment and economy endangered or destroyed by the other 1%.

Admirable as this person's work-ethic appears to be, she (I assume this person is female; I'm not certain) is clearly young enough and fortunate enough to not YET have experienced any of the following things that lay at the heart of the protest: 

* Having her pay or job cut so that her CEO can get a pay raise. 

* Losing her job or the company she works for to a badly-played gamble by one or more of her bosses. 

* Having her stocks and/or savings wiped out by gambling bosses and brokers whose actions are beyond her control.  

* Suffering a severe injury or illness, only to find that the health insurance policy she's been paying for refuses to cover her treatment. 

* Living downstream from a factory whose emissions and waste give her cancer or some other horrible medical condition (see above), trying to sue them for the damages, and then winding up losing the case (thanks to the company's expensive legal team) and getting stuck with both the disease and the legal fees. 

* Finding herself stuck with a dangerous and/or debilitating health condition thanks to tainted food or hazardous chemicals used by a corporation, and then winding up in the situation above. 

* Getting injured at her job and then winding up in one or both of the situations above. 

* Having some right or procedure upon which she depends suddenly imperiled or revoked because a politically-connected megachurch spent lots of money to take it away. 

* Having her vote thrown out because she voted at a precinct where the voting machines were manufactured and managed by a company whose owner is loyal to a different political party.

*Having her contracted pay and benefits "re-negotiated" without her consent by politicians who claimed to favor "small government." 

* Living in a town where the majority of the jobs have been shipped overseas, thus making it harder to find or keep a job near her home. 

* Having corporations make "gentleman's agreements" to suppress wages in her region, so that a person working there can make only so much money. 

* Having her job cut and given to a prison convict in order to save money.

* Winding up on the receiving end of a prison convict who got access to her home, property and person through the work he was contracted to do by state or local politicians. 

* Any combination of the above. 

If she doesn't think this is happening, she's not paying attention. And if she thinks she's above it if she just works hard, she's fooling herself.

Incidentally, unless this person is a multi-millionaire, she IS part of the 99%... and so are the rest of us. The slogan refers to the people making less than $10 million or so a year. That level of money is not something you often accumulate by working hard and living below your means. It's the kind of money usually enjoyed by people who either do some of the things listed above, or who inherit wealth from other people who already did. 

Did you know that the economy is actually booming? That it has been doing so since 2010? 

I didn't either... but then, you and I are not part of that boom. 

(image copyright Jarko Vanhalaka)

While the rest of us have been wondering when and if we have a home, a job, or a future, the top executives and stockholders for Exxon, Wal-Mart, GE, Bank of America (who, after reaching #5 on the Fortune 500 list, recentley announced a new $5.00 per month surcharge for using ATM cards) have contiuned receiving big bonus checks, high salaries, and other perks. By the phantom "bottom line" of abstract profit statements, the economy - at least for some folks - is doing great. 

An article in CNN Money (from April 15, 2010) underscores the vast disconnect between this phantasmal "bottom line" and the reality of social and business economies. While the article trumpets the "long-awaited recovery... now underway," it's repeatedly gives the reason for the surging profits behind Fortune 500 giants: layoffs and salary cuts: "The crucial reductions came in the item accounting for two-thirds of their costs: labor. In 2009, the Fortune 500 shed 821,000 jobs, the biggest loss in its history -- almost 3.2% of its payroll. By mid-2009, companies were making fewer goods with far fewer workers."

Yeah. About that... 

(crucially reduced)

Shawn Tully - a CNN Money senior editor and the author of the article - remains apparently oblivious to the connection between the loss of all those jobs and the "feeble overall recovery that's far from normal." While Mr. Tully laments the people who are "still too fearful about their jobs and homes to crowd malls and auto lots with the buoyant abandon that heralds a full-rigged revival," he cheers for balance sheets gains perched on the losses of those jobs. 

In short, then, Mr. Tully has not the slightest fucking clue how economies really work.

When people are "fearful about their jobs and homes," the economy is in TROUBLE. When a balance sheet looks pretty because you suddenly have fewer people, working harder, in fear, for less money, your COMPANY is in trouble. When you see a rosy future because you're not the one worried about his job and home, your SOUL is in trouble. And when you multiply these problems by the number of corporations involved, the NATION is in trouble. 

And that, Jack, is a fact. 

Yet an odd attitude of entitlement persists - an idea that Because I am [fill in the blank], I am therefore entitled to [fill in the blank], regardless of the truth of one's circumstances. Because, for example, a guy is a corporate executive, he is therefore entitled to certain pay and perks, regardless of whether or not his company can afford to provide them. If the company is sinking, he is still entitled to his pay and bonuses... and if that means firing half the staff and cutting salaries for the rest, so be it. Hey presto - he's prosperous again! Too bad about those other folks... but then, if they're not him, it's their own fault.  

In view of the nationwide protests against this attitude and the situation it has caused, presidential hopeful Herman Cain - whose own "prosperity" is based upon low wages, layoffs, and shoddy products - insisted that "...if you don't have a job, if you're not rich, BLAME YOURSELF." To a certain point, that seems like a reasonable idea... so long as you can divorce yourself from the fact that those people who have no jobs, or who have jobs that pay poorly, had their jobs and pay cut by people like Mr. Cain... and that the global hypercorporate is filled with those people, cutting pay and jobs across the world.

When you do that sort of thing on a grand scale, it kinda adds up. 

One might think that a businessman with the background of a Mr. Tully or a Mr. Cain could at least do math... but then, as an old friend of mine who graduated with honors from a business management program told me, that's not the kind of math they teach to folks on the executive track.    

The level of disconnect involved when a person cannot bridge the connection between a land where hundreds of thousands of people are laid off and one where hundreds of thousands of angry people no longer have jobs... that disconnect is profound to an almost psychotic degree. It's as though someone cut off his own hand with a golden cutlass, then blamed the blood for flowing and the fingers for going cold.    

As I wrote here several days ago, Mr Tully's article and Mr. Cain's declaration both reflect a pirate mentality: a slash-and-burn approach in which nothing matters beyond the nebulous concept of a "profit" that does not, and cannot, extend beyond the boardroom and stock portfolio.

Sailing on the winds of those phantom bottom lines, such an attitude might be called "ghost pirate economics." Based upon a legacy of bygone plunder, it refuses to acknowledge that it's already dead.

(yo-ho-ho!)

The ghost pirate looks pretty impressive. He's got a golden cutlass and a big ol' ship. His booming cannons still echo through the seas. The fact that his sails are tattered and his skeleton crew looks fragile don't seem to matter to him. He is, in his mind, the master of the seven seas. So he'll take what he wants and keelhaul the crew (or pay the cops to do it for him) every so often, and then lift his jeweled goblet to toast his own magnificence.

And if the ship starts sinking - why then, he'll blame the carpenters and throw the crew overboard until...

Until reality sets in.

The core problem with ghost pirate economics - all moral ones aside - is that the ship doesn't fucking float. It might drift, it might sparkle, it might even scare other ships for a while, BUT IT'S DEAD IN THE WATER, a spectre of its former glory. 

And that's where we're headed under pirate captains and phantom bottom lines. 

Drifting, sinking, and haunting what used to be our home. 

We're not there yet. But it IS where we're headed until we change that course. 

And if it takes a mutiny to wake the captain and change that course, well then, just look outside. 

That mutiny has already begun. 

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Text copyright (c) Satyros Phil Brucato. All images copyright their respective owners. Permission is granted by the Author to circulate this article, with attribution, for non-profit purposes. Permission to circulate for profit, without prior arrangement with the Author, is explictly denied.

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A random thought on business management, informed by decades as both an employee and a business owner: 

A large portion of American business practices (and non-American business practices, as well) are driven by an erroneous concept of "the bottom line." 

When cutting corners, pay or benefits, people often claim to be "watching the bottom line." Is this really good for business, though? Not if you want that business to last. 

A week or two ago, I got into a debate with an online acquaintance. Our disagreement? Does a business exist to sell a product or service to its customers, or to provide maximum profit to its owners and shareholders? Ideally, I'd imagine, it provides both product and profit, striking a balance between the two so that the best interests of customer, owner and (one would hope) employee are valued. 

Yeah... good luck with that. 

Since, at the very least, the Reagan administration, there's been a sickening trend among stockholders, executives, and "superstar CEOs" to turn corporations into slash-and-burn machines. For the sake of short-term "profits" (which, as the current economy displays, are long-term losses), quality is cut, employees are disregarded, customers are shafted, and a handful of people get nice big checks. Middle managers are squeezed to provide ever-increasing profits, and then punished if the following quarter looks "less profitable" (read: makes as much money or less) than the previous ones. Bonuses are then handed out at the end of the year - usually after a mass of employees have been laid off just before the holidays in order to boost that last-minute profit margin. Great for the lucky few, I guess... but terrible for everyone else, including that company's customers. 

A company's true bottom line is not quarterly income statements - it's long-term stability and prosperity. When a company treats employees poorly (thus losing loyalty and productivity), shorts its customers (by reducing quality of service and goods by firing and/ or alienating experienced employees), and destroys its internal morale (through stress and mistrust) that company's bottom line suffers. 

The company that makes a ton of money in a year and then falls apart in five does not have a strong bottom line... unless, of course, you're a corporate raider or a short-term stockholder. For such people, this is, as they say, business as usual. 

THESE PEOPLE ARE NOT MANAGERS - THEY'RE PROFITEERS.

They're pirates, not captains. 

My father commanded two ships and was second-in-command of a third. His career in the U.S. Navy was marked by proud, honored and distinguished service. Thus, I know a little something about what good captains do. 

A good captain keeps his (or her) ship in good order. He knows how it works, runs its crew with firm but fair discipline, watches out for hazards, and guides that ship through storms for as long as he possibly can. 

A captain who runs his ship aground, calls in his friends, loots the goods and sells them for a profit is not someone you want running your ship. He's a pirate - and not the fun kind. 

The era of the Superstar CEO ushered in a generation of pirates. Unlike men or women who built their companies to last, these folks run their ships carelessly, abuse the crew, loot the cargo and wreck the ship. 

Really, folks - which type of captain is REALLY watching out for "the bottom line"... and which one is sending ships to the bottom? 

And which type do you want in charge of your future? 

Our world does not want us to be heroes. Heroes make folks nervous. They challenge us by standing out. While society shows us what we can buy, heroes show us what we are not. And that display makes folks profoundly uncomfortable. As a result, I believe, most people shortchange their potential and smother the hero within.

First, let’s clarify what “hero” means. It does not mean “nice person.” The Greek root haeros means “to sing of,” and while the Greek heroes were so “sung of” that we remember them 2500 years later, they were not “nice people.” Quite the contrary: Theseus was a rapist, Odysseus a liar, Herakles, a hot-tempered murderer, and Achilles a psychopath. Not a Boy Scout in the bunch! The gods may smile on the meek, but they don’t remember them.

Heroes, by definition, are memorable.

I got to thinking about this a few years ago. Channel-surfing past the E! Network, I'd stopped to watch a few minutes of the “E! Hot 10.” Paris Hilton, Paris Hilton, Paris Hilton! “Why?!?,” I bellowed. She isn’t especially good-looking, has no talent, displays no brains to speak of, and has contributed nothing to the human condition except gossip and waste. So why were so many people fascinated with the Barbie Mark-5 Paris Hilton Unit?

Then I noticed her body language: angular, exaggerated, direct and unspeakably arrogant. Her matchstick frame and little-girl voice may indicate fragility, but there’s nothing fragile about her stance. It says “I am who I am. You love me for it, and if you choose not to love me, fuck off — I don’t care.”(*1) Y’know, I thought, she’s right. Insufferable, arrogant, obnoxious, and 100% correct… if only because she says so. Paris and the rest of her E! Network celebricult peers are the living embodiments of Billy Idol’s old boast “I can be an idol just because I call myself one.”

These days, Lady Gaga provides a far better example of this principle. Not only does she display far more brains, talent, and inherent decency than the Hilton Barbiebot, but her staggering success - a "fame monster" (*2) crafted almost entirely from Stefani Germanotta's determination to succeed artistically - comes from the artist's understanding of fame itself. Unlike Paris, Gaga is an actual artist, mirroring the human condition through potent, focused creativity. We respond so powerfully to her - pro or con - because she knows exactly what she's doing and refuses to apologize for doing it. (Besides, anyone who considers Lady Gaga to be just another brain-dead pop diva with nothing significant to say isn't really paying attention to her work.) 

Does this make them “heroes”? Well, not in the “does great things for humanity” sense, but they certainly are sung of, if only for the moment (*3). There’s a disposability about their fame that would be heartbreaking if it weren’t so amusing — but even in that amusement factor, they still have our attention. We slammed Paris Hilton out of envy. We watch the inevitable flameouts of Tom Cruise or Britney spears with derision because such people dare to be so bloody arrogant… and even then, we’ll still be watching the next one down the line. Why? Because such people TELL us they're worth watching.

That, my friends, is called “claiming your power.” And society hates it — we hate it! — when someone claims their power so fully. Because to claim your power is to stride outside the mainstream, stake claim on your personal island, bask in the sun and get rewarded for doing so. We call this “arrogance,” and it is. But to be a hero, to be sung of, demands a certain amount of arrogance. And most of us are too afraid of being disliked to truly assume our power.

Now, by “claiming power” I don’t mean taking dominion over others. I’m referring to dominion over yourself — although, as most confident people can attest, those who have dominion over themselves are often given dominion over others, too. (This has certainly been my experience.) Sadly, a lot of folks assert their “power” by abusing other people, animals, or worst of all children. Perversely, such people show how little power they truly possess. Violence (emotional or physical) against an unthreatening target is an admission of weakness, not a display of power. Aggression comes from a need to prove one’s self; a truly powerful person doesn’t have anything to prove. (*4)

Even so, the dominating nature of power, combined with the submissive behavior of those who give their power away, means that most people have a love/ hate relationship with confidence. On one hand, they’re drawn to the person who lives his/ her life on his/ her own terms; on the other hand, they feel threatened by that person, too. As I said, most people don’t really want heroes sitting in their living rooms. If nothing else, such a person points out the powerlessness of others simply by existing. Think about it: would you be truly comfortable inviting Paris Hilton over for dinner? Or would her presence, even if she were remarkably nice to you, turn you into a blabbering idiot?

The power principle can be seen starkly dramatized in the film American Beauty. Kevin Spacey’s character Lester Burnham begins as a pathetic schlub until, inspired by Wes Bentley’s character Ricky Fitts, he takes command of his life and starts speaking up for himself. Both Lester and Ricky shake up everyone in their vicinity by refusing to play the game by society’s rules. Both wind up punished for their “heroism” but it’s okay, really... because both of them also realize that their refusal to play by those rules has put them in a better place than they would have occupied had they remained “good.”

(My old friend Brenda once said “Arrogance is what the weak call confidence.” Her “attitude” got Brenda fired from work not long after, but although Brenda’s sentiment didn’t endear her to our management, she wasn’t exactly wrong. The fact that she got a better job afterward sort of proved her point.)

I myself have an uneasy relationship with power. Since the mid-1990s, I’ve been a celebrity — not Paris Hilton-level, certainly, but I am. Many of you wouldn’t be reading this if I weren’t; there would have been no Deliria, no Mage: The Ascension, no Satyros blog or readers for anything I wrote if I had remained a shoe salesman in the early 1990s. And so yes, I seize my power on occasion. But to this day, I have an uneasy relationship with that. I hate being thought of as arrogant. I want to be liked. I want to be nice. (*5) I don’t usually want to make other people uncomfortable. And so I occasionally defer, and pull back, and deny myself opportunities because someone might think I’m arrogant. I might think I’m arrogant, and that may be the worst sin of all. In that way, I've often sabotaged my own potential. Then I've recognized what I'm doing and knocked it the hell off!

In high school, my nemesis was Greg, a guy who apparently got whatever he wanted because he simply acted like he was entitled to it. He wasn’t a bad guy, really - didn’t really do anything wrong to me. Still, I hated his guts because he was arrogant enough to claim his power... and I wasn’t. I didn’t want to be like Greg... and yet I did. There’s a part of me that hated myself for that... and a part that gleefully embraced it. That ambivalence made me uncomfortable until I understood it, and sometimes it still does. This discomfort, however, doesn’t usually stop me when I get a notion in my head. And so, yeah — like Greg, I can be an arrogant bastard sometimes. I don’t often like that part of myself, but without it I wouldn’t be who I am. When I claim my power, I choose to be heroic.

You can do it, too.

The most essential part of claiming your power is believing that you are worthy of it. You can be a hero if you assert the right to be one. Doing so is an ongoing process, one that involves starting your day by looking in the mirror and saying “I am who I choose to be today, and I choose to be HEROIC.” Stretching out and breathing, warming up your body and reminding it what it can do, you take on your day head-on, looking people in the eye and considering opportunities whenever you see them. (*6) Not all opportunities should be accepted, of course (your girlfriend might not appreciate it if you took a co-worker up on her flirtations!), but by at least considering them, you begin to recognize that they exist. From there, be wary of your boundaries, and remember not to give away too much of your self for another person’s benefit. In small doses, giving way to others is consideration; done too often, though, it becomes subservience. And outside of a BDSM relationship, there’s no power in that!

These four steps — recognizing your self, your potential, your opportunities and your boundaries — break down the wall of hopelessness that we are conditioned to accept. Once that wall is weakened, opportunities to manifest your power appear... and your ability to see them and take advantage of them appears as well.

Will these steps turn you into Paris Hilton? Of course not. (And thank all the gods for THAT!) They will, however, bring you one step closer to being memorable. And if the moment comes when you must act in some heroic way — whether by commandeering a bus, jumping at that job you always wanted, or hauling a person out of a car wreck — you’ll be more able to act heroically because you believe that you can!

Claiming your power, however, will not often make you liked. Admired, perhaps, but not liked. Because, as I said earlier, society does not want you to be heroic. It wants distant pageants of heroism and villainy, but balks when someone actually tries to star in them. Y’see, religions want congregations; governments want citizens; businesses want consumers and contributors. None of these institutions has room for heroes. Heroes rock the boat. They don’t take orders or fit into neat little packages. Rock stars and sports legends look great on TV, but their lives are marked by combinations of worship and spite — often from the very same people!(*7) This often explains the quirks and addictions that plague so many powerful people. The achievements that make them who they are also isolate them from most of humanity.

Hey, nothing worthwhile is free, right?

We are conditioned for subservience, you know. Church, school, commercials and psychotherapy all reinforce the idea that we are dysfunctional. We’re too fat, too poor, too stupid, to sinful to be prosperous. To get ahead in life, they tell us, we must consume. They have the products that we need, and whether those products are clothes, cars, exercise programs, high test scores, drugs, or whatever brand of salvation the church prefers, you need them in order to be “healthy.” This is, of course, a self-serving program — it keeps those institutions in business. It’s pervasive, though. In a world where everything is for sale, the illusion of confidence belongs to those with enough cash (hello, Paris!) or talent (Hi, Gaga!) to claim it. That “power,” however, is an illusion. Reject it, and like some old Phantasmal Force spell, it all fades away. The only truth you can count on is the truth in the mirror. Accept that and nothing else truly matters.

There's an old Japanese saying: The nail that stands out is the nail that gets hammered. Of course, the underlying irony of that sentiment is that without nails, there wouldn’t sheds for the hammers or houses for the hammerers. Heroes are a social necessity, if not always a welcome one. As one author — I think it was Robert Pirsig — wrote, “heroes move the world forward”... even when the world might not comfortable with that momentum!

So - are you a hammer or a nail? Both are essential in our world. Which do you choose to be?

As I wrote in my book Everyday Heroes: Adventures for the Rest of Us, every person has the potential to be a hero, but very few people actually become one.

It’s your choice, really.

These days, most of all, we need more real heroes. 

So be one of them.

Claim your power, and have an heroic day.

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BOLDLY HEROIC FOOTNOTES OF DOOM

*1 = The intentional vulgarity here makes my point precisely.

*2 = The Latin root of "monster," incidentally, means "portent" or "warning," and comes from the related term for "to reveal." Thus, a monster portends events, warns us, and ultimately reveals a lot about us. 

*3 = Again, I don't consider Lady Gaga to be some disposable pop princess. I believe she'll remain as enduring - for better and worse - in her accomplishments as her fellow media chameleons Andy Warhol, David Bowie and Madonna. 

*4 = I’m not referring to violence in survival situations. The very fact that survival sometimes depends on violence, however, points out that no one is all-powerful all the time. 

*5 = "You're kind," an old friend once told me, "not 'nice'." I appreciate the distinction, and I suspect she's right... even though she may very well disagree with that assessment these days. 

*6 = No one is going to give you permission to be powerful. To assert control within your life, you must give yourself permission and then take yourself up on that offer. No one else can do it for you — nor will they! Confidence must come from within.

*7 = During my days as a line developer at White Wolf Game Studio, my friend and editor Ed Hall got promoted to the Wraith line developer position. Within days, he was being ripped apart on the White Wolf fan forums. “Why are they doing this?” he asked me. “I haven’t even done anything yet.” “Because,” I replied, “you’re doing it and they aren’t.” Many times, it’s that simple. We excoriate a Paris Hilton or Ed Hall because they have a power we only wish we could claim.