Markets

The other day, while researching images of the 9/11 devastation, I came across this image of the entrance of the World Financial Center.

All I could think of while looking at this photograph was "this is what they (Bush, Paulson, Bernanke) are doing to us all over again. Only this time they have no terrorists to blame, just sinister market forces.

My other thought was, and is that capitalism is ultimately violent and destructive.

Well, here's a quick run down on the timeline of events that led to this disaster.

I am running out to pick up the kids, but will be back with more. I just twitted that I feel the stock market is like a really bad telenovela. So now I feel compelled to blog why. Gotta go pick up the kids first.

Time is the most used noun in the English language, says the new Oxford Dictionary.
Most abused too?

Have you noticed Big Government and Big Business have effectively taken over all our time, one way or another? -- colluding to micromanage jobs and markets, most of which become ossified and inescapable School requirements 'round the clock and calendar:

Back to School: A Time to Rethink Time
By Milton Chen

Another year has passed, and schools are still captives of an outdated calendar. . .

The news (why do we call it that? Because we're controlled by TIME!) often makes me want to stage a clock-and calendar burning on the steps of some capitol building -- anywhere in the western world will do.

Time that used to belong between doctors and patients belongs to the UK government now. Busy bureaucrats do random appointment book checks, to guarantee every individual an appointment on either short or long notice, 48-hours being the magic time of demarcation, yada yada (another Oxford term in the news.)

There are a whole host of folks on this site who are better at talking about fundamentalism than I am, but it's a topic I return to frequently. I see it all around me. And while I cannot always articulate just how freaked out I am by the ways of thinking that define fundamentalism, to paraphrase a Supreme Court Justice: "I know it when I see it."



So, imagine my delight when I came across this article today. "The four fundamentalisms and the threat to sustainable democracy" by  Robert Jensen presents a provocative argument that it is not just religious fundamentalism, but a variety of fundamentalisms that create a threat to sustainable democracy here in the United States.

Let's start by defining fundamentalism. The term has a specific meaning in Protestant history (an early 20th century movement to promote "The Fundamentals"), but I want to use it in a more general fashion to describe any intellectual/political/theological position that asserts an absolute certainty in the truth and/or righteousness of a belief system. Such fundamentalism leads to an inclination to want to marginalize, or in some cases eliminate, alternative ways to understand and organize the world. After all, what's the point of engaging in honest dialogue with those who believe in heretical systems that are so clearly wrong or even evil? In this sense, fundamentalism is an extreme form of hubris, a delusional overconfidence not only in one's beliefs but in the ability of humans to know much of anything definitively. In the way I use the term, fundamentalism isn't unique to religious people but is instead a feature of a certain approach to the world, rooted in the mistaking of very limited knowledge for wisdom.

It's funny that Jensen uses the term hubris. I tend to reserve the term as that which applies to people I consider tragic heroes, the classical sense of the term, where the one flaw (and it's always fatal) is to have pride great enough that one thinks one is better than the gods. For that, people are made to suffer, To be struck down.

Photo courtsey Puerto Rico IndyMedia

Puerto Rico is thorn in my heart because it took more than twenty years for this collapse to happen; meaning, more than half my lifetime. I left the island 20 years ago this September because I saw no future in the banana republicanism, corruption and cronyism that has been the norm in la isla del encanto.

The collapse of Puerto Rico's economy has been in the making since the Reagan presidency. When Reaganomics hit us, it was like a tsunami. The island went into a recession that lasted almost 10 years. That's because Southern-strategy Republicans and Republicrats saw fit to do away not only with federal tax incentives for business development in the island; but to kill small business and family farming programs as well. The Republicrats went with the blessing of the Great Communciator and they did everything they could to wipe out what they saw as the competition to their beloved yet economically depressed South.

Did Puerto Ricans do anything to avert the crisis? Of course not. Because the island's economy was predicated on not taxing businesses --big business that is--, once the US decided that US businesses in the island had to start paying federal taxes, the island's government did everything they could to avoid doing the same. Puerto Rican's pay one of the highest personal income taxes in the US.

The latest from Bono :

[via Bono Sees Red - Jan 26, 2006 - E! Online News]:

The U2 frontman, Time co-Person of the Year and all-around good guy turned up Thursday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to unveil a partnership with several big companies that will sell a brand called Red. The label will adorn Armani and Gap clothes, Converse sneakers and even an American Express card, with one percent of the profits earmarked for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Flanked by Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani and various suits from the other companies, Bono hailed the private sector for their support and raising awareness at a critical time when governments have been slow to tackle the problem.

"This is really sexy to me. It is sexy to want to change the world," the 45-year-old Irish rocker told reporters.

So basically luxury goods companies are going to use cheap labor, cheap materials to create products they will mark-up 300% and then only give back 1% to charity?