Has the word "Economy" come to mean something else?

Listening to  Michael Enright's final episode of The Sunday Edition (Sunday, June 28/2020)  I heard Adam Gopnik talk about the obsession among damaged rulers as domination or submission. 

I confess I have suspected that leaders of right wing parties now seem to be 'strongmen' whose only concern is how to dominate. Win or lose, control or be castrated. It's not a new thing but it is seen by thoughtful healthy people to be an obstacle to relationship and mental health. I think it's an obstacle to a livable future.

Listening to conversations where people appear to be hostile to ideas of community, justice, living wages and respect — because these ideas get in the way of the economy, which is promoted as the highest priority for today.

It seems the economy is not part of human structure but the god to be worshipped faithfully, not shared with a reverence for life. Greed must worship the economy, we must  bow down to it, to cast out  any other concern. Kindness, compassion, are infidels that get in the way of masturbatory greed breathing heavily in all public spaces.

Umair Haque wrote in 2018 "Americans, it seems to me, don’t treat one another like human beings. Perhaps they don’t even really know how  to. They’re constantly dehumanizing, objectifying, and degrading people — beginning with themselves." The Idea That Changed the World but America Never Learned. Medium.

This is corporate fascism.  Greed for money and status is the destruction of life for the sake of power. In psychiatry it's called 'megalomania', 'psychopathic', 'sociopathic'.

A good and wise friend however, advised that many Americans do not fall under this generalization and grieve for the structural violence created by such capitalist values. 

Any institution that promotes and upholds the supremacy of capitalism, is willing to let all of natural creation die for this 'economy'.

The Commonwealth Sold Out

"The Conservative (in the UK) manifesto made a clear promise. It pledged that in the government’s trade talks, “we will not compromise on our high environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards”. Just six months after the election, the promise has been ditched. Our government is now proposing that chlorine-washed chicken, beef treated with growth hormones, pork from animals injected with ractopamine and scores of other foods produced in the United States by dangerous, cruel and disgusting means will be allowed into this country, as long as higher trade taxes (tariffs) are applied to them." monbiot.com.

Why Black Lives Matter

Civilization has developed language, cities, shelter, and history.

Children are sent to school to learn language, arithmetic and how to socialize. A good thing. Then they are taught to compete for success which encourages suspicion towards others and fear they will not “measure up”.  Not so good a thing.

Today there are people dying of starvation while celebrated men and women live in luxury. If you ask a five year old if this is fair, their answer will depend on their education and their class.

While the richest countries store weapons of mass destruction those on the lower end of the pecking order cannot afford health care, a home or food to eat. Masses are considered disposable if they don’t have money or power. The gap between haves and have-nots widens every decade. Hatred is becoming more brutal.  We might not say it out loud but policies from right wing parties say the poor deserve to die through neglect and emotional abuse. 

Contradictions in ideology — we have a duty to be positive, happy and fulfilled, but deprived of the means to purchase it. Multiple screens parade all the possibilities that promise happiness. Beautiful women, great sex, fame and world recognition. And when it doesn’t come then broken hearts choose performative power—misogyny, racism, bullying, machismo and war.  

This is where we are hit by the realization we are broken and its too late to fix. This is where drugs and alcohol become more than occasional pleasure and on top of everything else, we are controlled by the addiction and the dealers who don’t just persuade but threaten us.

Even education has become corrupt because it's another market and markets sell fantasies on top of knowledge. Fantasies such as—I need another degree to get a job that pays well rather than a social awakening to question why I am not paid well? Getting rich is the only standard that counts in a material world and getting into Ivy League institutions where blonde muscular boys and skinny sexy girls join cults of personality for popularity. They become items. 

In this world of material gloss everything has a price. There is no nuance. Empathy and compassion are unaffordable sensitivities, and when it comes to your own happiness you realize you are alone and the whole world is broken.

The designated scapegoats: marginalized poor, sick, black, Cree, Muslim, Jew or other-gendered — must redesign their world through emotional turmoil to the point of insight. 

This insight enables us to see just how broken, criminal and shallow, the mainstream guardians of power within and above our institutions are.

This is why the real power of community and all its manifestations have been outlawed.

The ruling jailors need us to remain ignorant of our true nature, in order to keep the prisons locked and to keep us hungry, afraid and angry.  And this is why black lives matter.

Spite

Spite

The centre of almost every plot

is the little prick

the serial rapist angry at his mother

giving up his life to seek the highest office 

to spite her long after she died

how the ego puts all the wonders of this world 

beneath his boot

because to win anything in spite

is never enough

even four centuries of slavery

cannot pay back the hurt

that first cut or bruise

when all the infant craved

was love, a home where safety

could be felt and parents smiled

with joy, their eyes sending

the message 

he is worth more than gold stars

on a school essay, 

but young children are snatched

from loving arms to cold corridors to learn

they are trash

so they can rule the world

with spite.

I CAN’T BREATHE for George Floyd

The knee of endless war on your neck

the pecking order applauding spite

as if Make America Great Again

is all about the power to cause pain

to the unarmed black lives

stolen from their home to endure

generations of cruelty

white people robbing themselves 

of dignity and integrity

in this green wet world now bleached 

of nuance.

If Black Lives Don't Matter - no Lives Matter

"Please. Please. I can't breathe, officer. I cannot breathe," Floyd gasped while handcuffed. Onlookers demanded Chauvin relent, but he continued to drive his knee into Floyd's neck. A devastating, 10-minute video recorded this slow-motion murder, breath by ebbing breath. Finally, Floyd's limp body is roughly rolled onto a stretcher, loaded into an ambulance and taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead." Rabble.ca 

What kind of society produces a man who cannot feel the suffering of another while his knee is on their neck until his victim dies?

It's up to humans who care, who cry, and who have not been so traumatized they no longer know what or why they do what they do, to fix it.

It's called conscience and we must honour it until we become human again or we bleed trying.

Post on Facebook from Simon Rakoff

I don't object to hate. Higher minds strive to overcome their feelings of hate but it is natural to hate someone who has wronged you. Another few days of upsetting racist stories are about unreasoning hate. There is no excuse for hate of a group of people just because they are not us. The sharing of these stories makes it seem like hate is worse than it had been. I think racism and xenophobia are more like mold. It may not always show but it's there. The coarsening of discourse over the last while is just like a crowbar that pried up the countertop to expose the rot underneath. People spraying swastikas on Jewish buildings or calling the police to report a threatening African American are not just discovering their racism. They just feel emboldened to express it. 

I don't know if racism and hate can actually be cured. It might be hard wired in us to suspect the stranger. I do know that we can decide its expression is intolerable. We repress a lot of "natural" things for the good of society. Everybody has genitalia but it's an accepted rule that we keep them hidden from strangers. A lot of behaviours that are acceptable at one time become taboo as society evolves. People used to joke about driving drunk. Societal pressure to be better has made it unacceptable to do and unseemly to joke about. It is important that we make it clear that open racism is not funny or "just an opinion". People who don't want to accept that this is supposed to be an inclusive society need to be shamed back underground. 

I agree it is not a perfect solution. Ideally, we would actually feel love and acceptance or, at worst, tolerance for our fellow humans of all colours, creeds, religions and the like but that is a matter of enlightenment and enlightenment comes with time and willingness. In the absence of true changes of mind, behavioural modification is the only real world answer. The firing and public shaming of the Central Park Karen is a good example of the kind of consequences that should discourage thoughtless and dangerous behaviour from others. 

The cops who killed the man by kneeling on his neck need to be charged criminally to emphasize that the law is the law. Gravity is a law. There is no race, power or money that can make you levitate. Man's laws need to apply in the same way. There needs to be constant outrage every time the rules are applied unequally. There are already so many subtle and unseen microaggressions against people of colour. The blatant and open misapplication of what is supposed to be equality under the law needs to be shamed and punished out of existence. 

I know it feels like the world is sliding into tribalism and chaos but there is no such thing as unstoppable momentum when it comes to human behaviour. It can seem like only those shouting have an opinion but I believe that there are many more who quietly hope for a better, kinder world. It's time that thos quiet speak up. Not necessarily shouting to drown out the hate but gently and firmly pointing out that it is unacceptable whenever it rears its ugly head. Let those who would try to get away with racism and hate be fearful instead of the other way around.

Long rant. Thanks for reading.

Simon Rakoff is a Canadian Stand Up Comic and Actor.