Surrender Now, To the Forces of Globalized Pumice

Time being at a premium in the busy world of homelessness, we haven't time to read books, only reviews & criticism thereof, which at least gives us a passing idea of what's up, as well as opposing views of the books in question. I. e., the entire package. And now we'll save you some of your precious time, by excerpting a Times (Guess which one? Hint: not the Washington Times.) review of a book by a Times reporter. American families struggle to make ends meet in a world of globalization, mortgage meltdowns and ever-soaring fuel prices.

Gosselin fails, however, to lift his reporting, based on a series of articles for The Times, into the coherent narrative needed in a book. He never steps back to make a broader, compelling argument about the orchestrated forces that are transforming our nation. Managed capitalism, which allowed most Americans to prosper in the latter part of the 20th century, has been gradually dismantled. We now have a government that serves the interests of corporations rather than those of its citizens. The book's lack of an examination of what this transformation means for our future gives a cut-and-paste feel to the individual stories, which is accentuated by charts and graphs. He includes too many leaden recapitulations of material in previous chapters. The chapters, organized under such headings as jobs, health, housing, education, the poor and retirement, allow Gosselin to show pieces of the puzzle. They are important pieces. But unless we grasp that there is a dark logic to this transformation, that an engorged and empowered new oligarchy holds our economic and political life hostage to corporate interests and profits, we cannot grasp the grave implications for our future. Gosselin appears to tacitly accept this transformation, even as he describes its pernicious effects.

You got it, no one is willing to get under the beast's skin.

Is our transformation into a corporate state inevitable? Is it part of the march of human progress? Is globalization a force of nature? Do we really face no other alternative? Those who promote the idea of totally free markets, including economists, television pundits, Washington think tank experts and elected officials, have successfully inoculated most of us from asking these questions. This is not a matter of an abuse here and an abuse there. The rise of a corporate state undercuts our most fundamental rights as citizens, creating a society in which we are forced to subordinate our common welfare to the higher priority of corporate profit. The corporate state champions, as our elite business schools do, little more than personal greed and self-interest. It disdains the public good. And the global consequences are terrifying.

Oh, stop your whining, liberal loser!! Let's look at some statistics.

The U.S. economy has 3.2 million fewer jobs today than it did when President George W. Bush took office, including 2.5 million fewer manufacturing jobs. In the last three years, nearly 1 in 5 U.S. workers has been laid off. Among full-time workers who were laid off, roughly one-fourth are now earning less than $40,000 annually. According to the the U.S. Labor Department, 15 million workers are unemployed, underemployed or too discouraged to job hunt. There are whole sections of the United States that now resemble the developing world.

Ooops!!. Heh heh. Wrong statistics.

And the assault on the middle class is under way. Anything that can be put on computer software -- finance, architecture, engineering -- is being outsourced to workers in countries such as India and China at a fraction of the pay and without benefits. And a college education, Gosselin points out, is no longer a guarantee of a stable job. Instead, many young men and women are stuck with dead-end, low-paying jobs and massive student-loan debt.

The power of national, state and judicial authorities to respond has been neutralized through huge corporate campaign contributions, political action committees and armies of lobbyists. The consent of the governed has become an empty phrase.We are now enduring an election year in which the mainstream political debate does not confront the advanced destruction of our democracy by the corporate state. Tens of millions of Americans want and need a single payer, not-for-profit health care system, but corporations are not about to see their profits diminished. But the two main candidates discuss everything except a not-for-profit system.

The party's over. All political parties are over. Obama won't do shit to change anything, & deep in our hearts of darkness, we all realize that. Not a person w/ a hope of being heard dares to tell the truth about the current dismal situation, which will only deteriorate further. See you all around the drain, as we continue to circle it.