Promontorium
01-18-2010, 12:19 PM
I imagine and hope this point has been made many times, but on this day I'm going to spam it all over the internet.
Just imagine. If today's government were functioning in the 60s. Rosa Parks refuses to get off the bus. They arrest her. 26 year old unknown Martin Luther King Jr. joins the struggle, emerging as the leader of the subsequent bus boycott.
The bus, deprived of its income from the oppressed poor caste of people is hemorrhaging money.
U.S. government sees the crisis, bails out the bus companies, with tax payer money coming from the poor.
Civil Rights Movement dies.
As long as our government is willing to subvert our rights, we can not make this world a better place.
People choose Microsoft, government splits the company in half, within weeks the dot coms realize if Microsoft can't succeed, no one can, dot coms all go belly up, America enters recession leading up to 9/11.
People choose not to fly after 9/11, government spents billions bailing out the airline companies. Companies still go out of business, and to this day are still going out of business. Recession continues, now accusing 9/11 as the culprit.
Housing market collapses, people lose faith in ownership, banks lose faith in loans. $1 trillion pledged in bailouts, deepest recession in decades, car companies get bailouts, not one dime goes to the homeless, the laid off, or those, like me who got royally fucked by the housing crash and barely escaped penniless. Entire cities and states experience 20% + unemployment. Reference the worst point in great depression, 25% unemployment.
I just wonder, how many dreams, how many ideas or solutions to modern problems have been destroyed by the government and its bailouts. As South Park famously mocked the government at the time, perhaps better solutions have been viable, but the government crushed them to support their investments in the failing institutions of old.
Maybe there was a better plane, or a better system for global transit, but the government refused the competition, as the only monopolies the government allows are the ones they make.
Maybe there was a better car, but the usual suspects would never let it see the light of day, thank god they were bailed out.
I am in no way trying to delineate the heroic efforts of Martin Luther King Jr. Perhaps nothing would have stopped him from what he accomplished. But I honestly can't see anything productive, anything new, anything good, coming out of this country, culturally or economically as long as this nation is held hostage by cycles of failure and government bailouts. This is exactly what people criticize communism for, the idea that 'now' is the best we can do, so we must expend plans for tomorrow for the good of today.
Just imagine. If today's government were functioning in the 60s. Rosa Parks refuses to get off the bus. They arrest her. 26 year old unknown Martin Luther King Jr. joins the struggle, emerging as the leader of the subsequent bus boycott.
The bus, deprived of its income from the oppressed poor caste of people is hemorrhaging money.
U.S. government sees the crisis, bails out the bus companies, with tax payer money coming from the poor.
Civil Rights Movement dies.
As long as our government is willing to subvert our rights, we can not make this world a better place.
People choose Microsoft, government splits the company in half, within weeks the dot coms realize if Microsoft can't succeed, no one can, dot coms all go belly up, America enters recession leading up to 9/11.
People choose not to fly after 9/11, government spents billions bailing out the airline companies. Companies still go out of business, and to this day are still going out of business. Recession continues, now accusing 9/11 as the culprit.
Housing market collapses, people lose faith in ownership, banks lose faith in loans. $1 trillion pledged in bailouts, deepest recession in decades, car companies get bailouts, not one dime goes to the homeless, the laid off, or those, like me who got royally fucked by the housing crash and barely escaped penniless. Entire cities and states experience 20% + unemployment. Reference the worst point in great depression, 25% unemployment.
I just wonder, how many dreams, how many ideas or solutions to modern problems have been destroyed by the government and its bailouts. As South Park famously mocked the government at the time, perhaps better solutions have been viable, but the government crushed them to support their investments in the failing institutions of old.
Maybe there was a better plane, or a better system for global transit, but the government refused the competition, as the only monopolies the government allows are the ones they make.
Maybe there was a better car, but the usual suspects would never let it see the light of day, thank god they were bailed out.
I am in no way trying to delineate the heroic efforts of Martin Luther King Jr. Perhaps nothing would have stopped him from what he accomplished. But I honestly can't see anything productive, anything new, anything good, coming out of this country, culturally or economically as long as this nation is held hostage by cycles of failure and government bailouts. This is exactly what people criticize communism for, the idea that 'now' is the best we can do, so we must expend plans for tomorrow for the good of today.