Romney like most rich people doesn’t know what it is to work for a living. He was born into money and that’s Ok but the vast majority of people aren’t that lucky and have to work and struggle to get by. In all the years I worked I never made more than $40,000.00 a year before taxes. There are people out there that will spend that on clothing for a month. They haven’t got a clue and sadly they don’t want to. Even now being retired my income from pensions is below the poverty line but I’m not complaining because I have more spending cash than I ever had in my working life. From what I have seen and read most Republicans have bought into the American myth that anyone can become rich if they work hard and persevere. Well that is not the case because the working people are subject to the ups and downs of the economy. How the Hell can you become rich if you have no job and the Fates help you if you are an American and become seriously ill and have no insurance. You’ll be bankrupt and have lost everything including you house just to pay the medical bills.

Romney was talking about the 47% of Americans who are victims of the government because of the social safety net. Agreed they are victims but not because of welfare but because of all the jobs that are either shipped overseas or the corporations close factories because they didn’t make ten million in profit only nine point nine. Romney increased his wealth through Bain Capital by buying up companies then selling  them off with the result of tens of thousands of jobs lost. Tell me what is the difference between Romney and his ilk to the Robber Barons of the 19th Century like Astor, Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Vanderbilt. Neither them nor the modern day magnates give a damn about the working classes. Yet if not for them they wouldn’t have a proverbial pot to pee in. To me Republican is synonymous to Rapine, which is defined as Plundering or Robbing. The only difference to-day is Rapine is done with Politics and laws, whereas in the old days if some Lord or Chieftain wanted what you had he just took it and if you resisted you died. Just as bad but far less hypocritical wouldn’t  you say.

The money boys behind the Republican Party must be scratching their butts in perplexity, what with, first McCain and Palin, now Romney and Ryan. For the second time they have come up with candidates that forget to put their brain in gear before the open their mouth. I think I have come up with a winning team for the Republicans in 2016. Santorum and Palin. If they don’t win then terminate the party and start a new one.

Exceptional? The American theology of Mormonism profoundly celebrates America. In fact, the United States is in many respects the centerpiece of Mormon thought.

Do you think God made America special- so as to exclude us from standards we hold other people to?

Read more: Mormonism and the Romney Doctrine of American Exceptionalism

Spread it around.

The Declining America Myth.

It seems that it has become fashionable to bash America these days. As I run around the country giving my strategy luncheons, I hear a lament that has become all too familiar.

America has peaked as a civilization, the story goes, and will follow the British, French, Roman, and even the Egyptian empires into the dustbin of history.  Our standard of living is falling, our technological prowess is fading, and our military strength is weakening. It will be just another generation before the Chinese take over the world and we will all be forced to learn Mandarin in high school, or somebody worse will take their place.

Such bouts of doubt, angst, and self-loathing occur every generation in America. I received a big dose after the US withdrew from Vietnam in 1972. My dad felt the same after Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941. So did my grandfather when the Lusitania was sunk in 1917. The outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 was considered the country’s darkest day. And then there was the British burning of Washington in 1812. I remember it like it was yesterday.

I say horse feathers, bull-puckey, and balderdash to all this talk. When speaking to foreign governments, military leaders, and central bankers during my global travels I keep hearing a recurring theme. The United States is still the great shining example up on the hill. We are dominant in technology and increasing at an accelerating rate. All I hear about are our country’s strengths.

Our economy can evolve faster than anywhere else on the planet. This is because no one can beat us at creative destruction. Some 22 years into Japan’s stock market crash they are still maintaining companies on life support at enormous expense. We cleansed our system in about six months. And try downsizing outdated unions in Germany. We have cut the union share of labor from 35% to 15% in 30 years. Where else can someone with no money but good ideas become a billionaire in a couple of years?

Since I am a numbers guy, let me throw a few out there just to make my case. With a $15 trillion GDP, ours is triple contenders number two and three at $5 trillion, China and Japan. We are nearly four times Germany’s size at $4 trillion. Our per capita GDP is a staggering twelve times China’s. That means it takes 12 Chinese workers to produce an hour of output compared to our one. This is why America’s per capital income stands at $47,200, compared to only $4,260 in the Middle Kingdom, and many Chinese have to work a 70 hour week to take this home.  They are supposed to be overtaking us? Even the Chinese laugh when I tell them this.

Some 18 of the world’s 50 largest companies are still US based, like Exxon (XOM), Wal-Mart (WMT), Apple (AAPL), and Boeing (BA). But this understates the true picture. Ours occupy far and away the highest end of the value added chain. Many of the rest scrape by copying or pirating our products. You never get ahead that way. Look no further than Apple, which pays workers a minimal $15/day to build US designed products for sale at home with enormous profit margins.

It’s hard to find a strategic industry that we don’t dominate. US companies invented “fracking” which has untapped vast new energy supplies, making the Middle East irrelevant. Saudi princes come here for their health care, not England or Japan. “Globalization” has in fact become the polite word for “Americanization”.

I was standing at Piccadilly Circus in London the other day when a bus stopped and unloaded 50 gorgeous high school girls. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out their nationality. They could have come from anywhere. The teacher had a big butt, so I though maybe American. Then a kid lit up a cigarette and no one cared. Aha! French. They turned out to be the winners of a national English language essay-writing contest and the prize was a trip to the Olympics.

Let me just toss a few more tidbits out there:

*The biggest selling luxury car in China is a GM (GM) Buick

* iPhones, Ford Mustangs, and Katy Perry songs are pouring into a newly freed Libya.

*Cubans and Iranians are erecting illegal satellite dishes so they can watch Law and Order

*Travel around Eastern Europe and all you see are blue jeans

*Over 70% of the drinkers of Coca-Cola are outside the US

*McDonald’s (MCD) has 10,000 hamburger stands abroad

*Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows operating system runs 90% of the world’s computers

*London has 19,000 people a month joining Match.com

While the US has run big trade deficits for 50 years, we have a perennial surplus in services that goes unnoticed. We remain the force to reckon with in banking and finance, thanks to the reserve currency status of our dollar. Transfer dollars from the UK to Japan and it has to go through New York. This isn’t changing in my lifetime. The world’s wealthy and well connected have long sent their kids to American universities. Six out of ten of the world’s best schools are here, matched only by Oxford, Cambridge, Tokyo University, and Beijing University.

You may be concerned about our rising level of national debt. Aren’t we under saving and over spending? The credit markets beg to differ with you. With 30-year Treasury bond rates at 2.55%, the world is literally throwing money at us as fast as they can. With the long-term inflation rate probably at 3%, this means that our government can borrow money for free!

Foreign individuals and institutions regularly take down more than half of our monthly government debt issues. With Europe in trouble, this trend is accelerating. The government’s error is not that it’s borrowing too much money, but not enough. Prices tell us that there is a severe shortage of US bonds. We could probably double the national debt from here without much impact on interest rates. Apparently, the free marketers don’t look at markets very often.

You have heard me talk a lot about demographics over the years. The US still has a modestly positive slope to its demographic pyramid, which is the best in the developed world. This means that we can expect an ever larger number of young consumers to drive economic growth, largely driven by immigration. This will lead to a new Golden Age for America in the 2020′s, which I believe will be a repeat of the 1950′s. Japan, Russia, and Europe suffer from a diabolical demographic outlook. China doesn’t look so hot either, thanks to its “One Child” policy. They’re just not making young people anymore.

Since I am also an old and grizzled Marine combat veteran and stay well connected with the military establishment, let me tell you a few harsh realities. Our military technology is the most advanced in human history, unbeatable, deeply feared, and is improving at breakneck speed. The American soldier is the best trained and most lethal ever deployed into the field. Did you know that no Air Force fighter pilot has been shot down in 20 years, despite being almost continuously at war during this entire time? The next generation of US fighters won’t even have pilots, with drones carrying much of the heavy lifting in today’s combat.

The US now provides for the active defense for about half of the landmass of the world; double that protected by the British Empire at its 1914 peak. Two decades after the end of the Cold War, the United States has no enemies of any real consequence. According to the CIA chief, General David Petraeus, Al Qaida has been worn down to a mere 200 active members. The futility of their efforts, confining explosives to shoes and underwear, show how badly things have gone for them.

We have been doing this with ever declining amounts of money. The military share of US GDP has plunged from 50% in 1943 to 6% at the end of the Cold War in 1992 to 4.7% today. It is about to fall off a cliff. Our defense budget is about to drop by half, back to pre 9/11 levels, either through budget cuts or sequestration. The Joint Chiefs are already prepared for this. Cyber warfare and drones are much cheaper than carrier groups and advanced fighters. If we spend less on weapons, the rest of the world will too. In a year, expect to start hearing about this a lot on your dinnertime news.

What about China, you may ask? They have had the blueprints of our most advanced defensive systems for many years now. But having a picture of a weapon is a long way from building one. They lack the technical expertise and the machinery even to copy what we already have. In any case, everyone knows China is indefensible. Torpedo one foreign grain ship, and the country will be starving in six months. China will never pose a threat as long as they can’t live without us and we have all of their money.

Yes, I know that it is an election year. It is up to the party that is out of power to portray conditions here as badly as possible so they can get elected to fix them. The party in power has to convince us how much things have improved so we can stay the course. The misinformation and apples versus oranges comparisons that get doled out as a result can make life complicated, frustrating, and difficult for traders and investors.

The next time I hear we have the world’s highest tax rate I am going to scream! I moved a company here from Europe 20 years ago because the actual taxes paid are low to non-existent. Just ask General Electric (GE), which pays a 3% tax rate. But hey, if this was easy, it would pay minimum wage, not ten figures, so I’ll take things as they are.

And the next time someone tells you that the US is history, consider that person a great short. It is they who are headed for the dustbin.

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For further information, visit our website or call us at 1-800-567-3115,  480-513-1830

Many people will be writing op-ed pieces and blogging about the role of gun control or how others should have been carrying guns in order to defend themselves and others in theatres.  I guess if those are the only two choices (a dichotomy that is often portrayed on TV news interviews) then I would opt for stricter gun control.  Its easy to blame either gun owners, progressive interpreters of the 2nd amendment who would limit guns to the military, gun dealers, or lax ammunition laws.  But the problem isn’t someone else.

Jesus told Peter when the disciple was going to defend the innocent rabbi with violence that all those who take up the sword (choose it, prefer it) will be destroyed by it.  To take up the sword as our preferred way of expressing our independence or our displeasure or our frustration has been our national habit from the beginning of our history.  That American meta-story gets expressed in our movies (doesn’t the Dark Knight take violent revenge on the ones perpetrating evil in society), TV, international policy, chlld-rearing, anti-crime measures, imprisonment policy, school yard bullying, etc.  Violence always gives rise to more violence.

Those who went to see Batman’s feats against evil didn’t bring this violence on themselves.  Its not the NRA’s fault.  Its not the fault of wimpy people who didn’t have their own concealed weapons.  Violence is OUR common national story from the way we fought the British oppressors, to the gun that tamed the west, to the line that held back the Nazis, to the Terminator.  Violence used for good ends and evil ends.  But violence none the less.  We live by it.  We are destroying ourselves by it.

That’s all well and good, you say, but what has THAT got to do with Truth, Tradition, and the American Way?

Everything, I say, well, not everything, but a lot. Which I explain in some detail in the analysis. But I’ll give you a little taste here and now.

In the first place that film reaches deep into American myth and lore: trains, the circus, the value of labor. Yes, the value of labor, in Dumbo. The tent-raising scene is stunning, showing hard-working men. AND animals, because the animals helped raise the tent as well. So we’ve got cross-species solidarity. Further, those workers and animals are skeptical about management, deeply skeptical. Yet management, then as now, is sneaky.

Sneaky sneaky sneaky!

The film depicts managment manipulation of workers to set them at odds with one another. We see scapegoating in action. Poor little Dumbo is made to take the fall for managment greed and stupidity. Let me repeat that: Dumbo is made to take the fall for managment greed and stupidity.

And you know how Dumbo gets out of it? Interspecies solidarity with Timothy Mouse and with a mess of jivometric crows. Those crows teach Dumbo about the importance of groovology. There is nothing so deep and traditional about America as groovology, groovology of all sorts. Why, the first book published in America was a hymnal. What’s hymn singing but Groovology 103?–patty cake is Groovology 101 and double-dutch is Groovology 102.

I’ve gone on enough setting up this thing. Read review, watch the movie, and ask yourself: Could this film be made in American today and now with the 1% lording it over the 99%?

I’ve just been watching Dumbo. I suppose it’s been over thirty years since I last saw it, or some part of it, so my expectations were most strongly influenced by what I’ve read in the last year or two. I was primed for the “Baby Mine” and “Pink Elephants on Parade” sequences. The crow sequence caught me off guard, but as soon as it got started I had a sense of recollection.

What’s interesting about that sequence, of course, is that the crows are voiced and animated as African-Americans, though they’re just crows. Many of those featureless roustabouts earlier in the film appear African-American as well; but they are people, and they don’t talk or sing. They are bit players. The crows are more significant to the plot. While they start out with ridicule – though a rather odd sort of ridicule as it’s directed at the notion of a flying elephant – they’re quickly won over to Dumbo’s cause by a “sermon” preached by “reverend rodent” (Timothy Mouse). They then work with Timothy on a scheme that succeeds in getting Dumbo to fly. That is to say, they provide both social support and practical aid.

What interests me is the specific role these African-American crows play. For that role is deeply sanctioned within American culture. Though I’m not prepared to sketch out a history, I can give some salient examples.

Perhaps the single most important example is Mark Twains’ The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Huck’s father was an abusive alcoholic who beat Huck so frequently and badly that Huck finally decided that he had to run away in order to save his live. In the course of running away he met up with Jim, a slave whom he knew and liked, who was running away as well. The fact that Jim is presented as simple and naïve shouldn’t blind us to the fact that he plays the role of a supportive a nurturing parent to Huck. Here then, at the canonical heart of American literature, we have an abused white child seeking solace in the company of an African American.

And that’s what Dumbo does. A couple of years later Disney does Song of the South – which I’ve not seen since whatever fragments showed up on Disney’s TV program – where the frame story has the same situation, a white child finding solace with a middle-aged African American, good old Uncle Remus. A few years after that, in 1950, Kirk Douglas stars as Rick Martin in Young Man with a Horn, based on the novel by Dorothy Baker (which, in turn, has some relation to the life of Bix Beiderbicke). Rick Martin was orphaned as a young boy and came under the spell of jazz. He was befriended by Art Hazzard, an African American trumpeter, who gave him trumpet lessons and acted as a father to him.

Thus the fact that those crows in Dumbo are given African American moves and voices is not at all a casual matter. It taps very deep currents in America’s cultural mythology. Disney’s audience would have had no difficulty seeing and hearing those crows as African American. After all, Amos ‘n Andy had been a popular radio program since the early 1920s. The sound of black voices was a familiar one in just about every household that had a radio – though the characters on the show were voiced by white actors. But there was nothing unusual about that, either; that practice dates back to the 19th century. And Cliff “Jiminy Cricket” Edwards, who voiced the lead crow, was clearly well-grounded in that tradition. The other crows were voiced by members of the Hall Johnson Choir, which was an African American outfit.

Now, in bringing this up, I’m not trying to tar Disney with the charge of racism. I’m just pointing out what’s there and how it relates to larger patterns in American culture. Walt Disney wouldn’t have achieved his near mythic status if he hadn’t been able to reach deep into American mythology. This is one example of his ability to do so, and in a startling way – in a story about an outcast baby elephant. [Surely it is worth nothing that those crows were animated by one of the jazz musicians on Disney’s staff, Ward Kimball.]

So, Dumbo is restored to society through the mediation of some African-American crows. Once I got that far in my thinking I began to rethink the previous sequence, the pink elephants. That is a marvelous piece of animation, but what does it have to do with the story? How does it advance the action? To be sure, something very important happens in the course of that sequence – Dumbo flies up into the tree – but that event isn’t depicted in the sequence itself. The sequence is just there.

Well, what if Disney and his animators had decided to depict Dumbo’s first flight? It seems to me that that would entail real problems, especially for Disney’s aesthetics, if not cult, of cuteness. It is one thing to show this cute big-eared baby elephant getting tipsy and blowing funny bubbles and seeing things, but do you really what to depict him bumbling around and somehow managing to fly without really knowing what he was doing? While there’s no technical difficulty in doing that, it does seem to me that keeping it realistic, even within the terms of the cartoon, would require that you besmirch Dumbo’s cuteness, or come dangerously close to doing so. Further, it would rob the “learning to fly” sequence of its interest. There wouldn’t be any dramatic point to it. Finally, it would reduce the difference between Dumbo’s circus world and the crow’s world to one of mere geography. We see Dumbo stumble around in the circus, he somehow begins flapping his ears, takes to the sky, and ends up in a tall tree – all before our watchful gaze. How dull, but disillusioning.

Instead, Disney takes us into this marvelous surrealistic sequence of transmogrifying pink elephants. What that does is eradicate the circus world from out minds. And that circus world was a pretty cynical one. It’s not simply that Dumbo and his mother were ostracized, but that the circus itself was not a place of fun and fantasy, but just a gig. Whatever it is that children have in mind when daydreaming about running off to join the circus, this is not the circus they dream about. The boredom and cynicism displayed by the animals (e.g. the yawning lion) in the opening day parade, for example, was marvelous, as was the nastiness of the clowns. These performers are, after all, what the show is about, and Disney reveals them to us as just, well, creatures, with interests of their own and no particular admiration and affection for the circus that so enthralls the audience.

The pink elephants sequence replaces all that with an example of real magic and whimsy – though at times its also a frightening. Thus, at the end of the sequence when the last of the pink elephants transform into clouds at sunrise, we’re ready to enter a different moral universe, one with different values. It’s not simply that the crows, as individuals, are more sympathetic to Dumbo, but that they live by different values than those status-driven elephants that shunned Dumbo and his mother and those clowns who were only interested in exploiting Dumbo so they could hit the boss up for a raise. The crows were able to consider Dumbo’s ears as signs of remarkable ability and were willing to act on that perception, though with a little deception thrown in (the “magic” feather).

The pink elephants sequence tells us that the difference between the circus world, in which Dumbo is shunned and his mother imprisoned, and the crow’s world (in the sky), is not simply one of geography. It is a difference in imaginative and moral capacity. Thus the transition from one world to the other is not merely physical; it is also mental and imaginative. The pink elephants sequence underlines that aspect of the transition.

A few other things are worth noting in this general context. First, while Snow White and Pinocchio were set in a fairytale Europe of sometime past, Dumbo is set in a highly stylized American present. Thus in the newspapers that flash across the screen after Dumbo’s triumph on the first has a story entitled “Britain in Greatest Offensive” while a bit later we see a color picture of Dumbo-inspired airplanes entitled “’Dumbombers’ For Defense.” The characterization of the crows is another aspect of this contemporary setting. Then there is that odd stork beginning. I have no idea whether or not it derives from the source book or was created by Disney. But there’s a very telling lyric in the song: “You may be poor or rich, it doesn’t matter which. Millionaires, they get theirs, like the butcher and the baker . . .” That lyric in effect frames the rest of the story with egalitarian sentiment.

Thus when the elephant matrons reject Dumbo, their actions explicitly contrast with that framing sentiment. The film is not sympathetic to them at this point. But that’s not the final judgment. During sequence where we see laborers setting up the circus tent during a ferocious rain storm—the show must go on!—the film surely asks us to identify with all those who do that back-breaking physical work, a group that includes both the faceless roustabouts and the elephants and other circus animals—a bit of cross-species comradeship, incidentally, that’s especially telling in our era of growing ecological awareness. When we get to the circus show itself we see the elephants building a ridiculous pyramid while the ringmaster is blathering away. At this point the film definitely sympathizes with them. Their lives are on the line, but there’s no evidence that the ringmaster-owner is concerned with anything beyond spectacle. At the very end of the film, of course, the matrons are restored to grace in the (fragile) bounty that has come to the circus through Dumbo’s success.

What interests me is the scene after the pyramid collapses, bringing down the big top, and the matrons are wounded and bandaged. That’s when they take a solemn vow that Dumbo is no longer an elephant. That, of course, is cruel of them. It is precisely because their cruelty is so obvious that it is also obvious that Dumbo is being scapegoated for that disaster. Did he play a role in the disaster? Yes. Was it his fault? Not in any clear and obvious way. But they can punish him while the ringmaster, who surely shares in the blame, is beyond their reach. That are, after all, only elephants and are ultimately dependent on that boss for their livelihood.

It seems to me this cuts deeper than the elephant’s initial disdain for Dumbo. That’s mere snobbery and we have to take it at face value. This scapegoating is the result of a rather nasty social process which is, however, common and familiar in tens of thousands of school yards and neighborhoods and central to the psycho-dynamics of all too many political campaigns. Surely Disney is to be commended for depicting this process.

In the end, though, it’s not clear to me that Disney was entirely successful with Dumbo. For one thing the ending seems a bit quick and easy to me. In a way the pink elephants sequence is too successful; it simply erases the previous movie from our memory. But that erasure does little or nothing for those faceless roustabouts, or even those avaricious and exploitive clowns. Dumbo has his crow “posse” and he and his mother now live in a luxurious railroad car. But the values that kicked him to the curb are still in place. The matrons may be singing Dumbo’s song, but they’re singing it in the careful accents of middle-class propriety.

The emphasis is certainly on Dumbo as an individual. But, by establishing a contemporary setting, an egalitarian sentiment, middle-brow snobbery, and those African-American crows, Disney entails a wider social context. This leaves me with the odd feeling that, in some ways Dumbo is a more ambitious film than, say, Pinocchio. The Pinocchio story seems strongly self-contained within the relationships between the three central characters; it’s an entirely personal story. Dumbo, though intensely focused on a very important relationship – that between mother and child – embeds that relationship in the larger world in a fairly open-ended way. Disney was reaching for more than he undertook in Pinocchio. Is it too much to see in Dumbo the first step down a path that Disney chose not to explore?

Quick reminder: The Casualties will be playing at Planet Trog in Whitehall next Friday (March 16.) In case you forgot, The Casualties were supposed to play here last October but it managed to snow on the day of their show! Possibly to only time that has ever happened in the LV. Seriously, snow in October!? And it didn’t even snow again until late December. WTF!? Anyway, The Causalties will be playing with Toxic Holocaust, Forbidden Dreams, American Myth and Slums. More info can be found here.

By Marlena Chertock

April 28, 2011

Kathryn Thompson plays with her one-year-old grandson, Josh, during her break at Acorn Coffee Shop. Thompson is a seasonal worker and is laid off during the summer. Photo by Marlena Chertock.

Seasonal workers can be found all around Elon University. They make your sandwiches, empty your trash and swipe your Phoenix Cards. They go on unemployment, have food stamps and have outstanding bills to pay. At least once a day, you will most likely have an interaction with people struggling to pay their bills and live off their wages. These people are facing the realities of seasonal work.

All ARAMARK employees are seasonal workers, whereas other departments at Elon University employ year-round workers, according to Director of Physical Plant Robert Buchholz.

Inequality is embedded in society.

It is seen in multiple ways, through health insurance costs, salary and the number of jobs workers hold.

At a time of national budget deficit, cuts in multiple sectors and talk of raising taxes, there are people struggling more than the typical American family. These people are seasonal workers.

Preparing food for Elon students seasonally

Kathryn Thompson, an ARAMARK worker at Acorn Coffee Shop, also works in the cafeteria at Southern Middle School during the year. She works two jobs to make enough money to pay her bills, she said.

Graphic by Marlena Chertock.

Thompson is a seasonal worker at Elon. She works on a seasonal basis, only during certain times of the year. The university schedule dictates that she work when students are attending classes.

Both of her parents attended Elon in the 1950s. They majored in education and were teachers around the town of Belmont, N.C.

“I like the atmosphere,” she said. “The students sometimes make you smile.”

Cathy Chambers also works at Acorn. She said she makes a good gross amount, but doesn’t bring that home. Her bills can amount to $889 a month, for medical expenses and her house utilities, she said.

Thompson, Chambers and other ARAMARK employees work many hours to feed Elon students. But they don’t always make enough money to pay their bills or medical debt.

The seasonal nature of work creates inequities throughout all universities.

Roles of serving and being served

“What’s taking so long?” two male students said while they waited for their food in Varsity Sports Grille.

“What is she doing, getting with one of the cooks?” one teased about a waitress.

This is one interaction between students and workers. Not all are as mean-spirited.

Students and workers are placed in different roles on a campus. The students study, have fun and eat. The workers are there to serve students, cooking, feeding and cleaning after them.

“This role of serving and being served creates inequality, even if just in the mind,” said Ken Hassell, an associate professor of art whose work focuses on social, economic and cultural inequalities. “Inequalities are formed from systemic problems.”

He photographs and makes audio recordings of people in Appalachia, who are often the object of stereotyping.

Working seasonally means unwanted breaks

“I make good money here,” Chambers said. “But we’re laid off so much.”

Elon has many breaks for students, and when students go on breaks so do workers.

“I wish we didn’t have so many breaks,” she said. “It makes it hard to catch up on bills. I fall behind.”

Robin Fogleman, who works at Varsity, doesn’t blame ARAMARK for the breaks.

“It’s not ARAMARK’s fault,” Fogleman said. “It’s the university schedule. ARAMARK doesn’t decide breaks.”

The university operates on a semester schedule, with a fall and spring semester, so there is not as much need for food during the summer. There are summer sessions offered but enrollment decreases from during the year.

Some ARAMARK employees work in the summer, but the number of workers is much less. Approximately 20 to 30 workers are employed for the summer, said Jeff Gazda, the resident district manager of ARAMARK.

Providing jobs, benefits for community members

Many workers have been with ARAMARK for 25 or 30 years. The company provides jobs for the community, Gazda said.

“I’m not at the top of the organization here,” he said. “Turn the pyramid upside down. I’m working for my management staff. I’m proud of working for the company because of that.”

Four workers started as hourly employees and eventually became managers, said Megan Phelps, a senior human resources manager of ARAMARK.

“Some people don’t want to take that route, and that’s fine,” Gazda said. “Some people are comfortable in their roles. They get to spend time with their family at the holidays. But we encourage promotional opportunities.”

ARAMARK has a program called “thrive bucks,” where employees are recognized for hard work and good attitudes. Employees can collect these bucks and redeem them for gift cards.

“We make sure everyone’s appreciated and recognized,” Gazda said.

The company has repeatedly been ranked high in terms of ethical standards and working conditions.

ARAMARK ranked No. 1 in FORTUNE magazine’s 2011 list of “World’s Most Admired Companies.” In 2010, the company was also recognized as one of the “World’s Most Ethical Companies” by the Ethishpere Institution. BusinessWeek named ARAMARK one of the “Best Places to Launch a Career” in 2009.

ARAMARK didn’t offer so many benefits to its workers until students at Harvard University began a strike in 2006 against the campus employer to raise worker salaries and improve working conditions. Students pointed out some of these discrepancies and ARAMARK responded accordingly.

There are many student and non-student organizations in North Carolina and the United States that work to raise awareness of worker rights and working conditions. The Western North Carolina Worker’s Center educates allies, partners and leaders in the defense of worker rights.

ARAMARK offers its workers several benefits. But some seasonal workers are still struggling to pay their bills and earn enough money to live on.

“The idea of having the summer off is very nice, but hard because you get behind on payments,” Fogleman said.

She has worked at Varsity for eight years and lives 10 minutes from campus. Her husband works at an electrical contractor in Greensboro and also makes an hourly wage.

Gazda said he tells workers upfront that this is seasonal work. Nothing is kept secret.

‘It’s still not enough’

Cathy Chambers is an ARAMARK employee who works at Acorn Coffee Shop. She receives an hourly wage and said it is difficult to pay her medical bills. Photo by Marlena Chertock.

Chambers has $1,000 in medical bills alone to repay. Each month she has to decide which bill will go unpaid, she said.

“I have to sell and pawn my gold jewelry,” she said. “Sometimes I’m tempted to sell my kitchen table or couch, just things to get by. And I’ve done that.”

Two years ago Chambers found out she is anemic, a deficiency of hemoglobin that can cause a reduced number of red blood cells. She needs dialysis procedures often.

“I still owe the hospital thousands of dollars for two times in the emergency room,” she said. “There’s no way I can pay it.”

She also owes the hospital for the colonoscopy she had two years ago.

Chambers doesn’t receive medical, vision or dental insurance in the summer because it’s too expensive.

Sometimes she tells her story to the nurses and doctors. Earlier this year, a nurse sent her a letter, along with five $20 bills tucked inside, that said she didn’t have to pay anything for her most recent treatment.

Chambers said she often receives gifts because of her illness and inability to make monthly payments. People have given her clothes, money and food.

She’s hoping someone will give her an old computer so she can start a second business selling makeup. She also wants to be able to pay her bills online, she said.

The dining hall workers are paid on an hourly basis. ARAMARK offers a starting wage of $10 an hour, higher than the minimum wage of $7.25.

The starting wage at ARAMARK is 40 percent higher than the minimum wage at other hospitality and dining locations, Phelps said.

Even with the higher wages and benefits ARAMARK provides, many of these workers say they are still unable to pay their bills.

“You make decent money,” Fogleman said. “But that’s nothing when you have a second mortgage, car and house payments, groceries, guitar lessons for your son. It’s still not enough.”

Thompson tries to pay all her bills, she said. She has to pay some late.

“You know what bills are next and if it will be late,” she said. “You ask yourself will you have enough by then, what are you going to have to do without?”

Fogleman has to decide which bills she can pay on time and which can wait, she said.

“We’ll owe medical bills the rest of our life,” she said of her family.

Her husband was diagnosed with Langerhans Disease two years ago, a rare disease in which abnormal cells migrate from the skin to lymph nodes. It can cause bone swelling, severe rashes and lymph node enlargements.

Graphic by Marlena Chertock.

Workers employed by the university are paid more than the hourly seasonal workers employed by ARAMARK.

While Rudolph Singleton cleans all of McEwen Dining Hall, Fogleman makes food for students in Varsity. They work in the same place, but receive very different salaries.

Singleton has been a custodian at Elon for three years. His wife is also a custodian at Elon.

Singleton cleans McEwen and several Greek houses every day. He often says, “Have a great day,” or “How are y’all doing?” to passing students.

He works in a division of Physical Plant. Physical Plant employees include a brick mason, landscapers, housekeepers, recycling and trash collectors, plumbers and electricians, mechanics, automotive shop workers, carpenters and painters.

Workers employed by the university are full-time employees and receive a higher salary than seasonal workers.

The average salary for a typical Physical Plant employee varies substantially depending on many factors, but mostly how long a worker has been employed. The starting salary is around $20,000 and the average is around $35,000 to $40,000 a year, Buchholz said.

The salaries of administrative leadership could not be released, because of Elon’s status as a private university, said Dan Anderson, the assistant vice president and director of university relations.

For seasonal ARAMARK employees, the average salary may amount to $20,000 a year.

Employed, but on unemployment

Fogleman is not caught up on her bill payments from last summer. It’s a hardship to be on unemployment and pay health insurance, she said.

Every summer, most of the workers at Varsity go on unemployment to receive money when they are laid off.

Most ARAMARK workers go on unemployment during the breaks and summer.

The current rate of unemployment in Alamance County for January was 10.8, compared to 10.6 last year, according to Lisa Arnette of the Employment Security Commission of North Carolina. Figures are delayed a few months for federal reporting.

In 2010, with the recession in full swing, according to Arnette, the rate of unemployment was 11.0 in May and 10.6 in August.

The national rate of unemployment was 8.8 percent in March, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The number of unemployed people in the United States is currently 13.5 million.

The rate of unemployment in Alamance County, North Carolina has stayed steadily high over the last year. Graphic by Marlena Chertock.

During breaks between semesters, ARAMARK employees are temporarily laid off and then return to their positions when the new semester begins, Gazda said.

“This is typical for employees serving higher education institutions where the employment is seasonal,” he said.

ARAMARK files unemployment for its employees, he said.

“Not all companies do that,” Phelps said.

Thompson had only been on unemployment once before she worked at Elon. She worked at a car factory in Mebane, N.C. The plant was shut down in 2003 and Thompson and many other employees were laid off.

Now that she’s been working at ARAMARK for three years, she’s been on unemployment every summer and sometimes during the breaks, she said.

“I wish I could send my grandchildren to summer camp,” she said. “But I don’t have enough money.”

Thompson grew up on a campground. Her parents made their farm into a camp for young kids during the summer.

The food staff at the camp was mostly people who were cafeteria workers in schools during the year, she said. They needed summer jobs.

Her mom lives on the campground. The cabins and stoves are still there, Thompson said.

Health care discrepancies

Last year Fogleman put her son and husband on her ARAMARK health insurance, but not herself.

“It’s too expensive,” she said. “Last year it was $224 to cover just yourself or other dependents.”

People who are making less money are paying higher premiums and charges for health insurance, said Beth Warner, associate professor of human service studies Beth Warner. She researches and teaches about social justice issues.

ARAMARK pays 80 percent of costs when employees go to the hospital and the other 20 percent comes out of their pockets.

The wealthier and higher paid an employee is, the more his employer pays for his health insurance, she said. It’s a perk of being a CEO.

“In essence, lower income people at Elon pay more for health care than higher income people,” she said. “That’s what happens everywhere. There’s part of the problem in the U.S.”

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer, Thompson said.

“About every middle class person knows that,” she said.

Seasonal work as a social issue

In theory, capitalism ensures equal opportunities to all, Hassell said.

“But that’s not always the reality,” he said.

The reality is that disparities exist and not everyone has equal access.

In David Shipler’s 2005 book, “The Working Poor: Invisible in America,” he writes about the American Myth. It is similar to the American Dream, which states if people work hard they can become successful and work their way up the ladder to achieve what they want, what they dream.

But this is a myth, Shipler writes. Frequently, people in America work long hours for years and don’t move up the ranks. They get stuck in low-income jobs and cycles of poverty.

Seasonal workers are necessary for a capitalist economy, said Rebecca Todd Peters, an associate professor of religious studies. Peters researches economics, globalization and teaches classes about wealth and poverty.

They fill a certain gap, she said. But they also face a myriad of interwoven difficulties and complexities.

“The structure of this economy is to squeeze the most out of workers for the least,” said Ted Smukler, public policy director of Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ) in Chicago. IWJ is an organization that educates and mobilizes religious communities in the United States on issues of wages, benefits and working conditions.

People are laid off and hired for less, he said.

For universities, it would be hard to change the seasonal work schedule, as it’s built into academic schedules.

Elon operates on a semester schedule, so workers only work when the university is in session. Some work during the summers, but the number remains lower than during the year.

“The economy is moving towards a situation where many jobs are contingent on temporary jobs,” Smukler said. “Some are perma-temp workers. They work seven, eight years for the same employers but aren’t getting benefits that employees get.”

This is an important issue, Peters said.

“What happens to people who are filling those jobs in-between,” she said. “How do we as a society respond to that? We need these workers. But at the same time, they need something more than the way in which they work.”

Some people can benefit from seasonal employment, working summer jobs and finding a retail job during the holiday season, Smukler said.

“But clearly, it leaves workers vulnerable, without income for a long amount of time and puts strains on the state offices,” he said.

ARAMARK may be ranking high in BusinessWeek, but this doesn’t reflect the lives of most of the seasonal workers on campus.

This is not necessarily the company’s fault, like Fogleman said. But it does allude to problems in the economic system and people who fall behind, like the people Shipler wrote about in his book.

View this article as a PDF.

***

Cathy Chambers talks about second jobs

Everything can be done faster. Isn’t that the point? But is faster really better? That is an assumption so many people make. We can do everything faster and have more time.

The problem is, if this were true, why do people seem to have less and less time? When I was in college, I learned that women actually spend more time cleaning now than they did before industrial civilization, or even than they did 50 or 60 years ago. Why is that? We just have higher and higher standards that require more and more technology.

Technological advances are always in response to a problem usually caused by technological advances. Do you ever notice that? And yet, somehow the scale of the disasters and those it impacts becomes greater, deeper, bigger with each new technical advance or fix. We’ve poisoned all the water and food and caused cancer around the globe! Don’t worry, we’ll invent a medicine for that. Oops! That medicine caused another disease. Don’t worry! We’ve got a medicine for that.

Meanwhile, these things happen faster than cultures (what is left of non-Western cultures, I should say) can respond.

Nothing that is being grown or built on much of the land on this planet has anything to do with the reality that is on that land base. It is just modern civilization superimposed upon nature. Instead of working in and with the land, we put our stuff, our buildings, our garbage, our tech fixes upon it.

So many things in civilization are backwards. This culture isn’t about materialism. Even that is a lie. If it were, Americans would be complaining about us needing more things. But no. We have plenty of things, plenty of food. Homes sit empty. Cars are not being bought. Extra food is thrown away. There are too many things and not enough people buying them. What I most commonly hear is that we need more “jobs.” We need to “create jobs.” We need to work for work’s sake. It doesn’t matter what we do, if it has meaning, if we create anything, or even if we make a bigger mess.

But we need jobs for the sake of having bigger numbers on our screens that apparently have some association with how much stuff we can buy – mostly stuff we don’t actually need to live. What we really need – food – is locked up and controlled mainly by three major corporations. We need the water that is now polluted. We also need shelter, but our homes are not built for the land they are on. The foundation of all of what civilization has built relies on a cheap, endless supply of oil.

But don’t worry, we’ll eventually find the mega-technological advance that will fix it all! That is the mythology of our culture. We don’t need gods and goddesses. We don’t need totems. We don’t even need modern religion. We’re waiting for the Mega-Tech-Fix to come and save us all from ourselves and make work the idea that so far has not worked. Here’s what the Mega-Tech-Fix will make true: Humans are separate from the entire rest of the earth and can do whatever they want to make their lives easier, and we can live longer and longer and we will have enough to eat no matter how many of us there are and we will have places to put all the garbage and toxic waste humans have been creating.

Don’t worry! I’m sure it will be here soon! Just keep playing your video games and watching your screens for the news!

Part of the American dream and myth is the “self-made man” (and yes, today’s woman), the “pulling oneself up by the bootstraps,” the taunting challenge thrown loudly into the face of not only the panhandler, but one’s own child….”Get a job!”  Among the many painful lessons of the current lingering, grinding recession and joblessness that has gripped American society – and much of the world – with steely tightness is that “it ain’t that easy.”

The last month that official figures came out, November, 2010, reported a tenacious 9.8% of the American workforce out of work, with a chronically rising percentage of those millions falling into the “long-term unemployed” (more than 27 months) category.  Exactly two weeks ago, November 30, 2010, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned all of us of “very severe economic and social consequences from this level of unemployment.”

There aren’t even any workhouses, Mr. Scrooge.  And the alleged “shelter” of jails and prisons – why, they get free room and board, recreation, and all kinds of coddling, complain unsympathetic citizens….perhaps especially the right-wing conservatives.  But those penal institutions are “turning ‘em out on the streets.”  Overcrowding and lack of funds end up denying that answer to the problem for Mr. Scrooge.

What society is to do about the poor, the chronically unemployed, the lower-rung criminals, and the homeless is a huge, huge challenge.  But to bring it down to a more modest, personal level, what can you and I do?  How can we help, if we have more compassion than Scrooge?

In December 12th’s post, I made slight reference to sometimes giving cash to the homeless and street people in downtown Los Angeles, including outside the shiny new Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.  When I did so, there were usually some standards I tried to maintain.  There could be no overt evidence that the recipient was under the influence of street drugs or alcohol.  There should have been some evidence of the person making an effort to do something positive – like cleaning up trash on the sidewalk, or helpfully giving directions to a tourist or out-of-towner.  But even if those things applied, was I doing anything truly helpful for that homeless or street person?  Or was I mostly making myself feel good at my generosity….and not really helping by funding more drugs and booze?

Fielding requests for assistance – mostly appeals for money – was a regular part of the pastor’s job when I was in parish ministry.  And any experienced pastor had to learn that if the church’s local mission funds weren’t going to be constantly “ripped off” by the myriad of con artists and their sob stories, a number of tactics needed to be employed.  For instance, instead of cash, a voucher for a free meal at a local, cooperating restaurant; or a voucher for a night’s stay at an inexpensive motel; or referral to a food bank, a shelter, a soup kitchen, or free clinic.  And usually the best, most truly helpful, but hardest to employ – a meeting with a social worker, or a city or county agency that could not only help with the current need….but move in the direction of more lasting solutions to the poverty and homelessness.

The easiest, quickest way of dealing with the persons of Mr. Scrooge’s contempt – easier for me and for them – was to “get rid of them” by handing over the cash.  But most often, that was not helping in any genuine way.

Americans spend a lot of time wishing for things to change.

A lot of times they do, and a lot of times they don’t.

I remember growing up as a kid and always wanting to toss a dime in the wishing well at the mall. I knew very well it was a waste of good hard cash, I was quite the little miser, and on top of that I never really had any particularly great things to wish for, but I always found it quite satisfying. Maybe it was the experience.

The only other time I remember regularly and ritually making wishes was at birthdays. Yes, I was one of “those” kids who wished for a pony just about every year until I realized I really wasn’t getting one. But I guess that was because I didn’t have any other concrete wishes to make. It was something you only got to do once a year, so I always felt it had to be spectacular. As I grew up, I took to making wishes for fun birthday parties, as the cake usually preceeded a sleepover or some other type of gathering.

Now that I’m older and more mature, though, it seems like I’m making more wishes than I ever have before.

I never really grew out of superstition, even though I was raised in a home of pretty strict Atheistic beliefs.

But the process of wish-making has become more advanced as I’ve grown, and I’ve realized that there’s much more meaning behind it than even the classic mall wishing wells would have you believe as a kid.

A lot of people see wishes as a way of getting out of doing real work–you wish for something to happen instead of making it happen. But wishes can be a very active process. If you work to achieve your wish instead of waiting for your desire to materialize out of thin air, wishes can actually help you be more productive.

But I’m going to stick to analyzing it from a metaphysical standpoint from now on.

What’s the basic premise behind using a wishing well? I think that for most Americans, it entails giving some sort of offering–the monetary kind. By willingly giving up wealth we open ourselves to other things or balance our karma by showing that we aren’t greedy. But let’s face it, if you’re throwing a dime down a well, you’re no Ghandi. Emptying your wallet without any solid energy behind it isn’t really going to do you any good.

And when it comes to birthday candle wishes, I think people see it mostly as a special privelege more than something that has power behind it. But if you don’t actually consider the meaning behind the birthday, what makes a birthday candle wish any different than a wish made on any other day?

In response, I really have one thing to say: The exchange of energy is what makes wishes work.

A look at a similar wish, one with a serious backbone, shows some constructive changes.

A wish could be made with an offering of a coin–a symbol of human wealth and earth and shiny things, generally a good “trade item”–to the Earth through the mechanic of a well. Obviously, a good non-commercial well is dug deep into the ground where the offering is likely to lay undisturbed. Good conditions for an offering to a spirit, god, or simply a symbol of your willingness to sacrifice. By giving that coin, you are symbolizing your commitment to make your wish come true, and opening avenues for other forces to help you on your way.

As for birthday wishes, birthdays are the end and beginning of a cycle, just as the beginning of a new year or season. For this reason, it’s best to make “closing” wishes, or wishes that are meant to banish or ward away, or “opening” wishes, wishes for a new cycle to successfully start. A closing wish, for example, would be one to recover from an illness; blowing out the candle symbolizes a decrease in energy or illness. An opening wish could be something as simple as a new year’s resolution, perhaps for an abundant year. Because a birthday is a “between” time, closing and opening wishes are especially effective.

Wishing in these ways is decidedly ritualistic. If you’re not comfortable ritualizing your wishes like this–many Americans aren’t–that’s fine. Just keep in mind the meaning behind each wish you make, and do something to make it special or set it apart. What’s important is the energy. Keep the wish fresh in your mind at all times, allow energy to flow naturally, and expect reasonable results.

Try finding your childhood again with those once-lost wishing wells.

You never know what you might uncover.

“It’s shocking to realize how seldom we change our basic beliefs or understanding when confronted with new information that normally would affect change. Instead, we bend or ignore facts to fit our established world view. John Maynard Keynes once said “When the facts change, I change my opinion. What do you do, sir?” Sadly most people don’t subscribe to this logical practice. Instead, conformation bias and denial are the tools we use to manage and manipulate information to our liking. And there are plenty of governmental, corporate and private citizens ready to help us accomplish this through deliberate and targeted propaganda. The most common personal warning sign that this is happening is the pain of cognitive dissonance, which is usually set off when new information is in conflict with long established and dearly held views.

Rarely do we push through this cognitive pain to reappraise our inventory of established truths for validity or relevance. It’s so much easier to discard ugly deviations, or cherry pick information that confirms our preferred vision, rather than conduct the top to bottom review that’s called for when the facts change. Intellectual laziness is the polite term for this phenomenon. I think a more honest explanation is deliberate and mostly conscious denial. However, even when I’m alert for and aware of this phenomenon, I’m still surprised how often I participate. It’s frightening to see how deeply conditioned we are in the art of self deception. The truth hurts, so I employ the most powerful pain killer know to man, that of denial. It’s extremely difficult to reject popular opinion and strike out on our own independent path. Group think is indoctrinated into us from birth and socially rewarded at every turn. It’s emotionally safer and more comfortable if you stay near the center of the pack. Herd mentality in all its glory, which is corralled by the public myth and which we too are the keepers.”

End of Empire – Propaganda and the American Myth

Zero Hedge by Cognitive Dissonance on 11/29/2009

“Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive”….ourselves. With apologies to Sir Walter Scott.

If only life were as neat and orderly as my ancient history text book showed it to be. There it was on glossy paper, spread out across two sets of adjoining pages, maps of the ancient and modern world. Including time lines top and bottom, with countries outlined and identified. Underneath their modern English names were one or two older names in smaller stylized script, often including exact beginning and end dates. I remember one in particular that caught my eye. “United States of America” followed by the year 1776. But with no end date indicated, it looked like unfinished business to me. You’ve got to love those historians and their exact dates.

Of course, in reality there are no exact dates for the birth and death of city/states, other than in the author’s mind. Children continue to be born, the old still die, and life goes on under different circumstances. But you’re rarely informed of the subjective nature of historical events when you’re young and impressionable, so they’re presented in the history books as fact. The last thing the reigning Empire wants is to appear uncertain about previous Empires. Even before we begin to read and comprehend on our own, we’re presented with the illusion of a beginning and end to everything, often with very clear lines of demarcation. This concept is continuously reinforced through our daily indoctrination of carefully scripted news stories, care of our modern media saturated existence. Naturally, critical thinking is optional and definitively not encouraged.

Mix in a healthy dose of hard core science, where you learn very early there are correct and incorrect answers to all your questions, and a pattern of social myth making emerges. Of course, the correct answers are held for public safekeeping by our cultural high priests and authority figures, be they academic, governmental, scientific or religious. Lest you forget, cultural icons and heroes must always be respected and deferred to. Maybe now’s a good time to remember that most history and science books are written and re-written by those very same keepers of the public mythology. What we believe as a culture, sometimes called our public myth, is usually determined by those whose pockets are the deepest or most powerful, not by those who are the wisest and most knowledgeable.

Have you ever read a book written by the survivors of the vanquished, the so called losers? I have, a number of times, and it’s usually very enlightening to see the world from the other side of the bloody divide. In their hands, our cultural myths aren’t treated with the same loving care and respect we afford them, nor should they be. But of course they must be lying because they have an ax to grind. Revisionist history is how those in power politely describe the writings of the defeated and the victims crushed in the head long rush of conquering empire. The public myth tells us that the losers can do nothing but taut the victorious with their lies. Ignore them and they’ll go away. Besides, the winners never lie about the facts, though we’re told there’s plenty of room for differences of opinion. And just about everything can be reduced to an opinion if you’re looking to obscure.

Of course, one of the unspoken duties of the winners is to distort the written and visual record, so that it conforms to the public myth. This is the principle reason why recently retired or replaced holders of powerful governmental and military positions are handed huge advances to write their memoirs. These sacred tomes of divine wisdom are quickly embraced by other propagandists as the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help their Gods of propaganda. Once in hand, it’s quickly woven into the fabric of the public myth as supporting documentation. Thus another slice of the propaganda cycle is complete and ready for its next rotation.

We possess extremely complex belief systems and world views. How they develop and evolve is greatly influenced by external information sources we rarely question or challenge. After all, these sources are our cultural authority figures, the experts, professionals and intelligentsia that form our cultural propaganda delivery and support system. These sources cannot be seriously questioned, particularly from within, without being declared a heretic. Just look at how Zero Hedge, and other non-conforming web sites, are treated as an example of how heresy is handled these days. While we may not pay much attention to everything we hear or see, our unconscious is absorbing it all, raw and unfiltered. This information feeds into and supports our world view with little conscious thought or scrutiny. This is the reason why repetition is so vitally important to effective propaganda. Our brain always absorbs even when we do not look and listen.

It’s shocking to realize how seldom we change our basic beliefs or understanding when confronted with new information that normally would affect change. Instead, we bend or ignore facts to fit our established world view. John Maynard Keynes once said “When the facts change, I change my opinion. What do you do, sir?” Sadly most people don’t subscribe to this logical practice. Instead, conformation bias and denial are the tools we use to manage and manipulate information to our liking. And there are plenty of governmental, corporate and private citizens ready to help us accomplish this through deliberate and targeted propaganda. The most common personal warning sign that this is happening is the pain of cognitive dissonance, which is usually set off when new information is in conflict with long established and dearly held views.

Rarely do we push through this cognitive pain to reappraise our inventory of established truths for validity or relevance. It’s so much easier to discard ugly deviations, or cherry pick information that confirms our preferred vision, rather than conduct the top to bottom review that’s called for when the facts change. Intellectual laziness is the polite term for this phenomenon. I think a more honest explanation is deliberate and mostly conscious denial. However, even when I’m alert for and aware of this phenomenon, I’m still surprised how often I participate. It’s frightening to see how deeply conditioned we are in the art of self deception. The truth hurts, so I employ the most powerful pain killer know to man, that of denial. It’s extremely difficult to reject popular opinion and strike out on our own independent path. Group think is indoctrinated into us from birth and socially rewarded at every turn. It’s emotionally safer and more comfortable if you stay near the center of the pack. Herd mentality in all its glory, which is corralled by the public myth and which we too are the keepers.

I often say all writers are essentially propagandists and that applies to me as well. I’m using this forum to cherry pick information which I then present in the most compelling manner to make my case. In effect, I’m feeding you my spin, which along with other pieces can be used to build a myth. The most effective propaganda is that whose basic premise is slipped by the reader or TV viewer so smoothly it’s never recognized. Once the premise is planted and accepted, the hard work is done and the fish is quickly reeled in. What’s that you say? You’re too smart to let the wool be pulled over your eyes? That you can discern truth from lies and would eventually figure it out given enough time and inclination? Honestly ask yourself, how much effort would you put into examining something you already believe to be true? Wouldn’t you deem it a major waste of your time? Consider the premise I put forth in the title of this article. Did you notice? Did you question? Or did you accept and start to read?

Most people see information as chunks of data that can be compartmentalized, examined and manipulated. But rarely do we recognize that many of the truths we hold as impeccable are based upon long lines of information. If at any point this information could be proven false, the entire line is suspect, along with your impeccable truth. Consider a long string of mathematical calculations. While there may be dozens of individual problems with separate answers, each answer then feeds into another calculation as a sum or variable. Make a mistake at any point in the line and the entire data stream is corrupt. How we view our world is based upon many preconceived notions and beliefs. Change just one small piece we previously thought correct and everything changes to some extent. Change two or three and suddenly we have a crisis of confidence and a cognitive dissonance. Yet when we feel that pain, how often do we reboot and reexamine everything? Why would you reexamine what you think you know to be correct, particularly when most everyone else is in agreement? Peer pressure and conditioning are hard to resist, even in the privacy of your own mind. “We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

My basic premise and the basis for this series of articles is that the American Empire is ending. In fact, it has peaked and is now in rapid decline. While I can’t offer an exact date for this change of direction, it doesn’t diminish my argument in the least. I’d be hard pressed to give you the date for the decline of the Roman Empire, but clearly it followed the same trajectory. Did Rome’s downward spiral start when the capital was moved to Constantinople in 330 AD? Or when Rome was sacked by the Visigoths in 410 AD? It matters little at this point, except to the historians. While America descends, China and India ascend.

Actually I would argue that while Empires come and go, the culture of environmental and human exploitation and destruction we call civilization has grown in efficiency over the past 3000 years. We Americans now stand proudly at the pinnacle of the insanity, picking up where the Romans and Europeans left off. I’ll leave that thought for another day but I think you get my point.

America as a social and financial entity ceased to function at peak efficiency decades ago. This rapid decline is the main reason behind the massive increase in financial engineering, which is now coming apart at the seams, deliberately in my view. To argue over this or that detail is to be in denial of the obvious. In fact, I consider the official bickering over these details as a deliberate attempt to distort and distract while the final looting and rape occurs. Using propaganda and other psychological operations, our leaders lie about the economic condition of America. They do so not because they expect the lie to withstand close scrutiny, but rather to enable those who wish to believe the lie a plausible excuse to do so. Remember our conditioning. When in doubt, defer to authority and suspend disbelief.

A classic sales technique is the assumed consent close. Rather than directly asking you to purchase this new car, I simply assume you are purchasing and begin asking you closing questions. “Do you prefer the red one we looked at first or the blue convertible with the beige interior? Could you please get your insurance card out of the glove box before you clean out your car? Just sign here and here. Thanks.” You’d be surprised how many new automobiles, rooms of household furniture, whole life insurance, variable annuities and pieces of expensive jewelry are sold in this manner. Something similar to this technique is being used by the mass media to sell us something we already wish to buy. Only they aren’t selling the death of America, but rather its remarkable resilience and miraculous comeback. We’re being sold false hope, disguised as assumed consent questions such as, should we audit the Fed, can we expand healthcare with a public option, will Son of Stimulus be rolled out by the first or second quarter of 2010, should we……..well, you get the picture.

False hope binds us to impossible conditions and situations. Please read that statement again and then let it sink in for a minute.

As long as we believe there’s residual value in keeping America on life support, we’ll continue to pour borrowed money into this mess, rather than roll up the derivatives, fire the managers and start over. We don’t wish to face the reality that we’re in way over our heads. As long as we’re not forced to look too closely at the horrible condition our country’s in, we’re all too willing to do our part and avoid applying critical thinking to the subject. Like an old bull unknowingly led to slaughter because he thinks he’s off to mount another cow, we’re desperately trying to keep alive the magical American myth of life, liberty and apple pie while shielding our eyes from the rotting corpse it’s rapidly becoming.

That’s probably too harsh for the average American’s sensibilities, but let’s ask ourselves a few questions in an effort to find the truth, or at least something approaching the truth as we know it. Let me be clear on something before I get flamed for my harsh tongue. I’m not America bashing in the least. I’m America myth bashing. The American myth of exceptionalism is enabling her destruction as we stand idly by, applauding the mythical facade our leaders and media display 24/7. As long as we cling to the hope that all she needs is a tune up and some minor repairs, we’re condemned to a long and painful death spiral. We’re being sold exactly what we want to hear when we need to hear it. To claim otherwise is to lie to ourselves and to each other.

America is crumbling from the foundation up, and yet we gather around the TV, talking about a fresh paint job and a new screen door, both bought on credit, while handing our grandchildren a bill they’ll never be able to pay. The only way we can live with this lie while perpetrating these despicable acts upon our own family members is to deny it’s even happening. The big lie, which we must continue to tell ourselves, has taken on a life of its own and is consuming everyone and everything in its path. We are addicted to our own public myth and to sustain the lie, we simply ignore the truth. The only way to break through this lie is to go back through decades of propaganda and myth and find out what went wrong. Since this would be too painful, both individually and as a society, we distort reality as quickly as we change cable channels. It’s not just our leaders who are corrupt but we as well.

We have become cowardly, unwilling to commit to the tough decision of setting aside instant gratification in order to assure our grandchildren a home to live in. This is the ultimate act of selfishness, compounded by the fact that we claim we’ve been hijacked by our leaders. Sadly, our leaders are doing exactly what we want them to do, which is to continue the lie. Did we really think we could put our toys and war machines on the charge card and not worry about the bill, just because some politicians said we could? What are we, 5 year olds, pointing our fingers elsewhere when asked who broke the vase? Even if we personally followed the path of fiscal prudence, why didn’t we scream bloody murder, demanding we stop this insanity before the country began its suicidal plunge? Why do we still remain silent? Our hands are bloody and the only question is, how much is yours and how much is mine. Citizenship is all about individual responsibility, something we’ve been avoiding for a while now, at least since we started calling ourselves consumers.

Look at the endless propaganda on TV that’s used to lull us back into a drugged stupor, so we don’t dwell on what we’re doing to our children’s children. American flags wave in the background as chiseled men and full breasted women expound on how wonderful we are for building and loving this great nation of ours. The great American love story, brought to you nightly on prime time TV. This is where the bad guys always loose, men are men and women are sexual objects to lust after. Watch closely children, this is the American dream. Why wouldn’t we love America the myth? It’s everything we want without the pain. Nationalism is our unifying religion, a potentially fatal addiction to our public myth that enables us to fiddle while America burns. More drugs over here doctor, the patient’s waking up.

So how do we deal with this, and what does this have to do with Zero Hedge? Well, I would say it has everything to do with ZH, but then again I’m just a propagandist, weaving my magical myth. But to be honest, in desperation I’m seeking another way, a different path. I’m tired of moving in and out of the various stages of loss and grief. One moment I’m screaming at my zombie neighbor, imploring him to wake up and see the insanity. The next I’m filled with self righteous indignation as another patsy banker’s head is placed on the public pike. Sometimes I start my morning bargaining with unseen powers, begging for a truce or cease fire, only to end my day crying in my hands in fear and frustration of it all. And I’m not alone.

Zero Hedge seems to be a refuge for the walking wounded, a safe haven inside occupied territory for the psychically damaged and demoralized. But we need more than rest and relaxation in order to regain our feet. We need to heal and grow our ranks, to find a way to help ourselves and those who follow us into the refuge. Surrounded by lies and deceit, we are indoctrinated to such an extent that we still speak the language of denial without realizing it. We have no choice but to start at the beginning. While Zero Hedge speaks truth to power, we need to speak truth to ourselves, to talk openly about what has happened and where we’re going. Part of the seduction of denial is the avoidance of personal responsibility. In my view this must stop, thus my declaration that we’re all responsible for this mess. I have no doubt America can be repaired but the process starts at the personal level.

From a financial point of view, I’m sure we’ve all held a winning trade past its prime, giving back money we should have booked. And who hasn’t kept a dog way too long, when we should have thrown it overboard months ago? While I’m certain there are multiple reasons for poor investment performance, a fearless and thorough examination often shows that bad investment decisions are the result of personal shortcomings, such as wishful thinking or denial. For myself, when this happens, I find I’ve violated one or more of my trading rules. They are as follows.

One, know myself, particularly my strengths and weaknesses. Two, know my trading environment or don’t play in the sandbox. Three, always consider the other side of trade. If I’m buying, why is the other guy selling? If I’m selling, why is the other guy buying? Look for weakness in my thinking. Four, from time to time, mentally clear my computer screen of existing positions and then follow step three with each holding. If I wouldn’t buy or sell it now, why am I holding it? Five, trust my instincts, not my heart. My heart lies to me all the time with plenty of help from my brain. Instinctually I usually know when to buy or sell but often I ignore my gut feeling and wind up screwing the pooch. Over the years I’ve found that too much thinking gets in the way and often makes things worse.

These trading rules, as with life itself, requires a clear eyed view and a deeper understanding of ourselves, our fellow man and the real world, not as we wish to see it but as it really is. Unfortunately we still engage in wishful thinking way too often, constantly pushing the hope “dope” button and regretting it afterwards. Considering the direction our world is headed, it’s going to be more difficult to think clearly unless we make personal changes. Old habits die hard because we desperately cling to them for emotional support. Understanding why we do this will go a long way to helping us jettison that old baggage. Even if we are trapped on the crazy train to hell, just because we can’t get off doesn’t mean we must participate in the insanity.

So with the active participation of my fellow Zero Hedge readers, I would like to continue this exploration in a series of “End of Empire” articles, each time focusing on a different aspect of the unraveling. We need to develop our intellectual, emotional and financial coping techniques. Of particular importance to me will be the comments and feedback I get from you, for I assure you I don’t have all the answers. This isn’t a rally to arms but rather a cry for help. Either we heal as a community or we continue to hemorrhage, alone and isolated. It’s going to be a wild ride so let’s buckle up and do this together. After all, there’s safety in numbers, inside the new herd mentality of Zero Hedge.

Cognitive Dissonance

Every few weeks or so my mother will come home from work (in case you hadn’t heard, I’m in Vancouver for the summer) really worked up about some mother at her work.  She’s an RN at the local hospital, and she works with newborn babies and their mothers, postpartum.  In her view—I can’t really verify whether this is true or whether this is just her perception—a happily wedded couple coming in with a planned preganancy is now the minority.  Those ones I never hear about.  Sometimes I hear about 14-, 15-, 16-year-old mothers, which really aren’t a shock to anyone anymore; her tone when talking about them generally takes on a sort of resigned quality: it’s too common to make her upset, but you can tell she thinks it unfortunate and feels sorry for the baby.

But what really pisses her off are welfare queens.  You know, those women of ancient conservative lore who pop out babies so that they don’t have to work.  The ones who have a sense of entitlement but no sense of responsibility.  These women infuriate my mother.  ”She’s just livin’ off the system,” she says.

What breaks my heart, personally, is the depth of her contempt for these people.  She is past pity, past frustration, and approaching hatred.

I can understand, really.  I remember last summer when I was working at a Subway in a pretty trashy part of town, these two women came in with two kids and it was one of the worst twenty minutes of my whole summer.  They must have been mother and daughter, about twenty years apart, and the daughter had these two kids who were really sweet and more than a little rambunctious.  But damn, could that woman yell.  I hated watching the way she treated her children.  And I hated her mother for the way she treated me, a lowly sandwich artist.  I imagine it would be worse, having to watch wretched, undeserving women such as these drag tiny, innocent babies into their hell of an existence.  My first instinct would be to protect that baby, too, and to be furious at the injustice of it all.

But sometimes our first instincts are not always our best ones.

In The Working Poor, Shipler talks about the widely held belief that no one who works hard should be poor in America.  So firmly is this conviction held in the American psyche, reinforced by countless tales of people pulling themselves “up by their bootstraps” to into fame and fortune.  Indeed, this was part of the appeal of Obama’s candidacy last year: born to a single mom in poverty, we would like to believe—and Obama, I’m sure, would like to us to believe—that his success was due entirely to his own diligence, brilliance, and refusal to give up in the face of adversity.  Obama is playing that very same chord with his nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.  This is the American Dream: that anybody in America, if they try hard enough, can achieve anything they like.

The problem with the American Dream, of course, is that it remains just that: a dream, and not a reality.

Shipler recasts this national conviction as The American Myth.  Perhaps we deserve some credit, I would say, for having this Myth as one of the favorite plotlines of the American story.  We’re probably the first to even pretend that such a thing is true, here in the land of possibility.  The Dream, at its best, represents an ideal to which America aspires, not necessarily the reality in which it lives.  It is something for which—again, in our best moments—we strive: equality of opportunity.  And that’s saying something, isn’t it?  After all, most countries don’t even bother pretending.

What Shipler is saying, I think, is that, far from striving for this ideal, America merely does it lip service while trampling on the very people on whom its own prosperity depends.  They fade into the background of our existence: fast food workers, farmhands, and factory workers, copy editors, grocery clerks, and hotel maids.  After following the lives of two dozen or so of the working poor, bringing them for a moment off of the margins and into the text, Shipler gives us a dilemma, of sorts: either stop talking about the American Dream as something which resembles reality, or start doing the hard work of making it a reality.

The book hurts.  The situation of each and every person he follows is a combination of bad decisions, bad luck, and a bad system.  One theorist I read for an urban ministry class this winter characterized poverty as entanglement; Shipler’s testimony overwhelmingly agrees.  Poverty is much more than a lack of money.  It is a lack of money both produced and exacerbated by a lack of emotional, social, intellectual, and spiritual resources.  Many “chronically poor” people have deep psychological problems resulting from their abuse—verbal, physical, and, all-too-often, sexual—as a child.  These scars make it more difficult for them to make good decisions, to deal with stress, to have any sense of self-worth, and so on.  The stories of sexual abuse are particularly tragic: at the opening of one chapter, a ten-year-old girl asks a case worker, “How many times have you been raped?”  When the worker replies that she hasn’t, the girl is surprised.  I thought everyone has, she says.

I heard a story about a guy who decided, as a kind of experiment, to check into a homeless shelter with nothing but the clothes on his back.  His goal was to acquire, in six months (or something like that), a working car, an apartment, and $600 in savings.  He had to back out before the deadline, but he got pretty close to his goals.  Such experiments are supposed to illustrate that it is possible to get off the streets, that all it takes is willpower.  But the experiment misses the point: the man was upper-middle-class going in to the experiment.  He knew how to set and achieve goals, how to make a budget, how to communicate effectively, how to manage his emotions, how to believe in himself.  That makes everything else a hell of a lot easier.

That isn’t to say, of course, that the poor are entirely victims of circumstance—an ideology which Shipler titles “the American Anti-Myth”.  They make bad choices, to be sure: Shipler reports one couple who, despite being tight on money, frequently go out to get tattoos.  Tattoos are expensive, and they know that.  But they have to be kids sometimes too, they say, since they missed out on a real childhood.  The issue is: Do (all) poor people know how to make good choices?  Do they have the ability to make good decisions?  Common sense and a sound decision-making process are values that the middle class takes for granted, but they are acquired qualities.  You aren’t born with them.

The thing is, I’m not sure we can know why any single person is in poverty.  Sexual abuse, lack of education, poor decision-making, poor self-esteem, materialism, addictions, food costs, the cable bill—all of these things are tangled together in a massive knot of cause and effect.  Working that knot out, I imagine, is kind of like trying to get the kinks out of ten-year-old Christmas lights at the top of a twenty-foot ladder in a snowstorm.  Or something like that.  The point is, we can’t judge a person for being poor.  It could be 90% their fault, or 90% someone else’s.

(Flip that statement around: how much of our own financial situation—whether poor, middle-class, or upper-class—is of our own doing, and how much is because of circumstance and luck?  Are we willing to put a percentage on that number, either?)

And that—wow, I’ve really taken the long way around on this one—that is why I think that every time we encounter someone in poverty—every fast-food worker, every homeless person, and yes, every welfare queen—our primary reflex must not be contempt, but compassion.  If we cannot manage compassion, we must at least manage pity.  But compassion is best.

That, I think, is my first response to this book.  I want to blog more about what I think about all of this politically, and theologically, especially, in order to flesh out my last paragraph a bit more.  But that will have to wait, for now.

By the way, your comments on this issue are more than welcome.  I get sick of reading my own writing, and it helps me to have people give their own opinions to cut my teeth on, so to speak.  I’ll be at the beach for the weekend, regardless.