Saturday, April 12, 2008

The new slavery

The new slavery isn't so much like it was 400 years ago. Now it's paying people so little they are all living in poverty. One republican said, "Well they might still be happy even though they don't have everything they want." The rich are getting richer and the poor and middle class are getting poorer. It's not about saving money for the future but just getting by. For those that are connected they get government benefits even though they don't need it, it's that they're in the right place with the right people in power. I heard about a subsidy for people farmers with damages to their live stock due to the shuttle re-entry explosion to the sum of 5 billion dollars. This event happened a few years ago but farmers are getting money for damages even if they didn't have live stock just that they were in the right area with the right republican in office. The farm bill is up for renewal. So many corporations get money not to grow crops or get a guaranteed a good price and when that falls below market they get a check. Selling the crops when the price goes up. Food riots are happening around the world, it should be a warning to the people in government.

For many years now the prices of peoples wages have been going down not keeping up with inflation. That's a word I wonder about and how the markets are being manipulated so the rich can profit during these times and when the dollar gets stronger they would be setting pretty well off with more buying power besides the power they already have for being so rich.

Our view of slavery is a master and his slaves owned like property. Now times have changed, and the owners now use temp slaves. People that are expendable and get just enough money to keep them coming back. They also have rules where you can take time off for yourself to say, look for a better job. You end up driving a couple hours each way to work each day so there's no time to do anything else in your life. Your stuck in this endless loop of getting by.

Republican's talk about the American dream but you can get there from here unless you were born with a platinum spoon in your mouth. Starting from nothing you can only go so far these day. If you have money you can make money which poor people don't have and never will.

Lately I've been hearing about illegals, aliens getting college scholarships and student aid. It's funny thirty plus years ago when I was in college I was working full time while going to school full time. When I applied for student aid I was turned down. When I ask how do I qualify to get student aid. You see I haven't been living at home for years at that time so I didn't understand why they ask me about my parents income. They told me to change my name to a Mexican surname. I didn't understand my father wasn't making that much money, it was a factory job. My mother worked part time. They were just getting by but I was turned down because they made to much even though I didn't live there for years. My parents kept telling me to get a job in a factory somewhere. They never went to college and could understand why it would be good to go to college. When I dropped out at the end of a semester a couple times my GPA went from a 4.o to a 2.5 because I needed to eat and keep a roof over my head. Now illegal fence jumping students are getting a free ride because they are poor fence jumpers that down want to work to put themselves through college like I had to do.

This influx of cheap labor is driving labor prices down except for people like fireman or policemen who have unions that are going to cause the depletion of cities wealth and are really over paid if you ask me. They have a real good retirement package too based on their salary at the time they retire. Most of them get promoted just before they retire too, it's a real trend. If you ever see a cop of fireman at a event, where it take one person there will be at least six. I guess you could make a joke about that. How many cops does it take to change a light bulb? One to do the actual work and six others to bring coffee and donuts for moral support.

If you look at what corporations are doing these days by cutting retirement programs and health care benefits making the worker a disposable commodity. The airlines that went through bankruptcy got the unions to take less money and less benefits then gave the office managers big bonuses for saving the company so much money. This FAA fiasco that's going on right now is part of the cost cutting looking at statistics for saying how safe a airplane is to fly. Playing the odds that if one out of the whole fleet crashes, the insurance will pick up the tab. No loose to the airlines. What gets me is that some airlines get government bail outs while outs get to fold. That has to do with who you know and how much money you donate to campaigns.

If you ever noticed that when people get discounts on things it's always the rich that seem to get prices cut. I never heard a poor person say since I was poor they gave me a huge break. No it doesn't work that way. Say you want to do something to be green and put solar cells on your house. You can get a tax credit for that but the poor who don't have the money to lay out for solar cells that could really use the help get nothing. Every time there is some idea on capital hill it's always people get tax breaks for doing what would benefit them.

It would be a good program to start putting solar cells on all the poor peoples houses free of charge. They would get a benefit for lower cost for their power consumption and there would be more power out there for peak times of the day.

For the most part the energy companies want to have their claws into everything power where you are going to be paying all the time, every month. Just think how much power would be generated if ever person in California had solar cells on there roofs. What is getting me right now is the power companies are telling you to save power but that turns out to be so that more houses can be built. There are so many sell out in offices every where. They are only in office to push through a development for buddies or their self.

When I moved to Northern California I started a series of picture with I called "We Used To Get Food There." It's about the farm lands that are getting homes and econo building put up. This is taking the best farm lands in the world out of productivity and putting a burden on the land. Still working on the series of pictures. Looking at a Google Earth of this area I noticed that the land had what from space looked like a skin condition. It was mini ranches striping the land of water shed plants making bare lands also increasing the heat on the surface because the land was bare. These for the most part are using well water which is depleting the water table making the creeks flow less.

So, as people get less and less for doing more and more without having a master to take care of them because they are now disposable, there's no reason for improvement since there's another worker around the corner that is desperate for work. They say slavery ended after the civil war but has it really. If you making tons of money from a person and not sharing the benefits of those profits, then it's just like slavery. You get a few trinkets for breaking you back and if you get damaged in the process your on your own. The master isn't going to take care of you. Your broken and can't work so what do you do? Some people turn to crime and sell drugs to make ends meet. Some like the cop that started robbing banks to pay his bills.

From the beginning of this countries history it's been about taking advantage of people for your better living. Now it's the republicans mantra. They say in the bible which I doubt that most of these religious right republican haven't read, the meek shall inherit the earth. What does that mean. My best guess is that when things fall apart and you have to live off the land again, the meek, which live off the land and use the least share dominate the earth. It would be great to get these meek people who think they don't count start voting for a more perfect world, stopping pollution, ending hunger, making it where money isn't the root of all evil but people working because they want to work because their efforts would be for the benefit of man and not for a few people that think of scams to get peoples money selling them useless junk and food. No more paper that is worth nothing and getting to be worth less as time goes by. No more people rolling the dice of the economy beating that things would fail and making money off that. This is the communication age maybe this could be the start of the communication world government where we can leave these scamming, swindling leader out and do what's right for the world.

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