When Will We, Non-Elite, Understand This?

     Unlike all previous campaigns, I have not allowed myself to become even a little pregnant with a candidate's vision.  Why?

• Both will allow the growing anti-competitive corruption of state-capitalism and the demise of our economy; with the largest, politically connected industries bribing a larger and larger slice of our economic pie through:

1. Direct payments, (the military), 
2. Subsides, (to higher education, trillions for big pharmaceuticals & Bush's Medicare part D)
3. Regulations written by the industry leaders for their own competitive advantage, (Banking, Insurance, Finance) 

     All this while government investment in struggling industries of the future which have allowed for our economic power in the world, are not supported.  These hypocritical crony-capitalist note the "market should decide."  Perhaps their real concern is keeping their own piece of government pie safe?

     When will all of we non-elites understand this?  Tea Party advocates concerned with their taxes paying for bank bailouts and crony-capitalism, and Occupy Wall Street people rebelling against trillions of debt wiped out for the big players but anticipating a life of servitude to pay back their college loans making $7.25 an hour.

Sincerely,
Lawrence Feriozzi

"Just Insert This Amendment Into The Bill Tomorrow, and Be a Good Boy"

     Perhaps I am like the presidential candidates: I am most palatable and popular swaddling around with real, yet very unimportant questions, decisions, and actions; while the great city of Rome burns just off camera.  The largest and most important decisions and actions, say, to come clean about lobbying and campaign millions defiling the processes of democracy, are not seriously discussed, other than to acknowledge, minimize, and effectively dismiss as a real possibility for future action, of course, “It certainly deserves further discussion.”  The processes of a real democracy should loosen the collectives’ hold over our money and corrupted institutions.  Public unions, Too Big To Fail “private corporations” or more accurately, political collectives in finance, insurance, health, education, defense, energy, and others should get a swift kick off the public dole where they benefit their politically powerful institutions, in lieu of being effective institutions which benefit us, …the separated “us,” out in a burning city.  

     Is this not unlike a man, say myself, in a relationship with a girl, say my wife, where we discuss the bills that need to be paid today, the money we are saving, the next apartment we want to rent all while the largest decisions; for individuating through courageous decision and action, into something unique, responsive, and corrective to myself and others, are acknowledge, minimize, and effectively dismiss as a real possibility for future action?  “We should talk more about this if its so important to you.”   My personal collective would have me in support of the collectives’ best practices; producing and raising civil citizens in support of the collective. How shall I address the initial assumption?  Is my choice between a truer existence of vital life, isolation, then annihilation, and, a non-choice of species perpetuation 2.0? 

“To put me in this “whole” you imagine is to negate me.”  Kierkegaard to Hegel

I painfully anticipate your misunderstandings,

Lawrence Feriozzi

Life Is Better

   Life is much, much better than it used to be, within a larger perspective.  I know the economy might tank,... again, and we have false, elite-chosen, non-democratic choices for our next leaders but lets look at the bigger picture.  Only 150 years ago most of our lineage were struggling to get enough food to eat for the day.  Now I can get fat cheaply and listen to great music for the cost of an internet connection.
     We are humans, learning though trial and error.  We have made many mistakes that need major correction, but the general direction is toward a better life for more people in the world, with lots of exceptions.  Radically unjust oppression has been the rule since we "advanced" from bands and tribes to chiefdoms, growing more oppressive in state systems since Mesopotamia.  Nevertheless, given a couple thousand years and things are undeniably looking up.  Even if our American system doesn't last much longer as we know it, I think we will learn, people and leaders will become more responsible, and life will continue to get better for the generations to come, even if it doesn't for ours.

Sincerely,
Lawrence Feriozzi

Paul Ryan, Republicans Finally Reign In Debt--Great Timing!

   
      So the Republicans are finally focusing on cutting the debt?  Great timing!  I remember writing my first college newspaper article in 1988 about the destructive debt growth in this country, and being ignored by Republicans thoughout the ensuing decades.  The same decades when the Republicans spent just as much as the Democrats, only they didn't pay for it.  They were "Starving the Beast," or spending big while cutting taxes so government would starve and die.  Well it's dying, just when we actually need it.  Thanks Republicans!  What practically-minded person could think of a worst time, just when the middle class is being foreclosed on?  Their are none, unless your Paul Ryan.


     However, if your an ideologically-minded person, like Paul Ryan, who gets your congressional staff to read Ayn Rand's books about the satanic nature of any government intervention and how monopolies are great; now is the perfect time.  It's a perfect excuse for private industry to step in where governments have proved inefficient and have them privatize Medicare, Social Security, etc.  Perhaps we could let private industry build all our new roads and bridges and let them decide how much to charge us to get to work everyday. 

Randians: Way Too Serious!

Sincerely,
Lawrence Feriozzi

p.s. I like Rand, her philosophy is useful for perspective and comparisons, but not as an absolutist agenda!

"Govenments' Not The Solution, It's The Problem." Really?

Business Productivity & Profits Grow, Wages Don't

Real Life vs. The Sound-Bite
--In the past 30 years, most Americans have not had a raise above the inflation rate; but have accumulated a consumer debt equal to their yearly income in order to feel like they did.  During this same time, the finance industry, that created and benefited from these conditions, has quadrupled in size, helped send $6,000,000,000,000 of US wealth to other countries via "free-trade," and still has millions convinced that they know what's best for us.  "Governments' not the solution, ...governments the problem," ...right?

Reagan Revolution: The Pendulum Swings
--I believe that was true 30 years ago.  At the time we did have too much regulation in this country, but the pendulum has swung.   Manufacturing employment has dropped from 22% to 16% while finance jobs have increased four fold.  Finance is now our most "vibrant" industry.  This is great for that relatively tiny segment of workers, but it is bad for the rest of us.  Producing massive amounts of innovative "financial products" on speculation destabilizes the economy for the rest of us.  So much so, we were told, that we had to help them out with trillions of our tax dollars because they were, "Too big to fail."

Americans still legitimize the ideology of market absolutism.
Perhaps because we have been complicit through our direct investments or pension fund.  At any rate, this coupled with politicians' campaign funds coming from the finance industry, and politicians' reluctance to hurt the only vibrant industry (finance) left in the US, has led to a unique situation never before seen in the US.

In America's past there would always be robust, imaginative regulations placed on the finance industry because the US citizens demanded it.  For example, various social movements started in response to the injustices of the Congress in the 1890's, or, "Millionaires Club" as it was known.  Eventually these movements became the financial regulations that were being enforced until just 30 years ago, the last of which disappeared just prior to our present financial crisis.  Of course it took the Great Depression for many of these financial regulations to actually be implemented.


Time to wake up, regain some moral vigor and power of resistance before a pandemonium and another unstopped pendulum swing in reverse.  Pendulums are destructive, virtue is in the middle.

Sincerely,
Lawrence Feriozzi

Movie Theater Massacre: Fetishizing Status and Notoriety

Get Status

The "Jokers'' Motives? --Were James Holmes recent senseless murders a socially isolated outcropping of evil, or symptoms of a cooler, isolating society which fetishizes status and notoriety?


Our Need to Explain Deludes Us Further --Within days media pundits crafted typical arguments to address the issue;

1. Tougher gun control.
2. Less glorified violence in the media.
3. Better mental health programs.
4. Better security to identify these dangerous individuals before they perpetrate.

Solution: Having and Being a Friend --None of these ideas could have stopped such events, but one may have;

A friend.

Society, Advertisers Promise Status & Friends--As Epicurus and modern Positive Psychologist tell us, the most important factor for obtaining happiness in life is maintaining good, honest friendships.  Advertisers have known this since Epicurus, but having a coke, Lexus, or PhD. won't give me friends. This doesn't stop us from believing it will satisfy this need at a deep level, thus the modern rat race.  (see Status Anxiety)   The extreme path of losing hope for obtaining those things that society promises will fulfill us is perhaps a generalized violence toward society itself.

or, ... Notoriety

Notoriety: The Last, Sad Hope of Obtaining Status

Sincerely,

Lawrence Feriozzi

Who Is James Holmes, the Aurora Shooting Suspect?

As a "quiet and easy going guy,"  I anticipate he didn't have many close friends.  He seems to have been enthralled with the modern Batman narrative which perhaps satisfied him more than anything in the world, besides getting a PhD.  Perhaps when that fell through, his escape into the manufactured Batman reality seemed his best hope for an engaging place of notoriety in this world.

A necessary condition of living a happy life is maintaining close, honest friendships, Epicurus told us.  Perhaps the modern desire to be respected for your notoriety, if not your position, is in its essence a simpler wish to be appreciated and treated nicely,... without a PhD. or senseless mass murder.

Sincerely,
Lawrence Feriozzi