Prometheus 6
All respect and no restraint
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Franken-Nationsby Prometheus 6
August 28, 2003 - 10:58pm. on Race and Identity I have a lot of things running through my mind these last few days. There's a project I've been participating in that will be coming to fruition soon that will make me look into educational issues more than I would otherwise. In addition, several bloggers have touched on issues that I've had on the back burner.Anne Zook just wrote about the need to examine just what function corporations are to play in our nation and society. A Small Group of Dedicated People Might Actually Do Something. She's right. I don't think anyone would argue the truth of this headline.
I doubt, however, the, well, not the intelligence of people who say these things. I doubt the knowledge, which is a very different thing. We can't just band together, rise up, and overthrow the corporations. No one in their right minds should want to do such a thing. They are the lifeblood of our prosperity. "The big corporate empires would be powerless if they were not in league with crooked politicians." That's just not true. Corporations are, like any living entity, intent on their own growth and survival and that's as it should be. With each swing of the pendulum between the Left and the Right over the last 80 years, regulations have been put into place, struck down, reinterpreted, and abandoned until those who run the corporations decided, quite understandably, that government was the enemy and began to work around or even in opposition to it. And that's natural. Maybe it's our fault. WeThePeople, I mean. There's been no widespread, public debate over the role corporations should play in our society. No discussion of what form they should, or should not take. No limits, no shape to any boundaries they should observe. We need a long-term vision. That's the one thing I'm not hearing The need for such a conversation is part of the reason for my concern over economics…as I said before, I need to understand enough of it to know whether it's peanut butter or bullshit they're feeding me. And don't let anyone tell you the idea of repurposing corporations as a whole is absurd because that's what deregulation does. Somehow, to me Anne's post connects with this one from Cobb: These three folks remind me, each in their own way, that you have to find your family, and that until you are comfortable and settled with them you are not likely to work out issues in the larger world. Out here in the world we don't care much about you, except for me of course - that's why I write. Most importantly that when you are settled with your own world, the big world can't hurt you. So finally you must find out how your world works with the big world.
…and from Vision Circle: The sunshine period of racial integration is fading. It may not be called racial or ethnic, but what is labeled 'cultural' is becoming a black and white excuse for political retrenchment. In the wake of the death of the accomodative politics of integration, the parties are falling back on old myths. The myth of black political unity still stands in spite of the fact of black economic difference. The nobility inherent in the selfless determination of race-raising by the talented tenth is seriously challenged by the practicality of political reality.
…Like the Republicans, I have no tolerance for waste, fraud and abuse. Like the Democrats, I believe that a safety net is crucial for the stability of society. But unlike either party, I understand the politics of emergence - of the creation a larger middle-class and what a reformed government should be doing. Then there's my own observations, which could be summed up as "the problem of race is real, it's just not what you think it is." And I'm watching the neocons trying to consciously shape a culture and nation. This effort is probably doomed because cultures are grown, not assembled. At least they have been up until now. I've watched Black folks trying to consciously build a culture from a fusion of what grew from our seed in the manure of slavery and Jim Crow, from the American Dream and the American Way, from hunger for the kind of deep roots that were purposely severed, watching this effort…and fearing it's probably doomed for the same reason the neocon effort is doomed. And I'm watching China frustrating the hell out of the "West" by taking to capitalism in the context of their existing culture and laws rather that placing their culture and laws into a capitalist context. They watched Russia try it the Western way and fail (though there were additional reasons Russia didn't become the dream investment), and it seems they've learned much. Has Africa watched and learned? They, too, are constructing what has always been grown. All this stuff is connected to me. I need to understand why and how they are connected. |
