WHAT IS HAPPENING TO AMERICA?
The sense of alienation you are feeling in your own country, is from a lack
of sense of community.
This is what capitalism has taken away. Either a country can be more focused
on community, or more focused on being business-friendly.
Pro-business, or pro-community. You can never have both.
You may notice in your "Homes" section of your local-paper where
land-developers and home-builders advertise. Land developers try to "sell"
back romanticized versions of community with their new developments. You
know, those old-fashioned feelings of people knowing their neighbours,
low-crime, kids playing outside, people drinking lemonade on their
front-porch, leaving their doors unlocked - no need for alarm systems.
Let's not fool ourselves. I know, and you know, that sense of community is
gone forever. I recently saw some statistic, stating less than 20% of people
know their neighbours. We're living in a disconnected society, fueled by
material consumption. Basically, any citizen with money in their pockets is
a "good" citizen. One problem I personally have with capitalism and America,
is that someone who is here for generations with a rich heritage has only
the same rights as someone who has stepped "off the boat". Capitalism treats
everyone the same. It doesn't matter whether they are green, purple,
dog-eating, or alien. I remember being in a mall with a friend. We were
ready to get on an elevator, when a man with a thick-accent (an obvious
recent immigrant) told us "to use the escalator". It was then I realized
that civility and lineage means shit in the eyes of capitalism. Go figure.
As for the "Gringo" displaying the anti-whitey T-shirts: It's ironic the
store owner is using a spanish *European* language.
To turn back time 500 years and "decolonize" America is a ridiculous
concept.
As an aside, since my mind has stated "whirring", immigration is a tool of
capitalism. It's there to increase our markets, and to keep our capitalist
economy turning. Since North America's natural birth rates are falling, immi
gration is used to prop it back up artificially. The US and Canada also
"pick off" what the rest of the world has to offer on the global market.
After all, it's easier to compete with China if we simply keep
"cherry-picking" the best and the brightest engineers or scientists from
that country. If America was over-populated like China, we wouldn't have the
luxury of this system.
Capitalism also keeps a certain percentage of the population "unemployed",
so that corporations and business have a good selection of workers to grab
when they need them.
There is nothing worse than going into a store, seeing that the store is
"all sold out" of Milk, for example, when you want Milk. That's much like a
corporation walking into a store, and finding they are "all sold out" of
employees, when they want to hire people.
That's why there is always a "surplus" of unused/unbought workers stocked on
the shelves. Capitalism *needs* unemployed people. The two go hand-in-hand.
Having a healthy-percentage unemployed (say 10%) means labour prices are
kept "in control" and down, as there is always someone willing to do the job
for less or cheaper, which is great for business!
Go capitalism go!
Barry M.
Unofficial cheerleader of Capitalism.
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