The Entitled

[This was in reply to one of my friends who is a real farmer (not an agri-business operator) lamenting conditions on the family farm. In general, not his specific farm.]

Jake:

Here is the basic problem.

Ordinary citizens in this country, particularly those who engage in their own businesses, and that includes farmers, have the mistaken belief they deserve more than a basic wage.

Here's the deal: Wages for ordinary citizens are to be maintained in the range from $15,000 to $150,000. This leaves room to reward those who pursue education, are innately reasonable smart, and/or put in the extra effort.

Ordinary citizens are NOT, however, to presume themselves equal to captains of industry or high-end politicians. These particular people come from appropriate backgrounds, attend appropriate schools and understand that real wealth must be kept 'in the family' as it were.

In order to maintain the image of possible upward mobility, small percentages of certain social elements, among them doctors and lawyers, are permitted to grow outside the "citizen pay range" as are the occasional Henry Ford or Bill Gates. But groups, such as mechanics, teachers, plumbers or farmers, as whole units can not be permitted to jump out of scale. That would put stresses on the Natural Order that may result in challenges to the Entitled.

History shows us that the Entitled maintained their status, and consequently the lesser status of the majority, through a variety of means, primarily centered around blood. They were the Kings, Barons, Dukes, Pashas, Mandarins, etc.

Following the Industrial Revolution, the Entitled were forced to determine a new mechanism to preserve the Natural Order. Corporations were born. Entities that simulate the rights previously associated with peerage, primarily property rights and legal immunity. To ensure complete legal immunity, ordinary citizens were permitted into the corporations in order to 'take the fall' if and when necessary.

As transportation and communications systems improved, this new mechanism of feudalism was able to adapt, alter the playing field and replace the territorial boundaries of geography with the territorial boundaries of economic endeavor. Rather than being Baron of a certain piece of France, a Rothschild became Baron of a certain piece of the alcohol trade.

This marks the shift from agrarian to urban societies. Where the Cartwrights and other large ranchers had to ensure their cattle were well, producing offspring and properly cared for, and hence live with them, the Cargills merely had to ensure they controlled the paperwork behind the cattle. That allowed them to leave the dirty and difficult rural environment for clean and cared-for urban centres. Cared-for by we serfs.

This is accomplished by letting the previous hired hand think he now was master of the farm. Over the past century or so, this form of serfdom has been improved and has evolved into today.

Benefits to the Entitled have been more than maintained. In addition to wealth and power, the Entitled no longer have to sweat the small stuff. Bankers no longer have to know their depositors or judge their borrowers, grain merchants no longer need to farm or even know what grain actually looks or feels like, CEO's of car manufacturing entities no longer have to understand assembly lines or cars.

Better yet they no longer have to govern. Responsibility for keeping the masses orderly has been turned over to the masses themselves under conditions favouring the Entitled. The entitlements are enshrined in Constitutions and Bills of Rights that concentrate the powers of the Entitled under the guise of providing for the common man.

The Entitled get their MBAs from Harvard, and control through generalizations. When they screw up they point to the vast number of serfs that will suffer from whatever calamity they have caused and governments, now formed and funded by the serfs, rush to help. As a farmer you know most of the $1.8 billion the various Canadian governments poured into the BSE issue did not show up in your bank account.

The $600 million the Federal government provided Bombardier to 'compete' with their Brazilian counterparts, allowed the Board and CEO to 'earn' their bonuses. Lowered resource royalties in Alberta were part of what enabled Exxon to provide their retiring CEO with his $100,000 daily stipend. Assistance to the financial system in the US will enable Merrill Lynch to pay their out-going CEO $159 million for doing a terrible job.

Canada's export culture, as you call it, was not predicated on business, but on colonization. England, France, Spain and other European countries reached their tentacles out to grasp whatever resources could be found in the Americas and retrieve the best from themselves. We did not export cattle primarily for financial gain in the beginning, but because it was our role in feeding Britain. The change from geographical kingdoms to economic kingdoms is what necessitated the apparent change in culture.

But you are no more an economic player in the provision of beef to feed the Cargill coffers than my ancestors were when the products of their seigneury (interestingly now occupied by the Bombardier plant in Montreal) went first to feed and clothe the French army and later the British. The Kings of France and Britain paid a pittance for the goods, just as Cargill pays you one. Neither farmer, past or present, gets honest value for their work.

The former Entitled manipulated with political theory, saying things were done for 'king and country', and there were enemies of your Empire at the gates. The current Entitled manipulate with economic theory, saying things are done through 'free market forces', and there are enemies of your Way of Life at the gates.

The point? Stop bitching and get to work feeding the needs of the Entitled. Just as the King of France had the power to remove seigneury owners from their land for disobedience (i.e. not accepting their role in the scheme of things) the economic Barons of today can remove you from yours.

Have a great week-end. (I know farm work ceases Fridays at 4:30 pm and does not resume until Monday at 8:30 am. Crops, livestock, illnesses and pests all enter a state of suspended animation for Saturday and Sunday. Don't they??)

Canada's worst...

(This was originally posted as a comment to number 19 of the blog 101people.)

If you think same sex marriage was the worst thing Paul Martin did to Canada, you have your head in the sand. He did far more damage than that.

I am only up to here (19) in the list, and there are some that should have come long before this twit.

Worst PM - John George Diefenbaker. His solid sucker punch the national solar plexus knocked the wind out of an enthusiastic post-war Canada, convinced Canadians from Ontario east that 'the west' was made up of needy whiners, convinced English Canada it was nothing but a poor version of the US and gave French Canada pause to remember.

Second Worst PM - Brian Mulroney. A total American wannabe (a sycophantic trait he seems to have passed on to his son) he ensured that any national pride we might have built up over non-involvement in American misadventures was replaced with a demoralizing inferiority complex, and any thoughts of cooperation with our fellow citizens should be replaced by the greed necessary to compete with each other until we can all become losers. He began the 'deep integration' that is so swiftly eroding Canada's government by the people.

Third Worst - Pierre Trudeau. Invited us to watch him as he transformed the country. Trudeau seemed to resent both Anglophone and Francophone traditions, contributions and constituencies. He was likely the last kid chosen for any team or group so he grew up resenting us all. Taking advantage of the ennui and angst created by Diefenbaker, his drive for anarchy and chaos radicalized Canadian political debate, and set us one against the other.

Tied for Fourth - Paul Martin and Stephen Harper. (Though Harper has time in hand to prove his 'worseness'.) Both should be hanged for Treason. (Normally I don't believe in capital punishment , but...) Martin, a cowardly traitor, did most of his work behind closed doors. Harper, a pompous traitor does quite a bit openly. It is not that the United States is our enemy - Americans, too, are losing their country, rights and identity to the same imperialist tyrants as are we. But NAFTA the WTO treaties, the SPP and all similar agreements yield up sovereignty to a moneyed few who are not necessarily citizens or even people. Citizens' rights to redress wrongs have been moved out of the national court systems; citizens' rights to control their environment have been moved out of the national political arenas; citizens' rights to set standards such as product, working and wage standards, to unionize or not, to know what is in your food, to be treated fairly by an employer, to compensation for expropriation are now in the hands of arbitrators operating under and enforcing trade regulations rather than legislation.

Summary Diefenbaker made it emotionally possible, Trudeau set the political stage, Mulroney put the wheels in motion, Martin and Harper continue the process.

"A mari usque ad mare" will fade with the nation and be replaced with "Je me souviens" by those aging few who remember Canada as a proud, capable, caring and sovereign nation.

The Blame China Syndrome

A spate of apparent deficiencies in imports from China have made headlines, led to considerably hand-wringing among legislators and may bring on trade restrictions. But it is not China we need to hold accountable. The real problem has little to do with the quality of Chinese manufacturers or the integrity of Chinese regulators and almost everything to do with the nature of American importers, American corporate philosophies and American consumer demands.

Dysfunctional and dangerous goods are a plague we have brought on ourselves.

In opening their trading doors to the world, China's well-educated executives have been following the well-proven policy: “Give the customer what he wants.” The trouble is while those of us picking up pet food, choosing toys for our children and buying toothpaste think of ourselves as the customer, we are not China's customer. We are the customers of the importing companies. It is their orders China is filling.

China puts satellites into orbit, maintains a respectable nuclear arsenal, feeds close to 20% of the world's population and in less than half a century has built the second largest economy in the world. Most of the computer this is being written on was made in China and the odds are good much of yours was too, as were at least parts of the networks that are bringing this to you. They are safe, reliable and meet the exacting standards required by North American regulators, even the non-governmental ones at Underwriters' Labs.

So why are there problems with toys and pet food?

We North Americans are greedy and self-centered! To the point of scrimping on the two most dependent groups in our lives - our children and pets. So we buy from Wal-Mart because the prices are lower. The prices aren't lower because Wal-Mart chooses to take a hit. They are lower because Wal-Mart leans on their suppliers. The suppliers cut corners. Surprise, surprise. Does anyone really believe they're getting the same quality as their parents did?

Mattel's 2006 annual report speaks of “price increases and supply chain savings more than offset external cost pressures”. What was taken from the supply chain to get those savings?

If liability is to be assigned, check your sales receipt and the name on the box. To find the person ultimately responsible, look no further than your bathroom mirror.

Genesis as Prophecy

Fundamentalists claim the Book of Genesis is history, plain, simple and with an exact and accurate timeline. The more liberal in the Judeo-Christian community suggest a more allegorical approach to interpretation is appropriate. That even given Genesis as the 'Word of God', it was provided to followers in terms comprehensible to those without knowledge of telescopes, geothermal activity or climate.

What if they are both wrong?

What if Genesis is not history, but prediction?

That the entire planet could be Eden would have seemed far fetched a few thousand years before air travel, efficient and reliable global trade routes, and the myriad life-support and comfort-support technologies we take for granted today. But in today's world, barriers to a Utopian existence are primarily self-imposed.

If we re-think Genesis as prediction, an exercise that precludes literal interpretation, the early passages are interesting food for thought.

Genesis 1 - In the Beginning

Without debating too heavily against the fundamentalist interpretation, let us simple suggest an all-knowing Creator would not have provided an explanation of the origin of what we know as the universe based on genetics and quantum-physics to our agrarian ancestors. Interpreted as metaphor, Genesis 1 is decidedly accurate. From light as the beginning through planetary and solar formation, the beginning of life in the slippery stratas of clay, to the myriad species we know of today, the narrative holds.

There's a bit of an issue with humanity, stating first that men and women were created together (Gen 1: 27-28) and chapter two's more detailed interpretation suggesting a more misogynistic approach. However if we are able to widen our perspective and accept an interpretation of “let there be light” as the Big Bang, the simultaneous appearance of Adam and Eve representing early humankind is not a stretch.

Genesis 2,3 -The Warning

If we now accept the first chapter and a half as description without underlying references of Earth's metamorphoses to the point of human appearance, we can look at the rather dire warning of Genesis 2:17 as prediction.

“But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”

Note that examination of the tree is not forbidden, nor apparently would be harvesting the fruit to plant further similar trees. Only eating is outlawed.

Since the only use of the fruit of trees would have been eating, we may safely interpret the passage to suggest there is a certain body of knowledge which humanity may examine and understand but not utilize.

That body of knowledge is genetics.

Using the understanding of genetics and DNA we now have, rudimentary and incomplete as it is, enables us to “be as gods” as the serpent promised Eve.

Humanity's genetic creations comes from the 'tree of the knowledge of good and evil' and not from 'the tree of life'. While many have interpreted the pain of child birth as Eve's curse and the difficulties of farming as Adam's, it is more likely we ain't seen nothin' yet.

One can hardly call the vast plains of North America as we found them in the nineteenth century cursed. Many other parts of the global garden are as abundant.

But the as-yet-unknown effects of genetically engineered plants and other organisms released into the environment may well be destructive and cataclysmic on the level suggested by Genesis 3: 17-19.

Thanks to Monsanto and friends, serpents all.

The Christian Right

Let me make this perfectly clear: no matter how many times TV or newspaper refers to the "Christian right" there is no such thing. Period!

One can be Christian or one can be right-wing. Pick one!

Wikipedia says: The term "Christian Right" is used by scholars and journalists, to refer to a spectrum of right-wing Christian political and social movements and organizations characterized by their strong support of conservative social and political values. And that is likely close to how those who refer to themselves thus believe themselves to be. But they are not.

The definition should be reworded to refer to a spectrum of right-wing political and social movements and organizations who usurp the term "Christian" to give the appearance of legitimacy to a humanistic and corporatist set of philosophies the majority of which directly oppose the teachings of Jesus Christ.