Woody, In The Morning: Structures

On Zuckerberg's Folly, Wednesday, I stumbled upon a longish, earnest example of a kind of discourse I call YKANTWE--short for, "Why can't we all stop squabbling and get along, and solve the country's problems, yo?" (You can see why I brev8 it?) The subject was universal health care, and why people would oppose it, since doing so was clearly contgrary to their own and their families' self-interest.

The debate got a bit acrimonious, but it NEVER got to the point. And the point is, to illustrate one of the clearest examples of the case-book workings of "structural" racism you could ever imagine. Classic. (As if there were any OTHER kind? I'll get back to that.)

The author of the original text was at pains to argue rationally about a matter in which, for his opponents, reason played roll.

Lemme try'n explain this another way, I said.

The problem with being reasonable and rational and the like with the folks who oppose universal care is WHY the oppose it.

And the answer is, because it would mean that people whom they regard as inferiors would be getting the same care as they themselves were obtaining. That, in turn, might be thought to imply, therefore, that they were EQUALS to the people they detested, but who were staying healthier. So, they will endure a diminishment of their own comfort, health, whatever, as long as by doing so, it DENIES improvement to those they regard as inferiors.

And they feel as they already do because the feel they have been arbitrarily deprived of the right to be superior to their inferiors, and having common health care is too much like mixing blood (in the daylight, at least).

Textbook "structural racism." What's that, you say? Nobody cast a slur. There was no violence. There was no bias exhibited, since everyone would be deprived if a universal healthcare plan were presented and defeated.

And that's the misconception; because "racism" doesn't consist in individual acts, be they snubs, slurs, or lynchings. There are bigots, supremacists, segregationists in every group that FOSTERS group identity.

Rather, "racism" exists in the social structures that facilitate the capacity of the majority to tolerate the abuse to despised groups, in the incapacity to prevent or sanction it when it occurs. Racism is a function of power, its control, and its maintenance. That's why the tea-party cannot withstand the implications or racism.

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The ever-earnest ">Robert Reich discourses again on how we have come to these straightened times:

Former Clinton Labor Secretary made an excellent, short video that summarizes why our wages have fallen since 1980 despite economic growth - where did the money go? Cenk Uygur (MSNBC's The Young Turks) expands on it.

It would use up more than four minutes of your life.

I believe can adequately summarize it in a paragraph:

In about 1983, the Raygun cabal, led by Don Regan, along with Lewis Powell, Allen Greenspan, and a bunch of the local bilderburgers enacted a brilliant plan: with productivity increasing exponentially, instead of passing increased profits along to workers in the form of improved wages and benefits, which would stimulate the economy, instead they'd ease CREDIT restrictions--so the people who were working their asses off, could STILL get more shit, and FEEL "prosperous"--while they channelled the money that would have gone to improved wages into increased profits, and salaries for themselves, while at the same time indenturing the workers to the banks and credit companies.

See? Simple!

It worked like a fucking charm...