Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Civilization, Climate Change, Democracy, Existentialism
Ref: https://litkicks.com/ingatsbystracks/, In Gatsby’s Tracks: Locating the Valley of Ashes in a 1924 Photo. The ash heap was a metaphor for the rot and decay of modern life as the author depicted it in the novel:
The spot where Fitzgerald had a vision would soon become world famous because the trash-burning operation at Flushing Meadows was closed shortly after The Great Gatsby was written. The creeks were drained and turned into artificial lakes, and the Long Island Expressway, Van Wyck Expressway, and Grand Central Parkway were all built to carry the massive automobile traffic between New York City and Long Island that they still carry today. Beautiful Flushing Meadows Park was developed on the large square of land circumscribed by these three highways, encompassing the creek and its valley. This park hosted the 1939 Worlds Fair and then the 1964-65 Worlds Fair. Shea Stadium was built to host the New York Mets on the northern side and was then replaced by CitiField on the same spot. Every year the US Open Tennis Tournament is held at the Billie Jean King Tennis Center south of the baseball fields. Here’s what the same spot looks like in an aerial photograph from 2009. Shea Stadium is on the top left, and the US Open tennis courts are on the bottom left.
The hashtag #FAFO is apropos here. Noam Chomsky's book is a pamphlet. It is short and meant to be absorbed in one sitting. In 1991, Chomsky was 65. He's knocking on the door of his 99th birthday, and we buried President Carter yesterday who was 100. My fear: will anyone ever read anything brief, in paperback, and offline before Chomsky expires?
Chomsky begins by asserting two models of democracy—one in which the public actively participates, and one in which the public is manipulated and controlled. According to Chomsky "propaganda is to democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state," and the mass media is the primary vehicle for delivering propaganda in the United States. From an examination of how Woodrow Wilson's Creel Commission "succeeded, within six months, in turning a pacifist population into a hysterical, war-mongering population," to Bush Sr.'s war on Iraq, Chomsky examines how the mass media and public relations industries have been used as propaganda to generate public support for going to war.
Chomsky touches on how the modern public relations industry has been influenced by Walter Lippmann's theory of "spectator democracy," in which the public is seen as a "bewildered herd" that needs to be directed, not empowered; and how the public relations industry in the United States focuses on "controlling the public mind," and not on informing it.
Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda, Noam Chomsky, Seven Stories Press
What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy.
Post "Retreat and Aftermath," and "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business," by Neil Postman
Morpheus: This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, and you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. The Matrix
I worked alongside H-1B visa recipients with no stigma whatsoever. They worked alongside me, a graduate of the largest HBCU in the nation, and the largest supplier of graduate engineers and scientists in the STEM pipeline. I spoke at conferences. I published proceedings. I never once felt inferior, nor did I feel that Motorola, Advanced Micro Devices, or Applied Materials did me a "favor." It's ludicrous. It's self-defeating and stupid. Instead of a faux halcyon "great again," it's the blueprint for the reinstitution of serfdom.
The giveaway was Elon and Vivek disparaging “American” workers, which means all of us, and all ages. This is what I expect in their ketamine-fueled thought process that will lead us to perdition:
1. “Break” the economy (Elon's words) - sending the U.S. into a recession.
2. Layoffs, particularly of African American, Hispanic/Latino, and Asian-Pacific Islander talent.
3. Wait a few months and lower salary price points.
4. Hire H-1Bs at LOWER than even that lowered rate. Companies don't have to and usually don't, but they have that option and have always had it. What about all of that African American, Hispanic/Latino, Asian-Pacific Islander, and white American talent? They can apply for "black jobs," plentiful after the forcible expulsion of undocumented immigrant labor from home and commercial builder sites, fields, and meat processing plants. Someone's got to do it. Don't worry. They won't go anywhere. They'll be working alongside you as leased labor from for-profit prisons. It will keep salaries down. The "minimum wage" will become an urban myth. "Social security" was always a communist plot.
5. All leverage is with the employer. Don’t like your job? Quitting will get your H-1B revoked and you’ll be sent back to your country. Fired at will? Break the law? See the first and third sentences of item 5.
6. (Added) Look for stiff competition on "Who will be the world's first trillionaire?"
A reporter once asked John D. Rockefeller, the founder of the Standard Oil Company, the first billionaire of the United States of America, and once the richest man on Earth, “How much money is enough?” He calmly replied, "Just a little bit more." CNBCTV
Where does it leave American workers? Well, the pesky, “woke” DEI thing is history. Industries have abandoned it for the simple reason that it's no longer profitable. It's ridiculous to think that corporations will "do the right thing." They only think in quarters and the bank accounts of shareholders, life on Earth be damned. Unions will be in the vein of Tyrannosaurus and the Dodo. Income inequality will be SOLVED because rural and urban workers will be in a goulash of poverty. Training to be in the "specialized class" will become irrelevant. Social mobility will be eliminated by the financial canyon erected between the have-nots by the Hoarding Disorder kleptocratic haves! We're at the same income inequality that preceded the French Revolution. Brian Thomson and Luigi Mangione might be the harbinger of things to come.
I call it “tech bro servitude,” or “lords, and serfs.” If you’re not a billionaire, you’re probably a serf. Again, I fear the result of the blowback. Unfortunately, imposed totalitarian regimes don't crumble without a lot of bloodshed and violence.
“The most dangerous creation of any society is a man who feels he has nothing to lose.”
-James Baldwin, “The Fire Next Time”
Comments