Life exists in many bubbles, and while bubbles are limited, they make for a wonderful simplicity. Reality is out there and out there is just out there. A bubble provides reality. Galbraith, as quoted by Peter Watson in 'The Modern Mind,' sums up a change that my generation witnessed. It is a change from cooperation and the golden rule to corporation and the rule of money. Interesting piece on Race and money below, a bit of reality outside the bubble. And since the economy sank under George W. Bush this cannot have improved.
"[Andrew Hacker] has been analyzing America's social and racial statistics for a number of years, and is no firebrand but a reserved, even a stringent academic, not given to hyperbole or rhetorical flourishes.... But 'Two Nations' was more chilling than anything in the 'Review' [prior writings]. His argument was so shocking that Hacker and his editors apparently felt the need to wrap his central chapters behind several 'softer' introductory chapters that put his figures into context, exploring and seeking to explain racism and the fact of being black in an anecdotal way, to prepare the reader for what was to come. The argument was in two parts. The figures shown not only that America was still deeply divided after decades - a century - of effort, but that in many ways the situation had deteriorated since Myrdal's day, and despite what had been achieved by the civil rights movement.
'The real problem in our time,' wrote Hacker, 'is that more and more back infants are being born to mothers who are immature and poor. Compared with white women - most of whom are older and more comfortably off - black women are twice as likely to have anemic conditions during pregnancy, twice as likely to have no prenatal care, and twice as likely to give birth to low weight babies. Twice as many of their children develop serious health problems, including asthma, deafness, retardation, and learning disabilities, as well as conditions stemming from their own use of drugs and alcohol during pregnancy. Measured in economic terms, the last two decades have not been auspicious ones for Americans of any race. Between 1970 and 1992 the median income for white families, compared in constant dollars rose from $34,773 to 38,909, an increase of 11.9 percent. During this time black family income in fact went down a few dollars from $21,330 to 21,161. In relative terms, black incomes fell from $613 to 544 for each $1,000 received by whites.
Despite a large chapter on crime, Hackers figure's on school desegregation were more startling. In the early 1990s, 63.2 percent of all black children, nearly two out of three, were still in segregated schools. In some states the percentage of blacks in segregated schools was as high as 84%. Hackers conclusion was sober: 'In allocating responsibility, the response should be clear. It is white America that has made being black so disconsolate an estate. Legal slavery may be in the past, but segregation and subordination have been allowed to persist. Even today, America imposes a stigma on every black child at birth...A huge racial chasm remains, and there are few signs that the coming century will see it closed. A century and quarter, after slavery, white America continues to ask of its black citizens an extra patience and perseverance that whites have never required of themselves. So the question for white Americans is essentially moral: is it right to impose on members of an entire race a lesser start in life and then to expect from them a degree of resolution that has never been demanded from your own race?"
Check this out after reading below quote. Jared Diamond on why societies collapse | Video on TED.com
"'The Culture of Contentment' is a deliberate misnomer. Galbraith is using irony here, irony little short of sarcasm. What he really means is the culture of smugness. His argument is that until the mid 1970s round about the oil crisis the western democracies accepted the idea of a mixed economy and with that went economic social progress. Since then, however, a prominent class has emerged, materially constable and even very rich, which, far from trying to help the less fortunate, has developed a whole infrastructure - politically and intellectually - to marginalize and even demonize them. Aspects of this include tax reductions to the better off and welfare cuts to the worst off, small 'manageable wars' to maintain the unifying force of a common enemy, the idea of 'unmitigated laissez-faire as embodiment of freedom,' and a desire for cutback in government. The most important collective end result of all this, Galbraith says, is a blindness and a deafness among the 'contented' to the growing problems of society. While they are content to spend, or have spent in their name, trillions of dollars to defeat relatively minor enemy figures... they are extremely unwilling to spend money on the underclass nearer home. In a startling paragraph he quotes figures to show that 'the number of Americans living below the poverty line increased by 28% in just 10 years from 24.5 million in 1978 to 32 million in 1988 by then nearly one in five children was born in poverty in the United States more than twice as high a proportion as in Canada or Germany" Peter Watson
Above quotations from Chap 36, 'Doing Well, Doing Good,' in [ame=http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Mind-Intellectual-History-Century/dp/0060084383/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8]Amazon.com: The Modern Mind: An Intellectual History of the 20th…[/ame]
[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Culture-Contentment-Penguin-economics-Galbraith/dp/0140173668/ref=sr_1_17?s=books&ie=UTF8]Amazon.com: Culture of Contentment, the (Penguin economics) (9780140173666): John Kenneth Galbraith: Books[/ame]
Want to Be Poor? Work One of These 8 Jobs | Poverty in America | Change.org
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/17/magazine/17charity.t.html?em
[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Good-Society-Humane-Agenda/dp/0395859980/ref=sr_1_10?s=books&ie=UTF8]Amazon.com: The Good Society: The Humane Agenda (0046442859981):…[/ame]
http://www.usmessageboard.com/economy/126288-rich-and-poor-jobs-and-wages.html
"If a man shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he too will cry out and not be answered." Proverbs 21:13
"[Andrew Hacker] has been analyzing America's social and racial statistics for a number of years, and is no firebrand but a reserved, even a stringent academic, not given to hyperbole or rhetorical flourishes.... But 'Two Nations' was more chilling than anything in the 'Review' [prior writings]. His argument was so shocking that Hacker and his editors apparently felt the need to wrap his central chapters behind several 'softer' introductory chapters that put his figures into context, exploring and seeking to explain racism and the fact of being black in an anecdotal way, to prepare the reader for what was to come. The argument was in two parts. The figures shown not only that America was still deeply divided after decades - a century - of effort, but that in many ways the situation had deteriorated since Myrdal's day, and despite what had been achieved by the civil rights movement.
'The real problem in our time,' wrote Hacker, 'is that more and more back infants are being born to mothers who are immature and poor. Compared with white women - most of whom are older and more comfortably off - black women are twice as likely to have anemic conditions during pregnancy, twice as likely to have no prenatal care, and twice as likely to give birth to low weight babies. Twice as many of their children develop serious health problems, including asthma, deafness, retardation, and learning disabilities, as well as conditions stemming from their own use of drugs and alcohol during pregnancy. Measured in economic terms, the last two decades have not been auspicious ones for Americans of any race. Between 1970 and 1992 the median income for white families, compared in constant dollars rose from $34,773 to 38,909, an increase of 11.9 percent. During this time black family income in fact went down a few dollars from $21,330 to 21,161. In relative terms, black incomes fell from $613 to 544 for each $1,000 received by whites.
Despite a large chapter on crime, Hackers figure's on school desegregation were more startling. In the early 1990s, 63.2 percent of all black children, nearly two out of three, were still in segregated schools. In some states the percentage of blacks in segregated schools was as high as 84%. Hackers conclusion was sober: 'In allocating responsibility, the response should be clear. It is white America that has made being black so disconsolate an estate. Legal slavery may be in the past, but segregation and subordination have been allowed to persist. Even today, America imposes a stigma on every black child at birth...A huge racial chasm remains, and there are few signs that the coming century will see it closed. A century and quarter, after slavery, white America continues to ask of its black citizens an extra patience and perseverance that whites have never required of themselves. So the question for white Americans is essentially moral: is it right to impose on members of an entire race a lesser start in life and then to expect from them a degree of resolution that has never been demanded from your own race?"
Check this out after reading below quote. Jared Diamond on why societies collapse | Video on TED.com
"'The Culture of Contentment' is a deliberate misnomer. Galbraith is using irony here, irony little short of sarcasm. What he really means is the culture of smugness. His argument is that until the mid 1970s round about the oil crisis the western democracies accepted the idea of a mixed economy and with that went economic social progress. Since then, however, a prominent class has emerged, materially constable and even very rich, which, far from trying to help the less fortunate, has developed a whole infrastructure - politically and intellectually - to marginalize and even demonize them. Aspects of this include tax reductions to the better off and welfare cuts to the worst off, small 'manageable wars' to maintain the unifying force of a common enemy, the idea of 'unmitigated laissez-faire as embodiment of freedom,' and a desire for cutback in government. The most important collective end result of all this, Galbraith says, is a blindness and a deafness among the 'contented' to the growing problems of society. While they are content to spend, or have spent in their name, trillions of dollars to defeat relatively minor enemy figures... they are extremely unwilling to spend money on the underclass nearer home. In a startling paragraph he quotes figures to show that 'the number of Americans living below the poverty line increased by 28% in just 10 years from 24.5 million in 1978 to 32 million in 1988 by then nearly one in five children was born in poverty in the United States more than twice as high a proportion as in Canada or Germany" Peter Watson
Above quotations from Chap 36, 'Doing Well, Doing Good,' in [ame=http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Mind-Intellectual-History-Century/dp/0060084383/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8]Amazon.com: The Modern Mind: An Intellectual History of the 20th…[/ame]
[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Culture-Contentment-Penguin-economics-Galbraith/dp/0140173668/ref=sr_1_17?s=books&ie=UTF8]Amazon.com: Culture of Contentment, the (Penguin economics) (9780140173666): John Kenneth Galbraith: Books[/ame]
Want to Be Poor? Work One of These 8 Jobs | Poverty in America | Change.org
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/17/magazine/17charity.t.html?em
[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Good-Society-Humane-Agenda/dp/0395859980/ref=sr_1_10?s=books&ie=UTF8]Amazon.com: The Good Society: The Humane Agenda (0046442859981):…[/ame]
http://www.usmessageboard.com/economy/126288-rich-and-poor-jobs-and-wages.html
"If a man shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he too will cry out and not be answered." Proverbs 21:13
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Welfare and other entitlement programs destroy initiative. What starts out as a well intended helping hand develops into a way of life. It's like putting the Indian on a Reservation. You took a proud, productive, self sustaining culture and turned them into a race of dependent individuals with substance abuse problems.
Don't tell Charlie! )
