Let's take a look at some of the language used in this article, in order to see what connotations are associated with people who thrive on a stressful environment (i.e., a sweatshop, as opposed to those who do not thrive. Tell me what message this article gives us.
Here are some selected excerpts from the article:
"juggling multiple projects and running on four hours of sleep is business as usual."
So that is the Brave New Workplacein America. But that is not the workplace in France, and many other countries in Europe, where 35 hours per week is the mandated maximum work week, and where everyone gets 4 to 6 weeks of time off.
"But for Mr. Jones, the stress is worth it, if only because every now and then he can gaze at the Manhattan skyline and spot a product of his labor: the soaring profile of the Chatham apartment building on East 65th Street,"
Teaching us to accept our place in the sweatshop. Slavery is Freedom, dontcha know, and sweatshop workplaces are heaven.
"Mr. Jones belongs to a rare breed of worker"
Oooh. I wanna be a "rare breed", too. How about you?!
Let's take a look at some of the words used to describe our stress-loving heroes:
"they grapple...they flourish...functioning in overdrive..resilient... hardy, "
Wow! If only I could just be like them!
"People who are high in hardiness enjoy ongoing changes and difficulties,"
OK, Slashdotters, did you get the memo on our Brave New Sweatshop Economy. No, it is not a Velvet Sweatshop that we are headed for, it is just "changes and difficulties". Now get back to work!
But what about the rest of us non-heroic types? How does this article describe us?
"Their coworkers who complain of being too stressed have consistently higher levels of hormones that rarely dip very far, trapping them in a constant state of anxiety.
Oh. OK. We are "complainers" trapped in our anxiety. Gotcha!
"Some people will say 'No, I don't like a lot of stress,' but they find themselves in one stressful job after another, so there must be something that's pulling them.""
Hmm, or maybe, just maybe, it is because our government has sold us out to the corporations and the wealthy, thus creating a sweatshop environment where nearly EVERY job is becoming more and more stressful. Naw, that couldn't be it. Could it?
I clearly stated that I was comparing America to Europe. Yet you ignored that, and compared America to Indonesia, a third world country. I find it very telling that you chose that comparison. So I guess as long as we are better off than the 3rd world, then everything is hunkydory?
What a surprise. Who would have thought that the mouthpiece of the corporate world would turn out an article like this that essentially glorifies the Velvet Sweatshop that America have become. The article here subtly hints that if you do not thrive under pressure, and accept the sweatshop environment, well, then there must be something just a bit wrong with you.
People, when are you going to open your eyes and see the grave looming in front of you a sparse few decades ahead?
When are you going to take a look at the workplace environment and rules and social safety net that many European countries have created, thus ensuring that their citizens are somewhat shielded from overwork and sweatshop environments?
PLease consider the perspective taken by this article. Could it have been written another way? Why was it written with the particular perspective it took?
Too bad they suck so bad in reality......famous last words of the last unsuccesful would-be aeroplane inventor.
A lot of people tried to make flying machines before the Wright Bros. They all failed. Yet, it was accomplished eventually.
And those early inventors had as foes only the laws of physics. The people who have tried to make socialism work have had as foes most of the rich people and corporations in the world. Think it might be hard? You bet!
But it is still worth the fight. Just take it one step at a time.
From the harpers mag article cited above, here are some of the details from the RightWing Media Machine that has promoted free trade, outsourcing, regressive taxation, mass immigration, etc:
$2 BILLION ASSETS CONSERVATIVE FOUNDATIONS (200I ASSETS)
(in $ Millions) The Bradley Foundation $584M; Smith Richardson Foundation $494M; Scaife Family (Four Foundations) $478.4M; Earhart Foundation $84M; John M. Olin Foundation $71M; Koch Family (Three Foundations) $68M; Castle Rock (Coors) Foundation $50M; JM Foundation $25M; Philip M. McKenna Foundation $17.4M;
Departed but not disbanded. As the basic American consensus has shifted over the last thirty years from a liberal to a conservative bias, so also the senator from Arizona has come to he seen as a prophet in the western wilderness, apostle of the rich man's dream of heaven that placed Ronald Reagan in the White House in 1980 and provides the current Bush Administration with the platform on which the candidate was trundled into New York City this August with Arnold Schwarzenegger, the heavy law enforcement, and the paper elephants.*
The speeches in Madison Square Garden affirmed the great truths now routinely preached from the pulpits of Fox News and the Wall Street Journal--government the problem, not the solution; the social contract a dead letter; the free market the answer to every maid-en's prayer--and while listening to the hollow rattle of the rhetorical brass and tin, I remembered the question that Hofstadter didn't stay to answer. How did a set of ideas both archaic and bizarre make its way into the center ring of the American political circus?
Once again, here is that link. Read this article well if you want to understand American politics. Harpers is a well respected magazine. Over 100 years old. They have no website, so this article has been reproduced from the September 2004 issue.
The reason why so many people have accepted as blind faith the axiom that free trade is automatically good is that the Big Money has funded more economists, columnists, talk radio hosts, etc. This vast Big Money media has for decades used words and slanted, biased, flawed studies to create a worldview friendly to "free" trade, regressive taxes, and an ever-smalled social safety net, along with increased illegal and legal immigration.
Samuelson is a reminder that there are lots of economists who think free trade is a scam. But the average American rarely hears from them. Why?
After 3 decades, the Big Money media machine owns many of the ideas in your brain, and owns the public debate. They bought the public debate with 2 billion dollars of foundations and think tanks. See more about the Tentacles of Rage from Harpers magazine article this month.
USA Govt ALWAYS looks out for Massa's property 1st
on
Is IP Property?
·
· Score: 1
American govt has a LONG history of taking especially good care of the property of the rich. This goes all the way back to the slave/indentured servant days.
American govt has really always been about enTITLEments. Those who have lots of property have coerced the govt to let them have property enTITLEments. They feel they are enTITLEed to special privileges over those who have no property.
A representative democracy, yes. But one that is a 2 party monopoly.
But I would say that is a poor substitute for the more democratic systems found in most REAL democracies, such as the healthy multiparty democracies with some form of proportional representation.
As I said in my first post in this subthread, it depends on the kid. OBVIOUSLY, some kids do not need this sort of schooling/training. As for myself, I needed it, or something like it, as high school was just not my cup of tea.
First off, I think we should cut the military budget dramatically, and use that money for healthcare, medical research and education.
Now, when as for military school, perhaps quasimilitary would be more appropriate. THe point is that young men at that general ago are hardwired to NEED some sort of rigorous disciplinary training. For hundreds of years, corporations and governments in collusion have have taken advantge of this and have cooked up nationalism and patriotism through fear in order to profit off of war. Young men have sought this military experience out, many of them, and having the job doesn't hurt, either. But they are basically hardwired to need this type of experience.
But we should address that need without actually training them for war.
As for other replies in this subthread: with respect to European education: I don't know all that much about it. But from my studies of some European political economies, I am convinced that many of the European countries have their act together in a way we can only dream of, e.g., Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, etc. Just follow their lead--we could hardly do worse.
First, the education system here is based on some industrial-conformity training system devised by industrialists in the 1800s, or therabouts.
It is not really natural or right for kids of a certain age to be sitting in a desk all day. Boys especially need to have a break at certain stages of their growth, usually about 13-15 yo, when they should be sent away from home to some sort of boarding school/military school/vocational school arrangement, at least for a time. It all depends on the kid.
Once again, Europe has us beat in this area. Just do what the most advanced countries in Europe do, and it will undoubtedly be twice as good as what we do.
google: "the scientific impact of nations" 2004 david king
Here is the search url" http://www.google.com/search?q=%22the+scient ific+i mpact+of+nations%22+2004+david+king&sourceid=mozil la-search&start=0&start=0
If you read the report, you can see that if you look at the social democracies (Sweden, Denmark) and Switz and the other NW EU countries, they have 2 times the papers per capita as the USA. And of course these are the countries that supposedly are on their ass economically because of their high taxes and their crippling welfare state.
It seems that these days universities are corporations themselves. In this darwinistic neoliberal state that America has become, universities are practically preying on the students, like some sort of scamming ripoff joint. What differnce is there between the rapacious check cashing stores and tax refund outlets that prey upon the urban poor, and these fucking universities that set up these kids with tens of thousands of dallars in debt so they can get a BA from some cow college?
It is SO sad what has happened to this country. When I got out of the Navy in California in 1981, the education counselors at the exit interview told me I could attend university there and pay a pittance in tuition, all while drawing $1100/month to go to school. Back in those days, one could draw unemployment as a student.
It was all paid for by taxes back in those days--the top tax rate for the rich was like 70% back then.
Are you saying that the European social democracies/Germany/France, etc have large budget deficits that America? If so, not by much....
I would say that budgetarily, they are in BETTER shape than America. And of course when it comes to quality of life for most of their citizenry, they do much better than America does for most of its citizens.
Actually you are semantically/historically correct: neoliberalism is what we are talking about, which is economically conservative (in American lingo). But neoliberalism is "economically liberal". Bit of a semantic jungle, there....
yes, the media is clearly SOCIALLY liberal. What I mean is that they favor the officially "approved" liberal agenda issues, such as abortion, gun rights, gay marriage, etc.
But the media is NOT ECONOMICALLY liberal. By that I mean that they do NOT favor a progressive taxation structure, such as America had in the past, and as most of Europe STILL has, which is why Europeans have universal healthcare, years of unemployment benefits, welfare for poor single people, and the whole social safety net.
The media also favors free trade. If you are really liberal, economically liberal, you do not favor free trade. That is a conservative thing.
Many of Chomsky's books, articles, speech mp3's can be found here at chomsky.info
Chomsky really sets up a historical and motivational framework for how government, corporations and the media work together to control the political agenda. Whether that collaboration is a conspiracy or even consciously deliberate, is another matter. But I think anyone who makes a deliberate, openminded study of his evidence will come to the same conclusion--eventually. And developments in politics and war over the last few years have shown me just how right Chomsky really is.....
Slashdot Mirror
"are you by any chance a lawyer?"
I am working on it....
Let's take a look at some of the language used in this article, in order to see what connotations are associated with people who thrive on a stressful environment (i.e., a sweatshop, as opposed to those who do not thrive. Tell me what message this article gives us.
Here are some selected excerpts from the article:
"juggling multiple projects and running on four hours of sleep is business as usual."
So that is the Brave New Workplacein America. But that is not the workplace in France, and many other countries in Europe, where 35 hours per week is the mandated maximum work week, and where everyone gets 4 to 6 weeks of time off.
"But for Mr. Jones, the stress is worth it, if only because every now and then he can gaze at the Manhattan skyline and spot a product of his labor: the soaring profile of the Chatham apartment building on East 65th Street,"
Teaching us to accept our place in the sweatshop. Slavery is Freedom, dontcha know, and sweatshop workplaces are heaven.
"Mr. Jones belongs to a rare breed of worker"
Oooh. I wanna be a "rare breed", too. How about you?!
Let's take a look at some of the words used to describe our stress-loving heroes:
"they grapple
Wow! If only I could just be like them!
"People who are high in hardiness enjoy ongoing changes and difficulties,"
OK, Slashdotters, did you get the memo on our Brave New Sweatshop Economy. No, it is not a Velvet Sweatshop that we are headed for, it is just "changes and difficulties". Now get back to work!
But what about the rest of us non-heroic types? How does this article describe us?
"Their coworkers who complain of being too stressed have consistently higher levels of hormones that rarely dip very far, trapping them in a constant state of anxiety.
Oh. OK. We are "complainers" trapped in our anxiety. Gotcha!
"Some people will say 'No, I don't like a lot of stress,' but they find themselves in one stressful job after another, so there must be something that's pulling them.""
Hmm, or maybe, just maybe, it is because our government has sold us out to the corporations and the wealthy, thus creating a sweatshop environment where nearly EVERY job is becoming more and more stressful. Naw, that couldn't be it. Could it?
I clearly stated that I was comparing America to Europe. Yet you ignored that, and compared America to Indonesia, a third world country. I find it very telling that you chose that comparison. So I guess as long as we are better off than the 3rd world, then everything is hunkydory?
What a surprise. Who would have thought that the mouthpiece of the corporate world would turn out an article like this that essentially glorifies the Velvet Sweatshop that America have become. The article here subtly hints that if you do not thrive under pressure, and accept the sweatshop environment, well, then there must be something just a bit wrong with you.
People, when are you going to open your eyes and see the grave looming in front of you a sparse few decades ahead?
When are you going to take a look at the workplace environment and rules and social safety net that many European countries have created, thus ensuring that their citizens are somewhat shielded from overwork and sweatshop environments?
PLease consider the perspective taken by this article. Could it have been written another way? Why was it written with the particular perspective it took?
Too bad they suck so bad in reality. .....famous last words of the last unsuccesful would-be aeroplane inventor.
A lot of people tried to make flying machines before the Wright Bros. They all failed. Yet, it was accomplished eventually.
And those early inventors had as foes only the laws of physics. The people who have tried to make socialism work have had as foes most of the rich people and corporations in the world. Think it might be hard? You bet!
But it is still worth the fight. Just take it one step at a time.
Yep, every book on his shelf that has a readable title has the word Marx in it. 3 out of 3 is what I count.
I dig Marx. I hope someday we can make socialism work....
My point is that Samuelson is one of the many voices that are drowned out by the Big Money Propaganda Machine.
From the harpers mag article cited above, here are some of the details from the RightWing Media Machine that has promoted free trade, outsourcing, regressive taxation, mass immigration, etc:
$2 BILLION ASSETS CONSERVATIVE FOUNDATIONS (200I ASSETS)
(in $ Millions)
The Bradley Foundation $584M; Smith Richardson Foundation $494M; Scaife Family (Four Foundations) $478.4M; Earhart Foundation $84M; John M. Olin Foundation $71M; Koch Family (Three Foundations) $68M; Castle Rock (Coors) Foundation $50M; JM Foundation $25M; Philip M. McKenna Foundation $17.4M;
Departed but not disbanded. As the basic American consensus has shifted over the last thirty years from a liberal to a conservative bias, so also the senator from Arizona has come to he seen as a prophet in the western wilderness, apostle of the rich man's dream of heaven that placed Ronald Reagan in the White House in 1980 and provides the current Bush Administration with the platform on which the candidate was trundled into New York City this August with Arnold Schwarzenegger, the heavy law enforcement, and the paper elephants.*
The speeches in Madison Square Garden affirmed the great truths now routinely preached from the pulpits of Fox News and the Wall Street Journal--government the problem, not the solution; the social contract a dead letter; the free market the answer to every maid-en's prayer--and while listening to the hollow rattle of the rhetorical brass and tin, I remembered the question that Hofstadter didn't stay to answer. How did a set of ideas both archaic and bizarre make its way into the center ring of the American political circus?
Once again, here is that link. Read this article well if you want to understand American politics. Harpers is a well respected magazine. Over 100 years old. They have no website, so this article has been reproduced from the September 2004 issue.
The reason why so many people have accepted as blind faith the axiom that free trade is automatically good is that the Big Money has funded more economists, columnists, talk radio hosts, etc. This vast Big Money media has for decades used words and slanted, biased, flawed studies to create a worldview friendly to "free" trade, regressive taxes, and an ever-smalled social safety net, along with increased illegal and legal immigration.
Samuelson is a reminder that there are lots of economists who think free trade is a scam. But the average American rarely hears from them. Why?
After 3 decades, the Big Money media machine owns many of the ideas in your brain, and owns the public debate. They bought the public debate with 2 billion dollars of foundations and think tanks. See more about the Tentacles of Rage from Harpers magazine article this month.
American govt has a LONG history of taking especially good care of the property of the rich. This goes all the way back to the slave/indentured servant days.
American govt has really always been about enTITLEments. Those who have lots of property have coerced the govt to let them have property enTITLEments. They feel they are enTITLEed to special privileges over those who have no property.
Money and Greed and the only reason that f911 ever got into theaters at all.
Greed will be their undoing
BWWAAHHHAHHAHHAHHHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Now I have another outlet for my leftist commie propaganda.
A representative democracy, yes. But one that is a 2 party monopoly.
But I would say that is a poor substitute for the more democratic systems found in most REAL democracies, such as the healthy multiparty democracies with some form of proportional representation.
As I said in my first post in this subthread, it depends on the kid. OBVIOUSLY, some kids do not need this sort of schooling/training. As for myself, I needed it, or something like it, as high school was just not my cup of tea.
First off, I think we should cut the military budget dramatically, and use that money for healthcare, medical research and education.
Now, when as for military school, perhaps quasimilitary would be more appropriate. THe point is that young men at that general ago are hardwired to NEED some sort of rigorous disciplinary training. For hundreds of years, corporations and governments in collusion have have taken advantge of this and have cooked up nationalism and patriotism through fear in order to profit off of war. Young men have sought this military experience out, many of them, and having the job doesn't hurt, either. But they are basically hardwired to need this type of experience.
But we should address that need without actually training them for war.
As for other replies in this subthread: with respect to European education: I don't know all that much about it. But from my studies of some European political economies, I am convinced that many of the European countries have their act together in a way we can only dream of, e.g., Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, etc. Just follow their lead--we could hardly do worse.
Hammer. Nail. Head.
First, the education system here is based on some industrial-conformity training system devised by industrialists in the 1800s, or therabouts.
It is not really natural or right for kids of a certain age to be sitting in a desk all day. Boys especially need to have a break at certain stages of their growth, usually about 13-15 yo, when they should be sent away from home to some sort of boarding school/military school/vocational school arrangement, at least for a time. It all depends on the kid.
Once again, Europe has us beat in this area. Just do what the most advanced countries in Europe do, and it will undoubtedly be twice as good as what we do.
The particular programs you just mentioned did not even exist back then. Actually, the 1100 I mentioned was a combination of programs.
Now, I think your mommy is calling you to dinner....
google: "the scientific impact of nations" 2004 david king
t ific+i mpact+of+nations%22+2004+david+king&sourceid=mozil la-search&start=0&start=0
Here is the search url"
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22the+scien
If you read the report, you can see that if you look at the social democracies (Sweden, Denmark) and Switz and the other NW EU countries, they have 2 times the papers per capita as the USA. And of course these are the countries that supposedly are on their ass economically because of their high taxes and their crippling welfare state.
It seems that these days universities are corporations themselves. In this darwinistic neoliberal state that America has become, universities are practically preying on the students, like some sort of scamming ripoff joint. What differnce is there between the rapacious check cashing stores and tax refund outlets that prey upon the urban poor, and these fucking universities that set up these kids with tens of thousands of dallars in debt so they can get a BA from some cow college?
It is SO sad what has happened to this country. When I got out of the Navy in California in 1981, the education counselors at the exit interview told me I could attend university there and pay a pittance in tuition, all while drawing $1100/month to go to school. Back in those days, one could draw unemployment as a student.
It was all paid for by taxes back in those days--the top tax rate for the rich was like 70% back then.
....you would think each student would have his/her own Cray computer....
A bit of an exaggeration, maybe, but not that much of one....
Are you saying that the European social democracies/Germany/France, etc have large budget deficits that America? If so, not by much....
I would say that budgetarily, they are in BETTER shape than America. And of course when it comes to quality of life for most of their citizenry, they do much better than America does for most of its citizens.
Actually you are semantically/historically correct: neoliberalism is what we are talking about, which is economically conservative (in American lingo). But neoliberalism is "economically liberal". Bit of a semantic jungle, there....
yes, the media is clearly SOCIALLY liberal. What I mean is that they favor the officially "approved" liberal agenda issues, such as abortion, gun rights, gay marriage, etc.
But the media is NOT ECONOMICALLY liberal. By that I mean that they do NOT favor a progressive taxation structure, such as America had in the past, and as most of Europe STILL has, which is why Europeans have universal healthcare, years of unemployment benefits, welfare for poor single people, and the whole social safety net.
The media also favors free trade. If you are really liberal, economically liberal, you do not favor free trade. That is a conservative thing.
Many of Chomsky's books, articles, speech mp3's can be found here at chomsky.info
Chomsky really sets up a historical and motivational framework for how government, corporations and the media work together to control the political agenda. Whether that collaboration is a conspiracy or even consciously deliberate, is another matter. But I think anyone who makes a deliberate, openminded study of his evidence will come to the same conclusion--eventually. And developments in politics and war over the last few years have shown me just how right Chomsky really is.....