Wednesday, May 12, 2010

The Jungle: Modernity Edition

Soundtrack: Guerilla Radio

Competition for low paying jobs?
Housing market a swindle?
Credit crunch/predatory lending?
Higher education virtually unattainable (unless you take out massive loans-see above)?
Massive corruption/graft occurring between politics, private interests and the government?
Court/Legal system about who has deeper pockets?
Corporations making the regulations that oversee them/flaunting them regardless?

Each year.....I'm more and more amazed at the parallels between Upton Sinclair's seminal work, The Jungle, and our modern time(s).

Though, semi-Victorian in nature due to glorification of the protagonist(s), and purporting a cure-all (in the form of Socialism).......

Much like its predecessors in the vein of Dickens and other socially aware authors that pulled on the heart strings of the reading public; Sinclair took a political slant and sought to create sympathy for the plight of the impoverished.

But as we look at the news, as we look at the economy....as we look at spiraling national debt then have the bank and the student loan companies harp on us as though individual citizens should not have any accrued debt....wait, no that's not right, you have to have a certain amount of extended credit to even have a decent credit score.....hmmm. Imagine that.

Some of us had a "Rage Against the Machine" phase early in our rebellious youth. We saw conspiracies and harped on the government's largely felonious practices in various parts of the world.....then you set childish things aside.

Are you not a bum? Are you motivated? Are you ambitious? Are you intelligent/creative/driven?

You go to college.
You take out a loan.
You get a credit card.
You graduate having negative net worth.
You are saddled with debt for an education worth less than at any point in history yet 100's of times more expensive....so your eyes eventually fall upon those "childish" things......and you grab your teddy bear, you grab your big wheel, Gameboy in hand, and you open your eyes to see the system of debt.

It is a system DESIGNED to keep you paying back money you can Virtually never fully pay back. If everyone, or even the majority of people zero balanced their credit each month, many credit lenders would fold overnight. They would close up shop b/c there would be no money in it.

I have banked with the same bank for 3 1/2 years. I need a loan to make it to payday. I'm talkin' like $100. I had a check clear unexpectedly that I wrote over a month ago. The bank said "no, [they] cannot in good faith extend me a loan."
This is the same institution that has been loaning out my money to others on interest for 3 and a half years.
I don't need them. They need me. Worker beers can leave the hive. The Queen is the slave, not the other way around.

Wrap your brain around that. I cannot obtain a loan for $100 b/c I'm behind on my student loan payment(s).

These are two totally unconnected debts, held by two completely different hands....but you see, they talk to one another. They "flag" you....so though, like in Rounders with Matt Damon:
"All the luck inthe world isn't gonna change things for these guys. They're simply overmatched. We're not playing together, but we're not playing against each other, either. It's like the Nature Channel. You do'nt see piranhas eating each other, do you? "


Do not participate in a corrupt system in which you are designed to lose.
I'm not advocating you go Jack Duane in The Jungle and grift/become a professional thief, b/c unless you have money, the legal system exists to get those that go outside the confines of the debt system.

How much money does the federal government have?
NOT ONE FUCKING RED CENT. They do not own the lint in my fucking pocket nor the ink on my goddamn check.

Don't forget that.
The government is answerable to its people, not the other fucking way around.
Somewhere along the line "public" servants forgot that.
We are not indebted to them. They are indebted to us.

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