Dear People of the World (formerly Dear Americans)

I posted the below comment on the NBC news article,  

In Okinawa, the war isn't over: Protests aimed at new US base

#99 - Mon Apr 15, 2013 8:46 AM EDT

 

A plutonomy means a form of capitalism that is designed to make the rich control a nation's government, its economy and its society.

At a certain place in a certain country, the wealthy have gathered and are having a meeting.

They are the elite of the country.  Although few in number, they control the majority of the country's wealth. This is why they can do anything.  They have the power to manipulate society to suit themselves.  They have the economy, of course, politics, and even the media which forms public opinions in the palms of their hands.

 

 As they all gather under the chandelier, one of the wealthy breaks the ice while drinking his champagne.

 

"Hey, the global economy is on a bit of a downturn recently. I feel that our wealth has also been on a decreasing trend. Shouldn't we come up with some kind of countermeasure to this?"

 

"You're so right. Taxes are still just too high! We should really bring down things like the income tax rate."

"-and let's privatize the public enterprises. And relax the regulations. Let's pressure the government to get rid of regulations which are an obstacle to business. And to reduce labor costs, make them allow more temporary workers. The politicians and government officials all got where they are now through our donations and pay-offs; they'll do whatever we ask."

 

"But the government's budget will shrink by the amount the taxes we pay goes down, won't it? How do we make up for the deficit?"

 

"That's easy. We just reduce the education and social welfare budgets which have been used for the public up to now. The expensive taxes that we've been paying have been diverted to those that barely pay any tax. That's why we just need to keep raising consumption tax, insurance and pension payments, which they have to pay an equal amount of."

 

"But surely the public won't allow it. If we do that, public services will be degraded, the burden on individuals will increase, and they'll be critical that the rich get preferential tax treatment, and that workers are treated as disposable. We have to be conscious of the fact that this country is a democracy. Even if we have all of the wealth, regardless of one's assets, when it comes to votes it's one person, one vote after all."

 

"Which is why we'll use the media. We are also their major stockholders and advertisers; we’ll feed them this information. We'll tell them that freeing the economy will lead to the development of the public and government as a whole, that they should consider the principles of capitalism, and that a large variety of cheaper, high quality goods and services will become available to consumers thanks to this freeing up. We'll tell them that if enterprise profits, workers will also receive benefits through the trickle-down phenomenon. If we run a campaign like this using some kept scholars, nobody will oppose us!"

 

The proposals decided upon at the meeting were executed by the government, and went unopposed by society thanks to the media's guidance of public opinion. Now then, on to the second meeting ten years later.

 

 

To be continued to Chapter 2

 

 

The story is an interesting and cynical perspective of the past few generations of society, specifically focusing on the disparity in wealth between the wealthy and the average member of the public. The story shows the wealthy conspiring to widen the gap between themselves and the workers of society.

 

It may be interesting to read this story along with a song. "Mercedes Benz". 

Two films are stories about Afro-Americans in the U.S. Both of them described hard situations that Black people had experienced in the past and maybe even now.

"The Help" was a story of Afro-American maids working for white families in Mississippi in 1960's when segregation was very common. Afro-American maids were not allowed to share bathroom with white family members. They had to always put up with white people's arrogance. A young white writer decided to write about their experience and publish that by interviewing them.

"Precious" was about a girl of the same name living in Harlem, New York, 1980's. She got two babies with her father. She was raped since she was a child. Her mother abused her because of pregnancy. Her mother and she lived on welfare. She had to stop attending middle school for pregnancy. So she had to attend special school for dropped outs.

Portrayals of Black people in the both films are kind of, from white perspective although Afro-American characters played important roles. They spoke grammatically incorrect English like "You is smart." They looked uneducated, vulgar and violent, wheras white or lighter skin characters looked elegant, educated and kind. That reflects on reality? Maybe or maybe not.

For white viewers such kind of films satisfy their supremacy and ease frustration caused by forcible integration.

Has America changed since Civil Rights Act?  

Mr. Obama is the president of the U.S. He is half-white and not descendant of slaves. If he was a pure Afro-American of slave descendant, he would have never been elected. He wasn't popular in the Southern States even among Democrats. Because he was elected, since his inauguration, number of Racist activist group has drastically increased.

Most recent survey for income gap among racial groups found Black and white gap recorded biggest since 1984 when the survey was first conducted. It was due to recession but why the burden biased to Afro-Americans? Racism? Poverty and lack of education caused by racial discrimination.

I don't like this part of America but this is reality of America.   

I guess not, but I did kind of similar thing to what he did. But much more minor scale.

An Australian whistle blower site manager, a former hacker was arrested for alleged sexual offense filed by Swedish police. Since US government information he leaked in collaboration with US military serviceman caused turmoil worldwide, this arrest is considered politically motivated. I think it is.  

I secretly interviewed with US miliatary serviceman in order to get sensitive information of his organization.

If you are interested, please read the below article.

Interview with CVN 73 Nuclear Reactor Crew

What Mr. Assage has done is controversial, can it be part of free speech or promotion for transparency government, or threatening national security?

It is interesting to know there are people in the U.S., who support Assange. That is great thing about the U.S. Micheal Moore is one of them.

As Moore describes, what if some necessary information was open in public, we could have avoided tragedy or change the course of the country. History tells that is true.

Last Sunday I attended the speech event of Nanjing massacre survivor. The massacre was committed by former Japanese imperial army in former capital of China, Nanjing, December 1937. Her parents were shot to death by Japanese army men when her family evacuated to the air-raid shelter. They found the evacuees and shot bullets to them from the shelter entrance by machine gun. Later they poured gasoline into the shelter and burned the dead bodies in it.

Something like that has been happening on and on in recent Iraq and Afghanistan but has been never publicised until Wikileaks released. 

"Leaking war crimes is not crime" is right!