If Ever Slavery
We all remember that famous line: "If fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the American flag" (or words to that effect-this is a much quoted and phrased sentiment)
But fascism isn't the worst of all fates. No, not by far.
Slavery is far worse and we banished it explicitly with the Emancipation Proclamation and with the reconstruction era constitutional amendments.
But bad things live on, albeit in hibernation.
There is something called debt peonage that persisted in the South after Reconstruction. It was a system of enforced subordination based on credit/debt arrangements. It gradually came to an end under persistent legal attacks.
Flash forward to the nineties and the last eight years. Do you remember getting literally scores of credit solicitations in the mail? Various credit card companies offering you attractive terms to get one of their cards, or to transfer your existing "balances" to them; various banks asking you to re-finance your house under attractive terms or even to refinance your automobile loan...
And the commercials of the era, making the same enticements, the good life in exchange for credit indebtedness.
A lot of institutions wanted us to enter into conditions of indebtedness.
And once there, particularly in its depths, our behavior, our lives, were no longer our own.
If slavery was ever to return to America, it would come wrapped in terms of easy credit.
The credit industry literally wanted to make debt peonage return to these shores. And they almost succeeded. To break free from the system, people in very large numbers will lose their homes and a financial world will be shaken.
But fascism isn't the worst of all fates. No, not by far.
Slavery is far worse and we banished it explicitly with the Emancipation Proclamation and with the reconstruction era constitutional amendments.
But bad things live on, albeit in hibernation.
There is something called debt peonage that persisted in the South after Reconstruction. It was a system of enforced subordination based on credit/debt arrangements. It gradually came to an end under persistent legal attacks.
Flash forward to the nineties and the last eight years. Do you remember getting literally scores of credit solicitations in the mail? Various credit card companies offering you attractive terms to get one of their cards, or to transfer your existing "balances" to them; various banks asking you to re-finance your house under attractive terms or even to refinance your automobile loan...
And the commercials of the era, making the same enticements, the good life in exchange for credit indebtedness.
A lot of institutions wanted us to enter into conditions of indebtedness.
And once there, particularly in its depths, our behavior, our lives, were no longer our own.
If slavery was ever to return to America, it would come wrapped in terms of easy credit.
The credit industry literally wanted to make debt peonage return to these shores. And they almost succeeded. To break free from the system, people in very large numbers will lose their homes and a financial world will be shaken.
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well, another blog sinks into the memory pool without a ripple.
So I will toss this comment into that same pool after it.
Seeing the credit industry as the new sponsors of debt peonage is a fairly good idea, and I hope someone else comes up with this concept and runs with it.
It might make people, especially those with a historical consciousness, more loath to entangle themselves.
October 15, 2008 6:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just because you didn't see the ripple, doesn't mean it wasn't there. You've made a good point! I was just too depressed after reading it to form any words.
October 15, 2008 7:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I read & Rec'd Lux, but - as part of my personal psychological study - wanted to see how people would respond. And voila! The denial's running about 6,000 miles deep, wouldn't you say? I've tried a number of times now to get at this problem, last time even dragging poor Jimi Hendrix in - but it really seems incapable of being grasped by most people right now. The Jimi piece got some Recs, but - to compare - my piece on Canadian politics (the world's most boring topic!) already has 13 more. In case you missed, here it is. My advice - don't try the Hendrix method!
One part I liked.... "We didn't just stare into the abyss. We leapt. Bought in. Our piece of the Dream. And all of it, no downpayment, 'cause it was available NOW NOW NOW. (Just sign here.) We signed. And I coulda sworn I heard him say, I'm a Voodoo Chile. Voodoo Chile. Chilly all of a sudden, ain't it? When the future arrives. And it turns out that we traded our life's breath - hour by hour - for Money. We bit, we bought, and crossed our fingers, 'cause something was sure to turn up, right? Right??? Real estate values. Promotions. The Lottery. The Old Folks Kicking. Something HAD to turn up. Something. Just so long as that mortgage, the one on us - our LIVES - never arrived. Because that would mean the future, my future, at their beck & call. Bondage. Of sorts."
Bondage. You say debt peonage. I've been mentally using the term "indentured servitude," because apparently half of white immigrants to North America, for about 2 centuries, came under that system. And servant sound a wee bit nicer than slave.
But one way or another, this mess spells trouble, and I'm kind of looking for ways that'll help us get out. However. There's a debate on soon! Must get pizza and cheer! (God, we're gonna look back on this as a WEIRD time, eh?)
Nice piece. Very nice. Keep hammering Lux. Some day or other, someone will come up with a hook that makes people go.... "Oh. My. GOD!" hopefully soon.
October 15, 2008 8:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks Orlando and Quinn for coming by and commenting and recommending! Sorry to be so depressing.
My blogs nowadays run to infrastructure/economic issues and are pretty dry! Anyway, I consider the collapse of the easy credit era a very good thing for the people in the lower rungs of the economic strata. Easy credit acted very much like casinos: disproportionately harming those of lesser means and lower educational levels.
Next blog I will address a more thrilling topic: like did McCain get answers during the debates from some external source?
Lux to the top of the list!!
October 15, 2008 11:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well Lux! Looks like you ARE shooting to the top of the charts! Well done, twas a good piece. And some proof of the usefulness of this "Following" feature, eh?
Anyway. Mike Davis has written a quite brilliant piece on some of these issues (and more) which David Seaton's blog links to. I've Rec'ed David for this link, and think a read of Davis' original piece is well worth the effort. The post with the link is here.
October 16, 2008 12:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks to the new system, my dashboard, or something, told me that dimajamo had rec'd this. And thus I clicked on it. And read it. And this proves that the new system will help some posts get traction.
I've rec'd it. And who knows if the mere fact that I did that will also get onto someone's dashboard and they'll think, oh, TheraP says I should check this out.
So it's useful to "follow" people. That's now clear.
And the point you are making is such a powerful one. So true. But I also agree, that the concept of slavery is so aversive, people simply shy away.
I'm glad I've become a follower. Picking good people to follow is worth it!
With regard to debt slavery.... wow, what a powerful image! Thanks for that!
October 16, 2008 6:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
You got me TheraP - there are plenty of posts like this that are eloquently written, deserve a larger readership and comments but am either too swamped (preparing for vacation beginning tomorrow - YAY!) or like in this case the original post said it all. But I love that the new following list allows me to find posts even if they have slipped off the most recent list. :)
Agreed though that a brief note of appreciation is much more effective than clicking rec, even if I had nothing to add to the convo.
So belated thanks for this Lux!
October 16, 2008 11:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
P.S. Another good feature of the new system is that it keys you in to other blogs by the same poster. And I just saw your last one. The one about the prayer of thanks. Just want you to know, yes, I did remember to pray that before I went to sleep that night! So thanks for that too.
October 16, 2008 6:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
THANKS SO MUCH!
and that story about sitting up on the stage with HH, the Dalai Lama, I posted on your "Resolved..." thread is true! I don't know why, but that thread got me more autobiographical than is usual for me...
October 16, 2008 10:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
The credit system is quite a nice little scam. It works pretty much like borrowing money from the Mafia. You miss, one payment, and the vigor goes up, miss two, and your thumb gets broken. It's the velvet lined road to indentured servitude. It exploits you where you are most vulnerable--Yes, you can have whatever you desire--today--right now, and pay us back later with money you haven't earned yet. Spend all the money you will ever make, right now, and spend the rest of your life paying it back.
Dollar Down and a Dollar a Week
(Woody Guthrie and Cisco Houston)
A friend of mine bought an automobile
At a dollar down and a dollar a week.
Every time he turned the wheel,
It was a dollar down and a dollar a week.
He went riding down the road,
Pinched this girl upon her cheek.
Speed cop took him to the judge,
He got a dollar down and a dollar a week.
Sixty days he laid in jail,
At a dollar down and a dollar a week,
Another man was a lovin' his gal,
At a dollar down and a dollar a week.
When he got out he shot the man,
And laid him in the graveyard six feet deep.
And when he bought the graveyard spot,
it was a dollar down and a dollar a week.
October 16, 2008 8:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Sixteen Tons and what do you get? / Another day older and deeper in debt."
I argued with a lot of people over these home equity scams. Bank people, for example, would look back at me like I was nuts! No longer!
(now I have to get used to your new avatar)
October 16, 2008 9:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Think of it as a reincarnation. After the rebirth, of TPM, I had to get a new 'vessel'.
Sometimes I think of TPM as a sort of 'Riverworld'--you know, the series by Philip Jose Farmer. I just know Mark Twain and Sir Richard Burton are here, somewhere...
As for 16 tons--I do not know how companies were ever permitted to pay their workers in company scrip. I thought Uncle Sam was the only one who could print 'coin of the realm'. And then to basically force them to use their scrip to buy life's necessities from the company store that would jack up the prices just doubled down on injustice.
I wonder how many Americans know about the West Virginia Coal Field Wars and the battle of Blair mountain. We've been fighting these no good sons of bitches for a long, long time.
October 16, 2008 9:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Is that Jean Louis Kerouac I see?
October 16, 2008 10:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Nope, that's NC from his book cover.
October 16, 2008 1:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
D'oh. Should have read the thread first. You've both already been there.
October 16, 2008 1:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good to know there's 3 Neal freaks in the crowd.
Anybody wanna go for a drive?
October 16, 2008 1:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
drop me off at Desolation LO.
October 16, 2008 3:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, how about Desolation Row?
October 16, 2008 4:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Can you see the twin peaks of Hozomeen from the Row? If not, I'll stay at the lookout and throw saltines down to the marmots.
October 16, 2008 11:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Close, but no cigar. He was a fellow railroad man.
October 16, 2008 11:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Amazing how I've merged them in my mind. A decade ago, I picked up a yellowed copy of New World Writing, 1955, at a yard sale. The first excerpt is from "Jean Louis," entitled "Jazz of the Beat Generation." (Also has an excerpt from Catch-18, by Joesph Heller.) Anyway, from Jean Louis:
"Out we jumped in the warm mad night hearing a tenorman's bawling horn across the way going 'EE-YAH! EE-YAH!' and hands clapping to the beat and folks yelling 'Go, go, go!' Far from escorting the girls into the place, Dean was already racing across the streets with his huge bandaged thumb in the air yelling, 'Blow, man, blow!' And the excerpt ends, "Go moan for man."
Anyway, thanks for the avatar, just to remind me. ;-)
October 16, 2008 12:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
You ARE good. It's actually from the photo on the cover of 'The First Third'. I have several connections --one through the Association for Research and Enlightenment(the Edgar Cayce Foundation) which I had some minor involvment with in my youth--and then again, through my early career on the B&O RR--finally, I knew his daughter. A lot of people may not know about the origin of Buddhism among the Beat writers. Neal was a member of the ARE, and was always giving Jack, Cayce's interpretation of Buddhism. Neal knew Hugh Lynn Cayce, Edgar's son, very well, in San Jose, in the late 40's. Jack was convinced that this interpretation was wrong and went to the library and began reading books about Buddhism which he then turned Allen onto, and Allen turned everybody else onto it. It also isn't widely known that Neal was a Lord Buckley freak.
October 16, 2008 1:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
and while we are sojourning with the Beats, say a prayer for Lew Welch, who is still out there in the Sierra somewhere....ever green in our memories.
October 16, 2008 3:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Lux, you're striking to the bone here.
That's a quote from George Bush. Not Dubya, but George H.W. Bush. It was a something he uttered at the Earth Summit in Rio, 1992.
Here's the rub: The American people don't want to be told how to live. I've even had people on this very forum, ostensibly progressive people, bristle when I've suggested that the American lifestyle is not sustainable. That we consume to much. That we spend beyond our means. That we live unrealistic lifestyles based on physical vectors which are finite. Very few people are willing to hear this.
To put it bluntly, our system of values is fucked up. The Reagan/Thatcher era pounded us with the idea of negative liberty, that we were only free when free to consume whatever we wanted. Big Macs are freedom. iPods are freedom. Escalades are freedom.
And all of this has a price. The most massive and expensive military in history has a price. It's a price that few have even dared to consider.
We've got a choice now: Do we want to be a market or a country? A culture? A society?
What's worse is that we're likely going to elect Obama and that's he's going to do the job. And by that I mean he'll do the job of President, which is to help keep this whole thing going. Don't get me wrong, he'll be so much better than McCain. Or is it less worse (maybe less destructive)? I hope that he truly has vision and leadership and can help those of us along the way who've not even considered how fucked up the situation is, but perhaps he'll be more like Clinton and just be a "steady hand at the tiller." Either way, he's better than the alternative, but we need so much more than someone to steady the slide as the whole fat bastard continues to lose altitude.
So that's what we do. This is where we come in. We all fight to push him through election day, but then it's a new day. New fight. Then he's got to answer to us.
The challenge will be two-fold. The first part involves the realization that the illusion is toast. The second part involves replacing it. There's plenty in the history of America to draw from. It can be as simple as re-defining freedom and wealth. I don't give shit about how many colors an iPod comes in. That's not freedom to me. I care about being able to think and speak and write and associate and move about and live and let live. I care about my friends and family and neighbors. Clean food and water. Some good weather doesn't hurt. A paperback book. Can you dig it?
The point is this: As a great man once said, "Folks, it's time to evolve ideas." All is not lost, but there's much work to be done. It's time to re-define, to re-shape. No more eyes down on a dollar menu item on the way to a big box store in a crossover to run up the charge card and inflate the debt-money balloon a little bit more. No more injecting steroids into the twenty-four inch pythons of the military-industrial complex so we can keep a hand on that crude spigot for just a bit, just a bit, just a bit longer.
And Obama isn't going to do it for us. "We are the change we've been waiting for" just might be one of the corniest sounding cliches at first brush that I've ever encountered, but it's also one of the truest. No more bitching after January. We'll likely have a Democratic President and a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress. What will we say if things don't shake out the way we want then? Who will we blame then? We'll be out of scapegoats. It's on us at that point. Truth is, it always was.
One of the only reasons that I have any hope that Obama will be better for this country is that he's continually told everyone that it's not about him, it's about us. He says he needs our help. He can't do it alone. That's as real as it gets. He literally can't. No matter how bad we might want him to, he just can't do it. It's too big a job for one person.
October 16, 2008 2:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
DF,
I haven't had the pleasure of talking to you before but have admired your blogs and comments and as soon as I finish this post will go up and click that "follow" button...
That said, thanks for the comment. It really deserves to be its own blog. I agree with the realistic (I won't say "pessimistic") assessment. Our grandfathers succeeded all too well...they created a workers paradise of a sort here...but it was a utopia based on the satisfaction of material demands: large screen HD tvs, Hummers, 4,000 sq foot McMansions. Luxury items like computers became available to everyone...the want and poverty of the thirties when poor people were REALLY poor is a forgotten memory.
The paradise almost singlehandedly destroyed the Democractic Party's raison d'etre. No more outrage, no more class consciousness. Everybody fat and happy. The democrats of the thirties were street fighters; guys like Tommy Corcoran were simply tougher than the demoralized republicans who couldn't believe how rough the democratic tactics were. Now the shoe is on the other foot.
Obama is a lineal descendent of the New Dealers but is not a New Dealer, neither will be the Congressional Dem majorities he will work with.
But the alternative is so much worse, that I am happy the democratic governing culture will keep the republican reptiles from the machinery of power for at least four more years. We will need every last minute of that time to repair the damages of the last eight years.
October 16, 2008 3:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
I can dig it. The negative liberty & stuff-based wealth machine's always been with us, but it really went hog-wild from Reagan & Thatcher on. As though we all wanted tombstones that read,"Here lies Quinn Esq. He had 2300 square feet." Bigger houses for fewer people, just plain nuts.
For Obama, the deep choice is how much he can re-inflate this machine VS how fast he can move to help re-tool it along new lines. And neither Fear nor Greed are gonna initially support that new direction. Eventually, there may be room for both of them in the new stream - but they're gonna deny & fight it a while yet.
Even the fundamental economic analysis required isn't in place. So even if psychologically/spiritually, or culturally, we want to shift... Rubin & his types don't even have a language to describe what a new way would look like. At a lower level than rethinking "freedom" or "wealth," we need to bust down every aspect of consumption & rethink each one (energy, health, food, transport, etc.); rethink where/how we want markets to function (i.e. maybe we want our basic needs filled through more stable means); and so on.
But some openings are coming already. "Infrastructure" spending is gonna be done by every government for the next while. But WHAT infrastructure? We could easily shift more of this investment over into local renewable energy systems, distributed work on energy & water efficiency, etc. - and get more jobs, less environmental impact, a more stable way to meet public needs. Green Jobs gives us another "hook" to make that argument. And we don't need every cent of every dollar. Like most good new systems, if you can get a dime out of every dollar, you can win.
But as DF says, someone has to be hammering the system so that the "Iron Triangle" doesn't just eat these tens of billions in new cash. Democrats need to be hammering this stuff, NOW, lest we waste a couple of years, and thus, perhaps blow the 2012 election through delay.
Anyway, Cheers you two. And as Lux says, post it up DF. Oh, and if you haven't, go read that Mike Davis piece Seaton's got up. It isn't a way forward, but it's a good job nonetheless.
October 16, 2008 4:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
I read it...it was great.
October 16, 2008 4:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Quinn, are you at all familiar with the nef? I just came across this the other day, so I haven't much time to go look it over myself, but it seems interesting at first glance. Anyhow, thought you might be interested in it as well.
October 16, 2008 6:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am, DF. (And Lux!) They've got some useful stuff on the Green New Deal, Satisfaction, Co-Production, etc. - but thanks for the reminder, hadn't been there in many moons.
Truth is, I still find the UK has the most innovative thinking on this stuff - at least in the Anglo world. Very interesting culture, where they've had 10 years to try stuff out. One of the main such thinkers - Geoff Mulgan - was one of Blair's top 5 aides for years. To get a sense of his stuff, see the Young Foundation - he's head now. There's also 2 formerly very strong - but not as good lately - think tanks, Demos & IPPR. Again, both well plugged-into government. Some others include people working in green stuff through the Schumacher society, and the whole world of Fair Trade (much stronger there.)
The key is that these people KNOW one another, had very sharp intellectual training, and then got to build up strong civil society bases during the Thatcher years. After Blair came in, they were in & around government, actually getting money to shape & grow things. Some of the best minds were Mulgan and Charlie Leadbeater (both from Demos, then into government, writing for Financial Times and such), Robin Murray (ex-NLR, Demos, leading Fair Trader), a batch of people now in the lower Ministerial levels under Blair & Brown - such as David Miliband and others often working with IPPR (ippr.org - lots of free reports there.) Lots on green, wealth/well-being, innovative structures, etc.
Or go the Demos (demos.co.uk) home page, most of their stuff is free download, look up Charles Leadbeater, Mulgan, Robin Murray, and you'll have fun. (And yeah, pretty obviously, I spent some years in and amongst all these folks - which was just miles beyond what we seem able to pull together, culturally, here in North America. We've been more under siege, it feels like. Fragmented. More afraid.) But Demos was always chockablock with people from around the world, publishing like mad, if you had a good idea - they'd throw up a seminar for you, publish your stuff.
Again, to imagine, take Mulgan - and you'll see why there's no real North American equivalent. He's Buddhist. Has already worked for Blair. Runs his own NGO. Teaches at LSE. Written multiple books. Degree from MIT & PHD in Telecommunications. Speaks at Schumacher conferences. Enormously green. Knows everyone - has hung out with Billy Bragg, Blair and Brown and the Dalai Lama. He's maybe.... 43? But he's part of a few 00 people constantly mixing, writing, creating on this stuff.
Anyhooooooo, some UK stuff, if you haven't been into that world already. Cheers, folks.
October 17, 2008 12:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Having worked a bit with the UK government, I have found it one of the few entities to be more sluggish in action, more political in turf wars, and more patronage conscience in personnel than even the US government.
As Richard Feynman once said, there's plenty of room at the bottom.
They do love their bi-lateral and tri-lateral committees, however. Fortunately, I was merely in an advisory role for the US and did not have to deal with the UK officials directly. (Sometimes it is more fun to watch...)
October 17, 2008 4:46 AM | Reply | Permalink