Anti-Wage-Slavery, Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 519-521

We can consider the global financial system, which lives in the same virtual and intangible space as other digital media, as a particular type of social network, an immaterial sheathe of connectivity, that uses an abstract metric to tabulate exchanges of goods and quantify other forms of human energy. The inherent problems built into this system - entirely controlled by private banking interests who issue money into circulation as debt, creating artificial scarcity and fostering cut-throat competition that leads automatically to tragic negligence and dire misuse of resources - are becoming increasingly self-evident. Because financiers devised and run the global markets and central banks, the work of a banker, derivatives trader, or currency speculator is valued at an exponentially, one can safely say obscenely, greater level than that of a kindergarten teacher, carpenter, or midwife. Labor that contributes nothing to the real economy, human freedom, or human knowledge and involves speculative movements of nonexistent capital is most prized, and almost all forms of honest and meaningful work are devalued by this system.

Propping up this deception, an entire mass media complex has developed to manage cultural perception and make people believe the current situation is somehow natural and good, and to keep the masses from developing the analytical tools to question it, and work together to create the alternative. As thinkers like Marx and Marcuse have noted, there remains a difference between false and true consciousness, whether or not individuals are aware of it. Recently, I spoke to a guard who works in the lobby of in an office building that contains a popular yoga studio. I had noticed the guard many times, as he sat still, staring straight ahead, without any reading material or distractions of any sort. I asked him what he used his time to think about. "I'm thinking about all the things I'm going to do when I become rich," he replied.

His answer startled me. I tend to forget that so many people in our society still believe, with a startlingly naive faith, in the Horatio Alger myth and have even extended this idea: it is no longer the case that people imagine they can become wealthy from hard work and ingenuity. It is more the case that they believe wealth to be their natural right, and expect it to happen to them in the same inevitable way that the sun rises each morning.

This is one reason that the developing situation is so extremely threatening and dangerous to the powers that be: through rigorous indoctrination via the media, they have set up unreal expectations in the populace, who may become irate when it finally dawns upon them that these expectations will never be met. Instead, in reality, the little that they have is being inexorably stripped from them.
Why the Internet Is Ground Zero in the Global Consciousness War
Daniel Pinchbeck
AAA

And while the unemployment rate for college graduates still trails the rate for high school graduates (4.9 percent versus 10.8 percent), the figure has more than doubled in less than two years.

"A four-year degree in business -- what's that get you?" asked Karl Christopher, a placement counselor at the Columbia Area Career Center vocational program. "A shift supervisor position at a store in the mall."
College for all? Experts say not necessarily
Alan Scher Zagier, Associated Press Writer,
Thursday May 13, 2010
Noam Chomsky: I think decisions should be made in an entirely different manner for entirely different ends. Should producing more goods and consuming more goods be the highest value in life? That’s not obvious, by any means.

Guernica: And what would be?

Noam Chomsky: Living decent lives, in an environment that provides for people’s essential needs, offers them opportunities to become creative, active, to work together in solidarity, [and lead] more happy, creative lives. That’s a more important goal, I think.
Chomsky Half Full