Thursday, November 3, 2011
Get Your Thinking Caps On
I should "Thank Shell Oil and ExxonMobil?" Really? Bill Whittle is one of those guys who would say Africans were better off as slaves in 1780 South Carolina because their standard of living "improved" and they learned to read the bible. Ok, Bill. He's also the kind of person who drank Nestle Quik for so long he thinks it is chocolate. Nope. Wrong again. But I have to give him credit for the polished delivery of a Muslim cleric. I can't compete with that (or with the arrogant jibes) but when it comes to social philosophy it doesn't take a genius to find faults with Bill's argument. It does take someone who is not brainwashed and that's getting harder to find lately thanks to the "talking head" approach Bill uses.
Basically, Bill is wrong to suggest corporations are good because the corporations themselves would not even suggest they are good. Bill is defending corporate collectives whose sole motive is profit. "Goodness" never enters the picture and nor should gratitude. They are not benevolent nor do they want to be. They are merely active capitalists who "capitalize" on the paradigm of supply and demand by using natural and human resources to maximize profit. Come on, Bill, you've read The Fountainhead-don't insult Ayn Rand by asking me to be gracious to British Petroleum for oil-soaked shrimp. Their deficiency in concern for social health is directly proportionate to their abundance of greed...and that's what makes them capitalists. That's not something anyone gets awards for. Does it advance society? No. People advance society IN SPITE of corporations. Societies and Corporations are on two totally different elevators.
Sir Wilfred Grenfell's motives in organizing infrastructure to improve the lives of those living on the Labrador Coast was not related to personal profit. HE IS THE ONE WHO DESERVES THANKS. He reinvested all the social equity into the society because he wanted to live in an equitable culture. The market was being exploited by fish merchants and could've gone on forever but Grenfell stepped in. He didn't compete; he completed the society and he profited because he lived in a society that was healthy. That's smart. If you want to live in an unhealthy culture that incarcerates the most people on Earth then what you do is hoard all the equity of your efforts or move to the other side of the planet with your wealth and shake your head at the crime wave that follows.
That's what Rupert Murdoch and Tony Hayward and Kenneth Lay are guilty of and my first reaction is not to thank them. Furthermore, amoebas in the water is hardly as relevant as mercury and crude oil and natural gas.
If you want to watch the video that inspired me to respond (I made this as a video response to Bill's video but he has to approve it before it is attached to his comment section) here it is:
The only "self-entitled cry babies" are the likes of Tony Hayward and Kenneth Lay who think they are entitled to five cents of every dollar that passes through their hands. That's ONE economic paradigm and it is flawed because the hoarding of wealth surpasses the health of society as a priority (as current events have illustrated). Sir Wilfred Grenfell and Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. and Sargent Shriver and others have proven there is an alternative path. Bill is NOT the voice of reason, but he plays one on T.V.
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