From: Olga Bourlin (fauxever@sprynet.com)
Date: Sun Aug 19 2001 - 21:17:55 MDT
From: "Lee Corbin" <lcorbin@tsoft.com>
> Olga wrote
>
> > I wish the store managers who stayed up nights thinking about ... their
supermarkets...
> > would also come up with some ideas about how best to treat farmworkers.
> >
> > I wish the "immense concentration of knowledge [taking] place in the
minds
> > of a few people [with]...incentive to improve the quality of the
> > stores" would develop some incentive to improve the quality of
[farmworkers' lives].
>
> ... What possible incentive
> would anyone have to lie awake at night thinking of the best way to
> treat farmworkers?
You know, Lee, after reading your replies to some posts for the last few
weeks, I note that you tend to take what people write very literally.
Speaking for myself, I often take poetic license in trying to impart the
essence of what I am trying to say - sometimes what I write is meant
figuratively, not literally. In your reply above, you are asking about
"what possible incentive" would a person have to lie awake at night thinking
about ... farmworkers? I was simply suggesting a "looking at the forest"
approach to your inspiring story about heroic supermarket marketeers.
But since you brought up "what possible incentive would anyone" ...how about
being motivated by integrity, gratefulness, and caring?
Now, yes, it's easy to imagine "a man on horseback"
> as a recent poster put it, or a "Stalin" whose heart would be in the
> right place; but over and over we learn what happens when that approach
> is tried.
I believe in the system of checks and balances. The snipped part of my
query from yesterday initially asked (take this literally, please) for an
example of when in U.S. history was there a period when a halcyon
libertarian existence bloomed o'er all our lucky little lives. Please
enlighten me on this question.
> I think that what is happening, Olga, is that you divine *your own*
> motivations, and find them quite pure. I agree. I am certain that
> you really do have the best interests of the farm workers in mind.
> But you don't lie awake thinking of it at night. Instead, just like
> the rest of us, you lie awake thinking of your own problems, and it
> is a horrible mistake to think that a great leader will do any
> differently.
Again, I don't know where you come up with this "great leader" concept -
I've never espoused anything like that. As to the farmworkers' problems -
you're right, reading that article made me think of a problem *I* used to
have (before my children grew up) - i.e., virtually no childcare in our
country. I've stated before I believe childcare from babyhood on would do
well being joined to our public school system. I believe in "family
values," you see.
So all of his wonderful speeches about "benefitting
> the people" are mainly power ploys to defeat his adversaries, gain
> power from the (ignorant) crowds, and ultimately work towards his
> own best interests.
Begging your pardon -- whose wonderful speeches?
> > While supermarket customers' "body language, their shopping patterns,
and
> > most of all, their buying habits" may indeed be worthy of a specialized
> > field of study, I'm afraid farmworkers' problems are all pretty much the
> > same.
Again, I was invoking a kind of literary device by using some of your ideas,
but turning them into another perspective. (Not just tree, tree, tree ...
but forest, forest, forest.)
> Here is the fatal urge. You read about some unfortunate situation such as
this,
> and you want to DO SOMETHING. (Of course, it's really none of your
business;
> you actually spend most of your time worrying about your own *local*
problems.)
> Hence even if it means for a great leader, or the government, to TAKE
IMMEDIATE
> ACTION BY SEIZING ALL ASSETS OF THOSE PEOPLE WHO HAVE MORE THAN THEY NEED,
you
> have an immediate sympathy for something, so long as it solves the
problem.
As for this one, I'm with Miriam English (who recently wrote: "Helping the
poverty-stricken to have a chance at a good and comfortable future is not
just good for the poor, but good insurance for the rich.").
> Look at the words in that paragraph I snipped: the "need for children's
programs",
> "96 percent of the children live in poverty".
>
> Well, all sorts of people everywhere in the world and all throughout
history have
> **needs**. We must not focus on the so-called causes of poverty, but
rather focus
> on how *anyone* ever escaped poverty. To find out how wealth is created
in the
> first place, one must start with Adam Smith, or any thinker who really
tries to
> get at root causes. Wealth was *never* created by taxing one sort of
people and
> benevolently bestowing it on those who have *needs* by means of
"programs".
No, wealth is created by using one sort of people and benevolently bestowing
"needs" (such as expense accounts, first-class air tickets, membership in
golf clubs, and all such necessary little perks) on another sort of people
by means of "corporate tax breaks."
Olga
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