Saturday, March 28, 2009

Insert Headline Here

Insert Headline Here

I'm just going to leave the defaults up. That's what folks at the LA Times did.

The thing to keep in mind here is this: Once upon a time, you did your best to be productive and earn a profit by drumming up business well. Then came the age of the dominance of finance and speculation in the markets, and so it became more important to consistently make profits. But of course, you had to pay executives a lot for their executiveness. So guess what they cut? the jobs of people who just did things, who could fit in nice neat little slots and be taken out and replaced.

And so, business has become a game of how close to the edge you can run a business, before you run it into the ground. The problem with operating what's essentially a low flying business is that there's little room for correction. When the ground comes up to meet you, as it does in tough financial times, you really feel it.

There's something pathological about running a business this way, something strained.

Let's speak of broad overgeneralizations...

Oh Noes! The Left is organizing a large organization of people do do things! It must be the Hitler Youth! Or at least a Left Wing Slush Fund.


Okay, let me explain this in rather unconfused terms. The Hitler Youth was Adolf's personal youth fan club. It was created during the rise of the Nazi Party. It was paramilitary. Kids were actually trained to become Nazi soldiers.

As for calling it a slush fund, isn't it kind of early to allege corruption?

Of course, this is just me being literal about things, using words for what they mean rather than inventing paramilitary corrupt organizations out of thin air when faced by anything that resembles new deal type programs.

This is what comes of what we could call a vicious cycle of overheated rhetoric combining with the excessive credulity that many on the far right have of each others claims. Fictions far outrun realities when nobody's factchecking themselves.

Oh, and folks: it's voluntary.