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Written by M/I's Founder during a period everyone else was calling
peace and prosperity, the 1990's in America... an excerpt from A
Glance At The American Sun:
I was
a virgin until I was twenty; no I was not sexually abstinent, I was
just saving intercourse until I found the one. At twenty, I did not
find the one, I encountered reality. There is only one non-slave
professional field an American can work in, and that is the
entertainment business.
A
friend of mine from college -- I attended a rather good college for
two and a half years -- dealt me a revelation in the course of
casual conversation: everything in our country is about money.
It sounded like a simple and cliche enough statement, but the more I
lived the more I saw the reality of it. What judges a man's
worthiness of freedom, peace, and security? Freedom, peace, and
security being equal to liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and life,
they are the sum of what our country was founded for and what it is
about. However, a man with a winning lottery ticket has more
freedom than a doctor, the latter of which surely is deserving of
freedom, if only in return for his services to the people of his
country – never mind the fact that our forefathers put forth that
this life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness were the inalienable
rights of all people.
Money. How much of it you have determines your security, peace, and
freedom. Have too little and you live in a war-torn barrio where
there is no security or peace. Have too little and you don't have
the freedom to move on to better land or to devote your time to the
pursuits you would choose. Win the lottery, and regardless of all
else you are free and as secure as a mortal can be.
It's been said that God granted us these inalienable rights. Now,
in this country, only money can give you all. Money is our God.
Now, perhaps God is an omniscient banker who designed our culture so
that money is its God; so that money is sort of an embodiment of His
divine Power. Perhaps He uses a merit system to disperse these
Heavenly funds to whom is deserving of freedom, peace, and
security. Perhaps God is the most overqualified accountant in the
history of the universe.
Perhaps.
Or perhaps our system is no longer under God. Perhaps,
egotistically bolstered by our agnostic advances in science, we have
created a culture which allows man to play God. Maybe the idea of a
moral democracy scared the sensibility right out of our nation. We
needed Kings and Queens and Holy Humans with power from God, so we
dubbed ourselves the sacrificial lambs so that we could be witnesses
to such greatness and made a money-driven culture that would
facilitate these ends.
Maybe. Maybe not.
Maybe we have not made, we have been made -- for fools, by friends.
I
didn't drop out of college because I couldn't handle the academic
rigors. There was no point. There was nothing college could train
me for which would help me get a job that would render me anything
but an indentured servant.
What? Businessman? Accountant? Chemist? Lawyer? Physicist?
Architect? What business could be named that, in our country at
this time, is a humane one?
Two weeks paid vacation a year, if you're lucky enough to have a job
that gives this. From an American perspective this makes sense; why
should an employer pay people for not working? This eats into
profits. It is generous enough of an employer to pay the employee
for two weeks of work not done. Any more vacation and who will do
the work in the employee's absence. Missing employees means further
reduction in profits, due to loss of production, sales, or other
duties performed.
From a human perspective, what can a person do with two weeks a
year? The other fifty weeks, people must be at work the majority of
their waking time, including the commute, five out of seven days.
We work forty hours a week, ideally. That is eight hours a day.
Add in an hour for lunch, at least an hour for the commute to and
from work, and an hour preparing ourselves to look professional and
be fed in the morning. That adds up to eleven hours a day.
Considering that we need our eight hours of sleep, this means that
there are five hours left. Subtract the time associated with dinner
and there is a maximum of four hours left. This little bit of free
time hardly allows for home maintenance, paying bills, and the
chores of basic survival.
Weekends are not free time because running a life outside of work
requires at least two days a week – with both men and women working,
the basics must be attended to at some time. The fact that everyone
in the country has to try and attend to all their shopping and other
tasks on the weekends creates massive traffic which turns simple
undertakings into multi-hour fiascoes.
And add to all of this the reality that no one who earns a decent
living in a non-entertainment business pursuit works forty hour
weeks. The work days get stretched; entire weeks may be spent
traveling for your employer, which amounts to twenty-four hour a day
labor, in return for which no extra time off is granted. There are
almost no labor laws in existence which apply to salaried employees
-- no extra pay for overtime, no maximum hour work week. Sign a
salaried contract, which you must do to earn any real money, and you
are signing your indentured servitude papers, save for one thing:
you can always quit at any time.
Which isn't really true, because Americans are born owing money. I
was in debt when I left college; not because I'd mortgaged my
education, but because I was born an American. As an American, I
entered this world with no birthright. Despite the promise of
freedom inherent in our nation, no one is born free of duty to
country and, more acutely, our system of economics. No one is born
with such a basic right as the one to exist. Unless you can pay for
ground to stand on, you are a homeless vagrant, subject to
imprisonment.
You must have money to buy existence space to avoid imprisonment;
you must pay taxes on that money to avoid imprisonment. Being born
in America is being born indebted. Either earn money to pay for
your existence and pay taxes to maintain this inhumane system, or
give up all of your supposedly inalienable rights. We are all born
with inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness, for which the price will be determined by a combination
of market pressures and governmental levies.
How am I free if I can't sit down? Even if I own land to sit on, I
can't sit. I must rise and get to work so I can meet the levied
property tax due a fortnight after April Fool's Day.
So, immediately, I am not free to live a life of self-sufficiency,
nor one of barter. I must raise cash for my government.
In raising cash, I become victim to further levies. Social Security
taxes are taken and later not considered deductible as taxes paid at
income tax time. I pay income taxes on my earnings plus on the
money I paid to Social Security.
What I am witness to here is the immediate reduction in the value of
my labor. I do ten dollars worth of work, but only have six or so
left toward property tax -- that property tax I must pay even if I
was fortunate enough to be born with ownership of a place to sit
(which I would have already paid inheritance tax on at the time of
receiving the place to sit.)
With the reduction in the value of my labor, I am forced to labor
more to meet my existence (property) tax. Having to labor more, I
have less time to work toward other aspects of existence: building
and maintaining shelter, finding and/or raising food, having human
relations.
Now the trap is complete. I must obtain the things I don't have
time to get for myself from another -- from another who needs cash
to meet his tax needs. You see, no one can live by barter, because
everyone must raise cash to avoid imprisonment. And even for
bartered exchanges, a value must be figured and a cash sales tax
levied on that value, for which the merchant is deemed responsible.
So, I need more cash: cash for property tax, cash for existential
staples. Needing more cash means having less time. I have, now, to
live entirely on an earn cash, pay cash basis. I am now forced into
the system, an inexperienced, uneducated peasant -- unless I attend
the system's school system, which is funded by taxes and supposedly
free, but with high school diplomas almost meaningless at this time,
I must strive for a college degree, which takes cash. I can not opt
to teach myself through books or other method -- that does me no
good in obtaining the job which I need in order to raise cash so I
may be permitted to exist.
Being so indebted, I can not just quit my job.
And so, you coercedly sign on for low pay and for the big two weeks
a year of vacation. Often, this two weeks of vacation is spent a
week at a time purely trying to catch up on housekeeping, bill
paying, tax filing, or family matters that arise. Your parents may
be divorced an live on opposite coasts. Or perhaps they live
together, but not near to you, because it is common that people have
to move to where a job is found. Either way, you can visit for a
few days a year and have a few days left for domestic catching up.
Why do we run our lives so as the ultimate goal is the most painful
midlife crisis possible? It can be said that business uses the
people, but we are our businesses; we are the owners, managers,
patrons, and workers. It is our culture that has decided money
obtainance is the ultimate goal of any business.
If a business becomes successful, the workers do not benefit with
extra vacation. Usually no one but the business owner benefits, and
this makes sense to us. It's his business, his risk. If it's a
publicly owned business, the stockholders and board members are the
ones who profit. They are the risk takers and the decision makers;
a dually split version of an owner.
When a business becomes a profitable one in America, it usually
seeks to expand, into two stores, or one of our massive chains, or a
public, global corporation, or an other-company-purchasing
conglomerate. The idea is to always be keeping profits low, even if
by taking intentional losses, so that no one but the main
proprietors can afford any reasonable amount of freedom, peace, and
security – especially not the government and people via taxation of
these profits. If a business has a few extra millions earned from
the work of its present employees, then it would seem a payback is
in order. That's why communism failed, after all, no incentives.
This doesn't happen, though. The chain or company seeks to expand,
moving toward global domination of the field, or seeking to dominate
other fields, so as to be involved with as much money as possible --
because money is the power of God. To be responsible for millions
is to have more of God's power. Even if thousands of people do not
share in the success of the business, despite the fact that they are
responsible for it, the company is deemed successful, and its
proprietors are granted freedom and power. Indeed they have
achieved sainthood, though they are inhumane. They are our saints,
because they have lots of money, and that is all that we value.
Lots of people are under the impression that things have to be this
way; that this is why we as a nation are successful. Well, first
off, who says we as a nation are successful -- we have lots of power
and prestige, but success; success without humanity; a nation of
deteriorating families and cities?
Secondly, the people of Japan fear that if they were to change from
their inhumane six day work weeks of twelve hour days that they
would lose their "success" as a nation. Meanwhile, they have people
dying in their sleep; they are so exhausted that their bodies simply
shut off. Fear of change is all it is. In Europe, "successful"
countries give their people six weeks a year of vacation. They have
four extra weeks to have an alterance to their work-driven lives.
Four weeks to have an adventure, if only via a change of setting;
four weeks to get acquainted with their family members; four weeks
to add to their lives. And yet their countries continue to exist,
as does ours. A change would make things different, that's all, not
bring them to an end.
That's why I went to college, I thought. I figured there I would
find the academic field which would lead me to the professional
field which would allow me freedom, peace, and security. But I was
born in and have always lived in America. Here, even if born with
property in this land of the free, I have minimal say over how I
will live my life. I must attend the school, so I can get the job,
so I can spend the majority of my woken life laboring at some
inconsequential task - a task which is only useful in maintaining
the machine as a whole - with my ultimate ends a midlife crisis, as
a result of which I will be expected to spend a lot of money on
sports cars and the like because of the money that's been the sum of
my servile existence.
And all the while, I must ignore the social needs inherent of an
existence, for they are not allotted time. Love, friendship, human
relations. Survival is a noble pursuit, but human interaction is
why people survive.
How is the need for togetherness provided for in the American
system? Mandated token exchanges. In other words, those Holidays,
such as birthdays and Christmas, for which one must buy and receive
presents. The gifts serve as monetary tokens of shared feelings.
Thusly, sociality is taken care of in the way the system deems it
should be, which happens to be the only way the system allots time
for, especially since affording these gifts requires more laboring
for tax-reduced wages. I have not even been given the freedom to
share existence with humans as I wish.
If this is God giving out the freedom, then we should redefine
freedom. However, I believe God has been taken out of the picture.
We are one nation, under God -- but our God is money, not God. We
are one nation under the immense Power and Wisdom of money. Of
course, not the religion I would choose if I were free to, but, of
course, I am not.
Because of this debt I was born with, and because of my lack of
freedom to do anything about it, I lost the one thing I had held
sacred: my virginity. Then again, I was bound to lose it at some
point (either it or my mind.)
As I've said, the one field where success is possible, where freedom
can be obtained; the one business that can grant release from this
indentured servitude to whomever it sees fit, is the nepotistic
entertainment business. I lost my virginity sleeping my way in the
front door.
Entertainment business goes as follows. A pitcher for a major
league team can earn three million dollars a year. A person who
pays to go to college (as opposed to this athlete who went on a
scholarship) and gets a useful degree and, as a result, a good job,
may start out earning thirty thousand dollars a year.
Let's compare. Three million; thirty thousand. Three million
doesn't seem all that big a sum at this point -- many people won't
play the lottery when the pot is so small. But if you look at how
many years labor it would take a person earning thirty thousand
dollars a year to earn three million dollars, the answer is one
hundred. A college graduate must work one hundred years to earn
what a baseball player can in one. That's entertainment.
Yeah, the college grad will get raises, and, once student loans are
paid off, may earn forty, fifty, even a hundred thousand dollars a
year. Okay, let's start that college grad off at one hundred
thousand dollars a year, something that in all likelihood isn't
going to happen unless that grad ventures into the entertainment
business. But let's say it did happen, and do the same comparison.
Three million; one hundred thousand. Yes, things have improved.
Now the college grad must work only thirty years to earn what the
baseball player did in one -- thirty years without being laid-off;
thirty years of servile, fifty weeks a year laboring with hardly an
hour to sit and think; thirty years of one week off twice, maybe
three times a year. On the other hand, the baseball player gets the
winters off, or can retire after this one year -- no, not a
billionaire, but with more money than the college grad will
realistically earn in his or her lifetime.
I
wasn't a baseball player - I don't like professional sports anyhow.
They are one of the best symbols of American patheticality. The
average guy or gal would love to have the time to participate in fun
games, such as baseball, but they are slaves and too busy, so they
merely get to observe, for a price, these other people playing and
imagine that they might be one of those people on the field, or at
least feel in some way connected to them.
Truly sad.
My prong of the entertainment business isn't that obvious, but is
extremely lucrative. I gained what I wanted as a political speech
writer.
My father was a pawnish part of the military/industrial complex that
Eisenhower warned us all to fear (a fact we all have forgotten or
ignore at this point.) He was a salesman, but because what he sold
could kill millions and was funded by tax dollars, he was deemed
involved in something important. Not infrequently he'd meet with
senators and cabinet members at informal parties, during which he
basically solicited their votes to purchase his company's weapons of
defense and destruction.
These parties were where I got my start. I told my dad I wanted to
get into politics -- I had been studying Public Policy and
Administration at college at the time -- so he started bringing me
to these parties.
After I'd been to about a dozen of them, my father brought me to one
at a senator's house, where, for the first time, he prodded me to
get into a political discussion that was occurring. I was permitted
an opportunity to say my piece by an amused senator who would let
anyone say their piece in return for their support. Basically, I
gave him the quickest wide-reaching shot I could. Words can be the
most powerful weapon available -- introducing someone to a new
perspective can accomplish more than any war can, provided the
person's mind is open or can be opened enough.
First rule of American politics: find an open mind, and you are
clearly talking to someone who is not involved in the field.
Anyway, my schpeel went like this:
"I don't know," I said, "We all talk about the
prevalence of drugs in our country, and how we're fighting a war
against them, but in reality we embrace and encourage the use of our
most widely abused narcotic.
"By the age of five, virtually all of our citizens are already
addicted to it. Our congressmen and women allow this drug to guide
their debates. You can not go out in public without being exposed
to this drug; virtually none of our citizens can bear to be home
without using it.
"When you hear the idea of T.V. as the most devastating, addictive
drug in America, you may scoff – all junkies scoff at the first
person who tells them they've crossed the line. But to see if
you're an addict, take this simple test. Go one week, cold turkey,
without so much as looking at or listening to a T.V. You can't turn
one on; if one is on where you are you must leave the area. This
may sound difficult, since T.V.'s are everywhere: they've taken
over our bars (Sports Bars, America's gift to world pub culture, are
truly just T.V. bars); they're in restaurants, airports, even the
clubs we go to workout at – we can not exercise without our fix.
"Avoiding T.V. is no more difficult than avoiding smack is for a
heroin addict. Everywhere a smack addict is used to going, heroin
is there. Everyone they know is involved with it. And so the same
for T.V. addicts.
"In avoiding T.V., you must avoid all forms of this drug, especially
the more advanced forms: VCR's, videogames, and the latest and most
potent form of this drug yet, computers. Like coca leaves evolved
to cocaine and crack, T.V. has evolved, to cable, then VCR's and
satellite dishes, then digital direct, and now the internet. And
still, you don't feel satisfied – 120 channels, and nothing's on.
You flip the channels and surf the sites, never coming away with the
ultimate high you hope to find, yet always going back for more the
next day. You get a bigger T.V., higher definition, unlimited web
access; nothing, but emptiness and dissatisfaction.
"If you can go seven days without T.V., then I am wrong and you are
not an addict. But for the vast majority of Americans, attempting
this feat will lead them to a huge awakening – that they are not in
control but controlled; that they are not getting informed but
distracted from all useful information; that they are not part of
the decent majority enraged at the addicted few, but are the addicts
themselves, out of control, direly in need of detox and
reorientation – desperately in need of rejoining reality and the
natural world about them."
Yes, I was still believing at this time that the point made was more
important than the way the point was made. Realistically, in a
political debate between Einstein and Regan, Regan wins. What's
said is not as important as the overall rhetorical effect achieved,
and the rhetorical effect is purely negated if it is negative or
overly intelligent. You know, smile and joke or no one wants to
hear it.
"Well," said the senator to my father, following my
little speech, "you certainly have yourself a sharp son there. So
who's up for some ping-pong?"
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