The Pillars of American Society Are Proving How Incompetent They Are -- And They Don't Care

[Brigid]

I think the title pretty much says it all. This article is dated 10/03/2014, so the references are to events that happened months ago; but the point still stands.

http://www.alternet.org/culture/pillars-american-society-are-showing-how-incompetent-they-are-and-they-dont-care

[truedelphi]

1. So painful to think about.

Currently the way Corporate America works is this: you get one of everything. That is all. Competition, which used to be designed so that there was actual competition, is now driven by forces in such a manner that only one big company is allowed "to be it" for new products.

A friend who has finished writing a book was telling me that her Kindle account did not place the photos in her book correctly. My husband tried to help her, but in the end, we both wanted to tell her to go with Nook, just to let Kindle's Amazon know that they don't have a corner on the market.

But Amazon's Kindle does have a corner on the e-book reader market. So The Nook is now not being supported.

And Amazon's business model, backed by lobbyists who have encouraged "our" congress critters to support only Amazon, hurts small publishers every day of the week.

The article sums it up -- "Take a closer look: you’ll find that most Americans are on the receiving end of a corporate culture that overpromises, requires payment first, typically doesn’t care about customer service, and is mostly driven by organizational self-interest."

Like the Talking Heads sang in a moment of clairvoyance: "We're on a road to nowhere."

[Ford_Prefect]

2. This piece seems a bit out of date, to say the least.

The article seems rather generic in its remarks where it really needs to be specific.
The "Pillars of American Society bit" is rather pedantic. The evidence is that there has been an organized, ongoing and deliberate attack on the function and substance of institutions by the Koch brothers, Karl Rove and the Right Wing Oligarchs. Those institutions mentioned do not exist in and of themselves. They require responsible governance, which has been steadily undermined since Nixon knee-capped the electoral process and federal oversight functions were degraded under Reagan-Bush. The "News" is Infotainment edited to suit the agendas of the owners, not a responsible resource of information.

When the news presents a parade of incompetence—coupled with assurances that everything is under control by trustworthy professionals when it isn’t—what is the appropriate public response? Anger? Tirades on television? Sighs and resignation? Or is it somehow trying to send a message that Americans are not dumb and deserve better from the supposed pillars of mainstream society?

Wouldn’t it be something if accountability, competence and public service were the guiding values of our communication-saturated era instead of evasions, false assurances, overpromises and flag-waving hype? That would be newsworthy.

Sorry but it has been said better and clearer.