A Parallel Universe

[Daveparts]

A Parallel Universe
By David Glenn Cox



The scientists toil in their laboratories and build billion-dollar super colliders under the Earth’s crust looking for the secrets of the universe. The heirs of Einstein tell us with confidence that other universes exist, other dimensions where our rules and means of existence simply do not apply. It’s fun to think about such things as a mental exercise, as cranial gymnastics, but if you had to do that type of work all day every day most of us would be dead within a month.

But over Thanksgiving dinner I discovered a parallel universe. I know, it’s hard to believe but it’s true! A universe that co-exists with our own but one with different meanings and laws. The question was asked if I thought that Obama’s job program would work and I answered, “I don’t think it's big enough, two and a half million jobs over two years won’t cut it since we’ve already lost 1.75 million jobs this year alone and we’re adding 300,000 unemployed a month.”

My brother-in-law, an engineer by trade who is seeking his Master’s degree added, “It might do some good but too much will just be a waste.”

“Look,” I said, “we’ve got to get these people back to work. We can bail out banks and insurance companies to the tune of billions of dollars but if we don’t get these people to work, and soon, they won’t eat.”

“You can bail out the auto companies,” he explained, “but they’re not competitive in the global market place.”

Feeling my blood pressure rise along with the tone of my voice I added, “The Germans can pay their workers $34.00 an hour and the Japanese can pay thiers $25.00 but we’re not competitive? Why is it that Toyota can give their Japanese employees a $20,000 bonus and their American counterparts get nothing?”

“All I’m saying,” he answered, “is that the Germans and Japanese can artificially pay their employees high wages if they want to but sooner or later they’re going to have to join the global economy and pay the prevailing wage worldwide.”

I was flooded with emotion; it was as if the sky had cracked open. It was like Pharaoh's proclamation on the first born son and Kristallnacht all rolled into one. The sense of callousness mixed with unfeeling barbarism coming from such an educated man. I suddenly felt like Galileo trying to explain the universe, or Pythagoras the right triangle.

This man lives in a parallel universe of upper-class privilege. His wages and benefits have not been affected by downsizing or outsourcing so it was as if those people didn’t really exist. In his universe they were merely numbers on a page, columns to be added or subtracted as needed and we wonder how Auschwitz could ever come into being!

I’m not saying he’s a Nazi, but that he lives in a separate world where those people’s problems and crises don’t touch him. The answers are easy to him and not complicated; he is educated to accept these things. He is taught that these events are unavoidable and must be accepted if we are to build a better world. As my head swam in this ocean of eugenic goo I wondered how many times this same conversation had been carried on in German railroad stations. “They are relocating the Jews and it really is for their own good, you know.”

Here is this educated man condemning tens of millions to a life of misery, hardship and struggle for the sake of an academic dogma. No feelings of remorse for him, it is just a matter of course, just as the sun sets in the west and rises in the east. No pity or hate for the Untermenschen, just a benign acceptance of their fate. Were it to happen that some too tall Arab were to attack this country that he loves and serves, then no measure should be spared to eradicate this pestilence that would disturb the greatness of America, but the eugenics of globalism mustn’t be disturbed.

Are his palace walls high enough and thick enough to protect himself and his family? It is easy to believe in the game when you’re winning, winners never challenge the dealers deal. But somewhere in the educational process something went terribly wrong. Socrates taught us that the first step towards wisdom is to know that you are not wise, to question everything you are told, be it from a peasant or mortarboard professor. That truth and knowledge is loosed in the world at random and not hidden in one place. Nor is it the providence of only the rich and its tuition can be easily wasted on a fool.

This economic dogma of globalism appears to me to promote not the rise of man but his demise. A funeral service, an Irish wake where we the Untermenschen will be buried so that others may live. Crucified on the wooden cross of democracy and capitalism where crudely made third world nails are driven through our wrists and ankles with a certainty that it’s all for the best in the long run and must be done in his name, amen.

As I snapped back to my own reality, I remembered where I was. It was Thanksgiving dinner and I could not educate the educated. I saw that my world was far different than his; I’m trying to keep my electricity on and he’s planning for a brighter tomorrow. But I couldn’t help but think, what if Pharoah commanded his firstborn son be put to death. Would he then be so accepting of Pharoah's wisdom? Would he accept his own relocation as a matter of course and sound policy?

These things are incomprehensible between us; he’s living in his engineering universe with its mathematics and formulas and I’m living in my universe of people and hurt and hungry emotion and compassion. My course of study has been history and history tells me that those of us who are about to die will not salute you but take you with us. So it was in the beginning and ever shall be, amen.

And so it was in 1927 that Henry Ford was named the greatest man in all history, behind Jesus Christ and Napoleon Bonaparte, and by 1932 his house was ringed with machine gun positions. You see, despite what science tells us, two universes cannot take up the same space. One will overcome the other and one will pass away. It will come suddenly and stealthily and they never see it coming until it hits them square between the eyes. You can hold people under for an idea but you cannot hold them under water for long before it becomes a struggle to the death. History shows us that those with the numbers win out every time. So it was and so shall it ever be.

http://theservantsofpilate.com

[Demeter]

1. Which Is Worse, The Accountant-Like Detachment, or Those With

hate and violence in their very souls?

They are the same--both are due to lack of love and feeling and empathy.

Goddess help us all to help these defective people.

[Enthusiast]

2. Well done! I see this every day.

Those in power with special economic privileges believing somehow they have done something to deserve it. All the while viewing others with disdain and beneath contempt. What we are moving toward is a plutocracy. Back to the 19th Century!

[truedelphi]

12. Living in Marin County, I saw this happening a good ten years ago.

It was like somehow I had entered a time warp in which much of Victorian era principles were thrust into the very air I breathed.

I can remember going to a job interview, where if I got the job I would make like $ 12.50 and hour, and the person hiring me would be on the phone with his accountant, structuring his twelve million dollars in such a way that IRS would never find it. (This is a literal telling of what happened.)

Then my employer-to-be would turn to me and state, "Here is the paperwork. Your resume checked out, and you have the job, but bear in mind you will have to pay your Federal Taxes and state taxes by filling out these forms here."

It is just accepted, like some Calvinistic mmantra, that the stupid and lazy and shiftless poor are not eligible for any breaks -- we bear the burden of working twelve hour shifts, making sure of not making a major mistake, or we will be fired, while they do as they want, making mistakes all the way, and in the end, the worst that can happen is that they will be Bailed out by the very tax money that we pay and they don't.

[Enthusiast]

18. Very well said, truedelphi. nt

[Tangerine LaBamba]

3. You're easily flipped out

I read this and thought that the engineer, who probably voted twice for Chimpy Fucknuts, was just voicing his opinion about a subject he might not have given much thought. Or he might not be terribly knowledgeable on the matter. We all have our areas of expertise, and a guy who's working for a graduate degree, especially in a field like engineering, is bound to take a distant, and rather clinical, view of world events.

As you said, you live in two different worlds. There are far more than two, as I'm sure you know.

I hope you've been able to calm down after your trauma, but, really, I don't understand the intensity of your reaction to a conversation that seemed banal at best. His views won't affect your humanity, not at all. I just hope you can find some of that fine humanity in your heart for the engineers of this world.

[Two Americas]

5. "We all have our areas of expertise..."

I think that is the point the OP is making. Compassion is not an "area of expertise" and regardless of how educated someone is, or how expert, the horrifying truth is that this does not mean they are "better" in a moral sense, nor does education or status or competence a check on barbarity and cruel indifference. Too often, we see the opposite of that.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

6. I wasn't talking about compassion

I was talking about how people perceive things differently.

Compassion is a whole different issue, and, in my experience, anyway, compassion very often must be divorced from the factors involved in decision-making if the people involved are going to be treated fairly.

So, I hope that clears it up for you.

[Two Americas]

7. I am

I am talking about compassion.

What sort of "fairness" does compassion interfere with?

[Tangerine LaBamba]

8. Imagine you're doing some

legislative drafting and you have multiple constituencies for whom you are responsible. They have varying degrees of investment in this proposed legislation, but you are trying to craft the best possible deal for the greatest number of people.

I don't think the word is "interfere," but there are always factors that have greater and lesser importance.

[Two Americas]

9. of course

But compassion is never a problem, nor need it ever be jettisoned.

I do think that the OP is describing a lack of compassion.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

10. Yes, I agree, but

I was pointing out that a bit of tolerance might be allowed when someone has views different from yours, given the background, the perspective, even the degree of political sophistication of that person.

We're not talking about different things here - we're just approaching them differently. For the OP to experience such an apparent meltdown left me wondering exactly how small his world might be if there is no room in it for someone who sees things differently than he does.

The whole world is not filled with compassion. Should we then punish those who fail to exhibit the proper qualities, as we deem them?

I think not.

[Two Americas]

11. not following you

You seem to be turning this upside down. Tolerate people not having compassion for others? Be sympathetic to people for not having sympathy? Give people a break who judge others and who do not give others a break, lest we judge them or be unfair to them?

I am not seeing the connection between people having "views different from yours, given the background, the perspective, even the degree of political sophistication" and a lack of compassion on their part.

I never thought of compassion as "proper quality" that we "exhibit," and about which there are a variety of opinions, which we must show tolerance toward.

Being horrified by people's indifference to others being punished is not calling for them to be punished.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

13. Well, then, you're

more easily "horrified" by people thinking differently from you than I am. Where you came up with the insertion of "sympathetic" is beyond me. That was never part of anything I wrote here.

You tried hard to make a point that I simply find invalid and specious, but that's your right, just as it's my right to think that there's room in this world for a lot of opinions, and I don't have to agree with, or even like, any of them besides my own, if I so choose.

I never saw, in the original post, any indication that the engineer expressed anything but distant economic opinions, without a word about people suffering. That particular template was put upon the engineer's comments by the poster. It was a matter of inserting something into a conversation that was never there, except in the mind of the poster.

So, we see things differently. That's good.

[maryf]

15. except in the mind of the poster????

“I don’t think it's big enough, two and a half million jobs over two years won’t cut it since we’ve already lost 1.75 million jobs this year alone and we’re adding 300,000 unemployed a month.”

My brother-in-law, an engineer by trade who is seeking his Master’s degree added, “It might do some good but too much will just be a waste.”

“Look,” I said, “we’ve got to get these people back to work. We can bail out banks and insurance companies to the tune of billions of dollars but if we don’t get these people to work, and soon, they won’t eat.”

“You can bail out the auto companies,” he explained, “but they’re not competitive in the global market place.”

The poster is not unreasonable to expect that the engineer might address the people/workers he mentions time and again, the engineer, by not mentioning the people/workers in his responses states his lack of consideration for humanity (compassion if you will) by this omission, my opinion anyway.

[Two Americas]

22. economic opinions and people suffering

If there were no connection between "economic opinions" and people suffering, then do you think anyone would care about even discussing these issues?

It is no accident, nor is it benign or innocent that we are discouraged from seeing any connection between the two.

Those who are doing fairly well can afford to appear bland, benign and innocent.

People who deny any connection between "economic opinions" and the consequences to human beings are exhibiting a lack of compassion.

Can you imagine someone saying in the 1850's "it is just my theory, my idea that slavery is the best system. That doesn't have anything to do with any consequences for any human beings. There is no connection, and you are being unfair to me by saying that there is."

[acmavm]

26. What??? A case of not seeing things the same way??? That's what you

take from the OP?

I think I'll just let it go. It's not worth it. Some people just can't help it.

[truedelphi]

14. The problem is, and this is probably why the conversation

Resonated so much with the OP poster, that those at the top DO NOT GIVE MUCH Thought to the inanities that they recite. Even though those inane concepts formulate the existence of the economy, and these days, the non-existence of an economy.

The engineering brother may well not have thought long and hard about any of this, but then neither did Reagan when he brought forth the University of Chicago boys and their bastardized version of Milton Friedman's "Supply Side" economics. Neither did the Clintons when they aided and abetted NAFTA and other things, like the 1999 Banking Reform Act. The elite don't understand the ramifications of their economic theories at all - they only know that "Two legs bad, four legs good" that Orwell spoke of. The rich have set it up to work out for themselves, and it is only now that it is not working out for some of them that they are beginning to realize how poorly thought out most of this was.

you simply cannot have an economy unless you have local on-going job creation, and tariffs.
Our forefathers knew that and that is why they railed against British imports and over-taxation.

Now our economy is sunk. BailOuts are bad, bad ideas, whether they be twenty billion dollars given to Mexican bankers in the 1990's by Bill Clinton (Which immediately devalued the average worker from 87 cents an hour to 47 cents an hour) or the Current BailOut which could turn our nation into Romania over the next six months.

And except for a few people at the top, things are not going to work out well for anyone of us.

[Joe Chi Minh]

23. Well, I was half-hoping you'd punched him in the face, to be honest, Daveparts.

Your facile complacency, Tangerine LaBamba, replicated so many times in the West is why we're standing on edge of an economic precipice. Morality matters. Even for engineers. Particularly for engineers if our friend is any guide. It matters that he may not have given it much thought. Desperately. Those people are the problem. Certainly not the poorest people.

Your words about humanity and heart may sound pious to you. They don't to me. It would be better if you were a full-blooded hedonist than someone with such a cavalier attitude towards a person's lack of the most elementary social responsibility towards those less worldly, but almost certainly more worthy than himself. Shame on you.

[Two Americas]

4. very good Dave

"It is easy to believe in the game when you’re winning, winners never challenge the dealers deal."

This is important to understand. In the debates here about the Wall Street bailout, for example, how many were arguing from the point of view of the "winners" - to question the game would be to question their own privilege, or even to see their own good fortune as privilege.

"But somewhere in the educational process something went terribly wrong. Here is this educated man condemning tens of millions to a life of misery, hardship and struggle for the sake of an academic dogma."

Education was once seen as grooming people for service. "To whom much is given, much is expected." Today we say "to whom much is given, much more should be given." We now assume that it is a law of nature that the more education a person has, the more wealth and status they should be given. We have perverted and corrupted education. Modern liberalism has become permeated by an "educated people are superior" doctrine, and we see contempt expressed toward the peasants here often. We are being dominated by an aristocratic and gentrified few, and while that ethic can seem so "nice" and "polite" from the inside of the circle of privilege - so logical, so calm, so reasonable, so much better in so many ways than those stupid sheep in the herd - you have peeled the "nice" facade off so that we can see the bland acceptance of brutality, the glib rationalizations for cruelty and suffering.

"These things are incomprehensible between us; he’s living in his engineering universe with its mathematics and formulas and I’m living in my universe of people and hurt and hungry emotion and compassion."

Yes, and you will be subject to ridicule and dismissal, as soft, emotional, irrational, impractical, as a purist or a dreamer. We expect a callous attitude from Republicans, but the same attitude has permeated modern liberalism and the Democratic party activist community, and that is much more destructive.

"I could not educate the educated."

That is the challenge we face. How do we educate the educated, those who already think they know and do not need to learn?

There is not a day that goes by here without seeing some hateful contempt expressed toward the everyday people here, the working people.

[TankLV]

19. Two things: "Educate" comes from "educo" which means "to draw out"...

The reasoning goes: One doesn't "impart" education on others, you "draw out" from others what is deep inside them and already exists...

The other observation is that the well-off CRETIN is a prime example of Dickensonian Morality - and it's all too prevalent in the repukes party to the exclusion of any remote form of genuine empathy or compassion for those less well off...

[bertman]

16. I empathize with you, Daveparts. Yesterday I ran into someone who jolted me the same

way your brother jolted you. This fellow is a "Harvard" man who quickly let this working-class guy know what he thought regarding my disparaging remarks about Henry (Hank) Paulson and Larry Summers. I got to hear an amusing anecdote about him running into Larry and thanking him for "all he has done for Harvard." Honestly, the anecdote was funny, but his point was to let me know that he, the Harvard man, and a staunch Democrat and Obama supporter, thought I was way off base criticizing Paulson and Summers.

This came at the tail end of a very nice conversation with some friends and new acquaintances and as we were all heading for our cars, so I didn't get to discuss our differing views. But on the ride home I came to several conclusions about those who are chosen to serve as the captains of industry, finance and government and why and how we may have gotten into the awful fix we are currently in.

First, they are usually from the so-called brightest-of-the-bright, the high achievers who are brilliant, perhaps even genius-level individuals who absorb learning and information like human sponges. These accomplished learners are capable of great feats of memory and intellectual prowess. They are well-read and articulate. They are highly competitive and revel in the thrill of one-upsmanship.

These men and women are groomed to be national and international leaders because they are so smart and such quick studies. Many of them are alumni of our most prestigious universities. Their training is in the Macro view of the world. Their perspective is national, international, or even planetary. They become heads of state, Senators, Congressmen, chairmen of mega-corporations, members of boards of institutions that are world-renown, movers and shakers on the international stage.

Second, they are trained to succeed in an environment that demands adherence to what I can best describe as the "rules of aristocracy", namely that some of Us are better than others of Us-smarter, abler, and thus suited to rule over the lesser of Us. And they are trained to think in terms of financial achievement and the accumulation of power as the pinnacles of success. They become competitors in an arena where they are focused on being better at playing "the game" than the others against whom they are vying. To be better in the game, one must be part of the game and therein lies the problem.

Finally, I realized that what these leaders of commerce, finance, and government are missing is not the smarts or the drive or the ability to do exceptional things. They are missing the vision to see beyond the narrow confines of their own interests or those of their institutions. They are no longer invested in the ideals of democracy, fairness and justice. They lack the wisdom and the judgment to lead in the right direction because they have lost their moral bearings and, as Two Americas so aptly put it, the concept of service is alien to them. They are so far removed from the daily challenges that most people face that they have lost all empathy with us.

Bottom line is they are technicians, not leaders. They possess the smarts but not the spirit of leadership and service that is required if our leaders are to lead us into a better future.

For me the question is will our superb technician, our President-elect turn out to be just another exceptional player? Or will he be that transformational leader who will meld his Macro view of the world with his Micro experience as an American who was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth?

[Daveparts]

17. Your points are quite valid

Your points are quite valid and almost immediately I was reminded of Harry Truman. A good student with no money for college, works in a bank gives it up to go home and work the family farm when called. Enters the Army as a private comes out a Captain, goes into business for himself and fails. Works the family farm get married and works his mother-in-laws farm as well. Runs for road commissioner and works with road gangs building good roads.

Runs for Judge or what most places call county commissioners, he builds schools and a new court house. He gets elected to the Senate and heads the Truman committee during the war to catch fraud by military contractors and saves the taxpayers several billion dollars back when a billion dollars was a lot of money.

Becomes President and proposes National Health insurance and a 40% increase in the minimum wage. Truman loved to campaign at county and state fairs because he knew he wasn’t much of a speaker but he also knew he could talk cows, or horses with the farmers. He knew good farm equipment from bad and good roads from bad roads. In short, he understood the problems of working people and never believed that he was the smartest person in the room.


“Something happens to Republicans when they get control of the government… Republicans in Washington have a habit of becoming curiously deaf to the voice of the people. They have a hard time hearing what the ordinary people of the country are saying. But they have no trouble at all hearing what Wall Street is saying. They are able to catch the slightest whisper from big business and special interest.”
(Harry Truman)

[Joe Chi Minh]

25. I've always been a great admirer of Truman. A giant of US politics.

[bertman]

29. I wasn't aware of those aspects of Truman's life. Thanks for the enlightenment.

[truedelphi]

21. I very much plan on plagiarizing your lines:

Bottom line is they are technicians, not leaders. They possess the smarts but not the spirit of leadership and service that is required if our leaders are to lead us into a better future.

##

Well said, and very concise in the saying.

I am so very scared for our country, in that Obama has the charisma to lull everyone into supporting him, even if he too is merely a technician.

My big fear is that this Financial Tsunami will become his Bay of Pigs - that by the time he figures out that Paulson, SUmmers and Geithner ARE the problem - it will be too late. thhe 7.7 Trillion dollars these creeps have taken from us can not be restored without four to six years of misery.

[bertman]

27. Please plagiarize away. I'm glad this struck a chord with you.

[Joe Chi Minh]

24. Very insightful and a great read.

[bertman]

28. Thank you. What's a bit frustrating is that it's taken me so long to realize this when it's

been right in front of me for my entire adult life.

[leftstreet]

20. This is excellent

Too late to rec, but hopefully more will read it.

[tom_paine]

30. Well said, sir. Kick but too late to rec.

:kick: