We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Life under capitalism: Early deaths a ‘silver lining’ for corporations

Click here to access article by Pete Dolack from Systemic Disorder

Dolack illustrates how the "disorder" of the inevitable development of the system of capitalism, which results in ever greater concentration of wealth in the hand of a diminishing number of rich, can actually be measured by using certain statistics like longevity. However what is very bad news to us is good news to the tiny ruling class of capitalists as reported to them in an article in one of their news publications (Bloomberg) entitled "Americans Are Dying Younger, Saving Corporations Billions". This is another example of the contradictions of capitalism that our masters like to hide from us, but are completely candid about in their news sources.
So what does this have to do with an article published by Bloomberg? The headline on this particular article says it all: “Americans Are Dying Younger, Saving Corporations Billions,” complete with a subhead declaring “lower pension costs” a “silver lining.” As not only a proud member of the corporate media, but one specializing in delivering news to financiers and industrialists, extolling a benefit to corporate bottom lines and ignoring the, ahem, human cost of said benefit is only to be expected. The article is not at all atypical of the business press, even if this one is a little more obvious than usual.
Thus, you can be dead certain (pun intended) that such news shapes their policy decisions to diminish resources for health care for ordinary people as very well illustrated in their attempts to weaken the already inadequate (for us), pro-insurance company Affordable Care Act that the last Congress passed with Obama's support.