Ownership Society...

I finally got it: "where only owners get treated right."


The lack of Unions in this country is a shame. Gah!

Soon enough we'll be back to pre-union conditions everywhere. We're well on our way.

strike! I stand with them. :patriot:

Only property owners were allowed to vote....

Make no mistake, the US government is there to assure property rights first and foremost... It is crucial to a market based society that property rights are protected...

All the basic conflicts, well pretty much all conflicts, in the US revolve around property and ownership rights...

This country was founded on the basic conservative principle that ownership rights must be protected...

But the ideals behind the declaration were liberal in nature and centered on all people, not just property owners, being granted rights, human rights, if you will....

There in lies the conflict...

people are owned or do we want a society that everyone has a voice?

Ownership rights must be protected... But the individual, through collective action (voting, bargaining, Unions), set the boundaries and rules that govern those ownership rights...

people are okay about that.

By convincing everyone to buy stock via mutual funds and retirement plans, the ownership class has everyone who owns stock that they have a stake in protecting ownership rights...

Somewhere along the line, the Republicans managed very cleverly to use their skills as demonizing and altering the meanings of words to make the word "union" seem like a bad, selfish thing that resulted in reduced production and higher prices. This resembles their successful campaign against the word "liberal".

We must find a means to counter this technique as well as find a way to re-educate people as to the good qualities of our words. A "word restoration" technique. Once we've managed to gain access to the mass media, then we can begin re-education of the population. People need to know the value and benefits obtained from words like "union" and even "taxes". The negative associations must also be refuted.

The Right has worked diligently, patiently and somewhat stealthily in their disinformation/word smear campaigns over many years. We can hardly take the same span of time... We need a construct relied upon heavily by the Right, Think Tanks/Research Groups/Strategy Organization/Brain Trust--whatever, we need some expert linquists working with some expert advertising people to develop effective approaches to dealing with these problems. Given the distributive and organizational support of groups like MoveOn.org, we could then begin a comprehensive implementation of such strategies.

Till then, we're going to be fighting somewhat ineffectively, in a piecemeal fashion, against a well prepared, organized enemy with completed research on the questions at hand. Have we not leaders pursuing every available avenue or are we as disorganized as it seems? We need a 'good' genius as a complement to the role Karl Rove plays for the Republicans (that of Evil Mastermind :evilfrown: ).

I actually read a book on the media and how it treats unions...and it has not been pretty.

Edited to make the sentence make sense.

I should apply for the job, I'm a very cunning linguist :)