A Little History About the Truth Regarding Capitalist Economics Might Help
When working to complete a minor in History at the undergraduate level, I took classes from a professor who was a professor with a PhD from Binghamton University. This professor had us reading several books in her classes and included these additional books as textbooks for the class. I ate it all up. Likely it is those texts which I still own today, outside of what I kept from my major.
One book we read was The Americans: The Democratic Experience. It was authored by a University of Chicago History professor named Dr. Daniel J. Boorstin. I have retained a copy of that book and added several other Boorstin books in his “Americans” series. The Americans: The National Experience.The Americans: The Colonial Experience. Several others in that series.
When I completed my Masters of Library Science degree at Syracuse University, I worked in database management and library research instruction. It was a wonderful career. In the early years of my career, President Ronald Reagan had appointed Dr. Boorstin as Librarian of Congress. Having read Dr. Boorstin’s books, I was thrilled. I was more thrilled at Boorstin than I was about Reagan with his adversity to unions which shut down the Air Traffic Controllers organization and his favoring IBM and opposition to unions when he destroyed AT&T, the Unix operating system, and the CWA, in the name of “deregulation” and supply-side economics.” Same thing in the electric utility industry with its IBEW. Deregulation in the name of “supply-side economics” and “trickle-down theories of economics.” I was thrilled by Boorstin and still am with the knowledge I learned from him that supersedes the limited historical stuff we have all been taught in schools.
According to Boorstin, one of the first “regulated” examples of the “democratic experience,” was the establishment of insurance commissioners in America. The example given by Boorstin was that of a 19th-century Massachusetts insurance commissioner named Erastus Wright. At the point in time that Wright was regulating insurance, there were no actuarial tables for determining premiums, the long-term investments made, and the results of the benefits regarding life insurance. People were putting their money into life insurance, but the management of the companies were chaotic about it and figured the money was there for them to spend. Then, when someone with a policy died, they were told there was no money. Like imposing something for the collective freedom of all (masks and vaccines, not personal injury lawsuits), Wright came up with the table which was expected to be used when figuring premiums and benefits. It worked. All that regulation of insurance has been curtailed and, instead, we have lawyers pursuing personal injury lawsuits against big insurance, spending tax dollars beyond belief, and there is no safety net for the consumer on the demand side of the capitalist market. Sad.
Thus, we see the same thing happening to Social Security and Medicare. We put the money in and then, as exited with Erasmus Wright’s time, when the benefit is to be drawn, based on dividends earned over time, we are listening to lousy folks saying, ‘there won’t be any money in such a such a year.” As with the life insurance of the the 19th-century “democratic experience” of Erasmus Wright regarding the insurance in which people had dumped their money, we are observing our money, over time, being squandered in other ways.
This example dealt with private enterprise, but it took a government to regulate private enterprise, not the other way around when we have private enterprise controlling the government. Unless we do something, there may be no hope for the future, as our hopes and desires for future generations lies in the hands of greedy, selfish aristocratic brats who really don’t understand the ideas of capitalism and the “democratic experience.” So what do they do? They throw out BS about it all being socialism or communism. The actual communists are the fat pigs who control a government and destroy ideas for regulation by vandalizing and sabotaging regulation, whether in a PSC or elsewhere, with bribes by means of martini lunches with the “lunch crowd.” Corruption, just as with the situation Erasmus Wright identified.
Furthermore, we accept this corruption so much that we look the other way when it occurs. We look the other way when there is a corrupt government in Afghanistan and people don’t want to affiliate with such corruption, so they lay down their arms, for the sake of the Taliban. Rather than look at the details of what is happening, the ones who did nothing to work for justice and peace, push to wrongly blame President Joe Biden for a pullout which was created by those who support the money (Saudi Arabia and other sources) behind the Taliban (and the Saudi royal family member, Osama Bin Laden). They work for peace and then set a timetable for withdrawal, but never work for peace AND justice. What a shame. Just like the money from the oil contingent of the world, we sadly got involved in Vietnam, too, and then had to pull out and betray the South Vietnamese with their corrupt government, too. The difference? It was LBJ who started it all in Vietnam and there is proof that John F. Kennedy was NOT gung ho about doing it. Today, we don’t blame the Texan who got us involved in Afghanistan, but look to blame a person who took office in Jan. 2021 and had been left with a timetable for withdrawal created by Donald Trump.
Inconsistency in America. How sad.
Even worse is that Americans have short memories and don’t learn from history. If there was learning from history, more folks would be more brilliant and not listen to the BS of moneyed people who want to attack the Democrats. That, too, is sad, for sure. But it keeps me involved in writing. This gives me a sense of success, knowing I lay out principals and ideas for consideration and hope that America can coexist by learning regarding the true history of capitalism, democracy, and seeking peace and justice. We don’t want to be wimps who look the other way at corruption, whether in America or Afghanistan, and make for justice which does not simply give in for the sake of peace. Justice. Consistency. Destroy corruption. Lift up ideas for good and true regulated capitalism and democracy. And then we can achieve peace.
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Professor Douglas Willet Cornwell (Retired)
Newark Valley, NY
———————————“Love your neighbor as yourself.” “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” “The problems of the world are not that some people love in a different way. The problems are that so many people don’t know how to love at all (CGA, 1970).” A Puritan is someone in fear that someone, somewhere, is having a good time. “Liberty and justice for all [not priorities on individual and selfish rights].” “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” “We the people, in order to form a more perfect union [and overall wealth of American society]…”
Benjamin Franklin: “Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are affected.” Stacey Abrams: “Compromise about actions, but not about values.” Oscar Wilde: “I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.” Oscar Wilde: “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” Benjamin Franklin: “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” Whoopi Goldberg: “To handle this COVID-19 pandemic effectively, we all need to get on the same page.” Note: To be clear, I do not like being patronized. I do not express my disdain over what happens to my fellow humans just for my own sake and to pursue favors and handouts. I do it in order to gain R – E – S – P – E – C – T for me and for millions of other Americans of any race, ethnicity, religious belief, or sex and sexual identity who try to walk in integrity as they attempt to achieve, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. PERIOD. One nation under God [our Creator] with liberty and justice for all.
Tioga Herald 
Thomas Friedman & Putin’s Russia
Dear Editors:
Thomas Friedman always provides interesting reading. However, some of his latest writings are very lengthy (longer than what I write) and go into great detail regarding the economics behind dealing with Putin and the Russians as they invade the Ukraine.
In 1977, I was enrolled in a college class in Soviet History. I was working to complete a second major besides my music education degree. The professor of that class predicted that unless the West comes to grips with the fact that dealing with matters regarding the Soviets and the Middle East and focusing on the issue of oil, there was little chance of success. He told the class that ideology had nothing to do with it, but it was oil that would guide who succeeded, unless we developed alternative fuels to oil and saved oil like a savings account in reserves to be used when it became necessary.
America has not learned about this, but the Russians and the Chinese have. Same with Saudi Arabia and even Iran. It is the Muslim sect in Saudi Arabia which inspired the U.S. and faked us out with Middle Eastern wars. Most Afghans are of the same sect. That was why a man named Osama bin Laden was located in Afghanistan. The control over Hussein was something the Saudis wanted. When George W. Bush left a vacuum in Iraq after bringing down Hussein, it opened doors for supporters of the Saudis in both Iraq and Syria. America was faked out with the ISIS group which does executions in the same manner that the Saudis do. A sword or knife to chop off a head. America was faked out.
America was faked out with the Reagan push for Gorbachev to “take down those walls.” It was a strategy on the part of the Russians to make it look like peace was achieved, as the Russians collected their power base. I saw it and spoke about it, but was scoffed at because everyone just wanted peace and was willing to sacrifice American justice in order to achieve peace.
Recent events which demonstrate that ultra right wing, not ultra left wing, movements are happening in former Soviet bloc nations. one is East Germany. The other is Hungary. Friedman and the rest of the media are totally ignoring all of this. In those years, it had nothing to do with communism.
Figures I have heard in recent years is that the Soviet state killed more Jews than Hitler’s Germany did. Such figures were presented at a speech on the campus where I was a professor. All the speaker did was blame communism, not the Russian leaders like Stalin. I thought it was rather crude and rude as Americans were being faked out. A fake is a good gesture in football, but not in running our lives in America.
Even PBS is biased against Joe Biden and snubbing him on the eve of his State of the Union address by ignoring the good things which are happening in the economy, in favor of a Trump-like approach to dwell only on the bad. Unemployment is down. Yet a PBS announcement about the State of the Union address and they feature a woman complaining about “needing to eat.” Last I knew, the Republicans don’t like the Democrats because of the food stamp program. So what gives with a woman who has trouble eating? It simply does not make sense, at all.
In line with what I am saying about energy and the predictions made by the professor in Potsdam in the 1970s, what about the Chinese? A few years back a CBS Sixty Minutes report told us about how new alternative energy sources were not good money makers, but could develop into such over a long term investment. Americans were not willing to invest, but the Chinese did see the possibility for long-term investments which would pan out over time. Just as the professor predicted in the 1970s, but it was the Chinese, not Americans, who were putting forth the investments for the long-term, while Americans have been, and still are, faked out by the evangelical horde of puritanical bastards who get upset if someone somewhere is having a good time. Americans are also being faked out by Rick the Prick Santorum and his wishes to block service in healthcare to anyone who is opposed to his own personal beliefs. Then there is Rick the Prick Scott and Ron DeSatan of Florida who keep shoving into our faces the fake stuff about socialism and how all Democrats are socialist. They make certain that no one like me and MANY OTHERS, don’t get heard as we try to address issues of healthcare in line with Adam Smith and Teddy Roosevelt types of thinking that it is best to have regulated capitalism. Regulated capitalism is NOT socialism, if one would dare look it up. In fact, central based newspapers and any businesses in energy, communications, and other trades is a form of socialism and even communism, put in place by Reagan’s supply side economic theories which are bizarre. They create the centrally planned corporations with monopolies, doing so in the name of “free markets.” No one listens. And America is suffering from losses in technology, alternative fuels, and newspapers, plus other commodities, due to it. Local control of newspapers and media have been wrestled away from local areas and consolidated into a communist type central bureaucracy, in the guise of “capitalism.” And the media, including Thomas Friedman, never mention these things. Instead, we read two pages of details, some of it repetitive, about all this drivel regarding Russia and Ukraine which is absolutely bizarre and lacks much meaning for the situations we are facing.
We need a Teddy Roosevelt. I have never really cared for TR’s statement, “speak softly but carry a big stick.” TR came in second place as a third-party candidate in 1912, losing to Woodrow Wilson. The more I think of it, Wilson spoke softly but did not carry a big stick, when it came to dealing with the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, as did the Republican candidate, Taft. Too bad TR lost that election in 1912 and never ran again in 1916.
Who and what money is manipulating our media with mind control with these issues? Why are so few in the media considering what I am saying?
What I hope and pray for, rather than letting Robertson and other evangelical shitheads place fear in people’s minds, is that there is a leadership contingent made up of people like TR and the generals from World War II, particularly, General Dwight D. Eisenhower who led one of the greatest military invasions from the sea which has ever happened. The true God is a caring and loving God and would not bring on Armageddon by way of pushing humans into war. However, the true God to whom I believe does want peace WITH justice. In World War II, after great losses, we did achieve peace with justice. It was a tough one. But we need to remember that Chamberlin sat by when Hitler invaded Poland and did nothing. Even DEMOCRAT FDR wanted something done, but his hands were being tied by Republicans and threats of an overthrow by many Republicans, in the USA. Thank God it was discovered before it was hatched. Here we go again, though. Threats by people from southwest Florida like fascist-leaning ones in those days gone by – Lindburgh, Ford, and others. Today it is Ric the Prick Scott from Southwest Florida. That area of the nation is NOT the only area, as we learn about lunkhead Republicans in Wisconsin and Michigan, too, plus other areas.
Shut up the perverted puritanical types and televangelists (plus others who fake the population), as they endeavor to work to divide and conquer in the name of fascist autocratic theology of hate, and other autocratic means. They do this in the name of a god which is made in the image of the human lunkheads with money and fascist ideals.
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Commentary, Economics, Regulated Capitalism, Commerce, human-rights, Journalism & Media, war
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