we are handily maneuvered

Sun 7.1.18

      My public library encourages the recycling of magazines and periodicals, which are placed to advantage for anyone to read or to take home.  A nice service that I take full advantage of bringing home the London Review of Books (the best,) the New York Review of Books (they’re still writing about James’ Portrait of a Lady, Edith Wharton’s oeuvre,) the NYT Book Review, (mostly about fame and fortune, who’s on top, making money, what was their advance?) the New Yorker, (you can occasionally get an intelligent, informative article here, but they and the New York Times Weekly Magazine are heavily into shaping the zeitgeist, pushing their agenda of what is permissible in society, what is cool, “in,” pointing out what isn’t, letting us know, over and over again until one is completely defenseless, unable to form a coherent thought on the subject at hand and ready to accept their dictum.  Who wants to be uncool?

      Among my stash this week was a copy of the NYT Weekly Magazine.  Looking through it is like taking a journey in time to a world no longer valid, an America long gone.  President Trump rails against Amazon which he would like to see abolished.  I like Amazon and shop on the site primarily.  Yet I understand it is the wrecking ball of malls and downtown shopping venues.  It is killing independent bookstores, small businesses, even getting into pharmaceuticals.  And they are not alone, the delivery trucks travel up and down my street daily.  America shops online.

      The threat of globalism is no longer a threat, but a fact, and it cannot be stopped.  It was planned and acted upon many decades ago..  At the time NAFTA was signed in 1993, I thought it would be disastrous.  I foresaw the country becoming like our impoverished Southern neighbors controlled by a small clandestine aristocracy who ruled with an iron fist.  How could it be otherwise with this race to the bottom.  If you noticed in the last Republican primaries most candidates would not countenance a minimum wage uptick, the reason being that it would put the US at a competitive disadvantage to countries with a lower standards of living.  Worse case scenario for workers is the eventual leveling of the world’s playing field where everyone is paid corresponding wages and the world is ruled by a handful of corporados.

      Do you think this is hysteria?  Check out the countries that are getting off the globalism bus.  The US elected Donald Trump hoping he could put a stop to the country’s decimation.  He addressed the situation in his inauguration speech and it was greeted by W Bush as “That was some weird shit!.”  Hillary decried the doom and gloom of his pronouncements on the country’s woes.  Which brings us back to the New York Times Weekly Magazine tribute to a country few inhabit, that some have never known.  Once the words, “Too big to fail” were uttered the fate of sovereign countries was sealed.  The entity that must be supported at all cost, rules. 

I’m ordering a wingback recliner chair from Amazon this week contributing to America’s downfall.  We are more and more isolated in our electronic world and handily maneuvered.