Interviewer: The federal government is taking funds from the people in the states, holding it, and then ransoming-off the people's freedom for that money.
Means: Right. Exactly.
Interviewer: The reason I think we have such a passive culture is because people are raised to believe, taught that what success is, is to go into the corporate world and into the business office, and that's what makes you a man, or a woman. But, the belief is: "That's what success is - coming out on top in the corporate culture."
Means: Meaning, centralized power. And the only reason they climb that corporate ladder is to consume. It's basically consumerism that's what's feeding this lemming-like march towards centralized power.
Interviewer: I see American culture as preferring prosperity to liberty. Liberty is not becoming something hated, but I read magazines, watch television -- and it's almost become irrelevant. "Prosperity" is becoming a code word for security. People want that -- they don't want to have to rely on themselves or even provide for that security which they value so much.
Means: That's true, and I think it goes to the colonized mind, in which the attention-span is that of a gnat for the average American. The federal elections prove that. If you're lucky, people will have a three-year memory. But it seems like they'll fall for the same sloganeering of the one- party system that America has been spoon-fed with. People who vote nowadays actually believe they're participating in a two-party system, when it's really the perfect one-party system.
Interviewer: But, you know, in American history, up until the Civil War when a party had outlived its usefulness -- whether it be the Jeffersonian-Republicans, or Whigs or Know- Nothings -- a new party would come and displace the party the people saw as no longer representing them. You would get fresh blood. But, the outcome of the Civil War ended that.
Means: That was in slower times and less-prosperous times. You know, what the American male equates with happiness is pleasing one or more of the senses: Taste, smell, eyesight, hearing, touch. You please one or more of those, and they think that's happiness. So, Americans have not only been divorced from the reality of happiness; they've been divorced from the reality of the clock. In fact, they're slaves to the clock; they don't have any time in their lives for anything other than prosperity. Prosperity means numbing your senses to everything around you except pleasure, and that feeds consumerism. I found this out when I managed a resort in 1990. And I realised all I had to do at that resort was make sure I please one or more of the senses and people would be happy, I'd be doing a booming business. It was an amazing revelation to me, it was a personal revelation. I didn't read it anywhere. That's what I've come to realize: That's all that America cares about, is pleasing one or more of the senses, because that's what they think happiness is.
Interviewer: Do you think that's a big reason why character traits such as duty, honor and loyalty have become passe? Laughed at, even?
Means: Actually, the demise of spirituality in America -- say what you want to about Christians or any other faith -- the one thing that spirituality does imbed in a person's psyche a certain amount of discipline. With the waning of spirituality in America has gone responsibility. Personal responsibility and discipline. There's no discipline! Absolutely, no discipline. You know, they don't even teach you anymore to say "thank you" or "excuse me." You go into any supermarket, and it's like driving on the freeway, you've got to have your shopping-cart [makes motion pushing cart aggressively down aisle] and people bolt into your path! And people pretend you don't exist and they just crash right into you. You go into a department store anywhere in America now, and the words "pardon me," "after you, sir," "after you, ma'am," and "excuse me" don't exist. Helping old ladies across the street is a dead issue. Boy Scouts don't do that any more.
Interviewer: I've witnessed the same thing. When I was vacationing in Cape Cod last summer, I held the door open for a woman who was going in to a convenience store. She gave me the coldest look and exclaimed "I don't need to have the door held open for me!" And I know why she said that, because of women's lib and all. But, I'm thinking: "Are you so insecure as a woman that you can't appreciate common, human, decency?" Look, I would have done same for a man, and I do; it's just common courtesy. We think we're so civilized, but we're losing the glue that holds civilization together, which is manners, courtesy.
Means: Go into airports, go into any place that deals with the public, that hires young people a lot.....You know, it used to be men because men -- it's been proven psychologically -- can deal with the public better than anyone. Companies used to hire mature men. I used to go to J.C. Penney's, and there'd be nothing but mature men. You go to the airport and all the ticket agents -- with feminism, they're replacing everything with women. Now, they've gone to the young people, because they can pay them cheaper. And even then, no manners and they could care less and the computer's the only thing that counts. "If it's not on the computer, then it ain't right." You're wrong as a consumer and as a customer. Remember the slogan "the customer's always right"? That's no longer true; Corporate America no longer cares about the consumer, because they know that the consumer is replaceable. They just try another marketing gimmick -- they're not afraid of losing customers.
Interviewer: Today, with all the family farms going out of business, ADM [Archer- Daniels- Midland, an agricultural conglomerate] doesn't even need customers, because they can get so much money from the federal government. So, ADM can drive farmers out of business, take a loss, and it doesn't even matter.
Means:
Back in the late 1970s, early 80s, Ted Turner bought MGM and its
film library, and went into horrendous debt for that. He was in a
very precarious situation. He was just starting CNN and carrying
a hell of a debt load. And, he was being interviewed -- it was 1981,
because that's when Reagan was inaugurated, and Turner has the same philosophy
-- and he said "a man's wealth should measured by the amount of debt he
carries." What?!? [slaps forehead, laughs] I heard
that, and that's what America believes! Go into Barnes and
Noble or any of the chain stores, and they carry a huge amount of debt,
just to be in business, and they can drive out the mom and pops.... Since
I joined the Libertarian Party back in 1987, I've tried to get in my speeches
at universities and colleges -- wherever I speak, or write and interview
-- I try to get people to realise: I point to rural America.
You know, the settlers aren't needed anymore, the ones who displaced the
Indians. See, the Indians weren't needed, we were in the way
of commerce and progress. Well, now the family farmer, the family
rancher, they're in the way of progress and commerce. They're
no longer needed! The settler is no longer needed in America.
And I tried to tell everyone in the 80s, and the 90s, and now in the new
millennium, that everything that America is doing to the world and to the
American people was first bred and born on an Indian reservation, and then
exported. They perfect their colonial tactics on the American
Indians, on the reservations, export it to the world and they've brought
it home to roost on the American people. Like I say, the new Indians
of rural America are the family farmer and family rancher. They're
in the way, and so they're going to be gone......and then the corporations
will take over.
Interviewer: Does that get very far with other Libertarians? Because -- look -- a lot of the Harry Browne and Ron Paul type of Libertarians will come back and say "well, that's the free market."
Means: Ahh....and you're right. And no, it isn't the free market, it's right-wing socialism --
Interviewer: -- It's fascism --
Means: -- Socialism.....fascism/right-wing socialism. But, you know a right-wing socialist and a left-wing socialist will start on a curve and they'll meet. Eventually, there's no difference between the two, so I call it socialism. There's no "free market"; there might be "free enterprise." For whom? You know, I've read John Locke and Adam Smith, and nowhere in there does it say, "well, the free market and capitalism is for 'only the strong shall survive.'" That's not what they say; they don't say that anywhere in their writings. They do not say "as soon as you start a business, please eliminate all the other businesses."
Interviewer: In his Second Treatise, Locke basically says: "This is your property, you must hold on to it, you create society to protect your property," and he never mentioned the size of the property. It could be just you and your wife, and your house and however much land -- an acre and-a-half? -- you have around it.
Means: Ted Turner, by the way, buys up all this property around here because he wants to kill some buffalo out there, and we're the only ones out here to protect our property. And it doesn't work. Society does not benefit. What happens as a result is consumerism, less morals -- as we've been talking about -- and less generosity. Because, you can no longer afford to be generous, because you're debt-ridden. So, the "tithing to the poor," so to speak, stops and society becomes unbalanced. Look at America........now, I'm older than you, and when I grew up in America in the 40s and 50s, the only place they had beggars was in India....and China......those are the only places that you heard about having beggars, okay? You saw it in the newsreel, in the movie theaters.
Interviewer: There wasn't a homeless problem, maybe just a couple drunken bums on skid row.....
Means: They were bums. There was no such thing called as "homeless." You were either a bum and you were thrown in jail for being a bum. Then, they changed the vagrant laws......But my point is: When I was growing up in America, there was no such thing as "homeless," there were no beggars in America, there were no people on the street, begging and sleeping in parks. But, it is what America has become, and that is symptomatic of the lack of generosity and the society has a lack of generosity because it doesn't have any morals and economically they're bankrupt and they're in debt, so they can't afford to be generous.
Interviewer: In a way, it's happened during the same time we've become more of a socialist nation. We think, "oh, why should we have to help out that homeless shelter? Or the Salvation Army, or whomever? Because -- after all -- the 'government' is taking care of people." That relieves us of our moral responsibility and it relieves the poor people who become homeless of their dignity and their responsibility. And, everyone loses out except one entity: The state, the omnipotent state.
Means: I find that Libertarians and right-wing conservatives, in fact everyone getting into politics are concerned about government and they say nothing about how centralized power is the actually the culprit, be it either corporate or government. Centralized power does not feed into the free market; it controls it. Witness the energy: This country has had a very, very, very mild winter, so what do the energy companies do? Because heating oil and natural gas and petroleum products weren't going sky-high to heat your homes? They raise the prices at the gas pumps to summer levels. Now, they've gone beyond that........Now, I'm a student of economics; I like to watch what's going on in the world, but when I see the price of oil go up to $30.00 a barrel -- fine, that's market prices. However, it immediately hits the gas pumps. Uh-uh! That's not the way the market works, it hits the gas pumps on down the time-line, it's not instantaneous.
Interviewer: Yeah, there's oil in storage --
Means: -- Right. There's inventory, and just because the Arabs jacked it up to $30.00 a barrel doesn't mean all of the sudden you go from 89 cents a gallon to $1.53. And then keep it there.
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