Saturday, February 28, 2009

Everybody Knows...

With apologies to Leonard Cohen. Here are a few more things that "Everybody knows..." but not everybody admits.

1) People know what is right and what is wrong.

2) It's hypocritical to whine about "welfare queens" scamming a few food stamps while turning a blind eye to the massive white collar crime that completely dwarfs welfare fraud in this country.

3) Hard work and talent will give you a comfortable living, but it will not make you extremely wealthy.

4) To become extremely wealthy, you need to be lucky, manipulative, and/or corrupt.

5) Ken Lay, Bernie Madoff, and many other white-collar criminals have caused more harm than an entire prison full of drug dealers. But white-collar criminals are rarely -- if ever -- given the sentences they deserve.

6) Regular people have a lot more power than they think. Those who benefit from the status quo do not want large numbers of people to stand up for what's right.

7) For that reason (#6), a lot of talking heads divert our attention from issues that really matter, and ridicule or harass any attempt to organize.