The Rude Guy (Maui) text of Podcast #2 January 23, 2006 [Rerun July 15, 2008]
[The Rude Guy welcomes you to the Reality Cult where he discusses: evolution, Darwinism, Social Darwinism, taxing stock market transactions, ideas versus ideologies, the unintended consequences of feminism, Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice, Margaret Thatcher and what's going on at the Rich Zubaty Web Site: www.happyfool.org]
[Impeach Bush Blues song then Cow bleat]
This is the Rude Guy, the Leo Tolstoy of podcasting, welcoming you to the Reality Cult, presenting the Idea of the Week.
This is the show with something to offend everybody. The show that’s anti-branding, anti-marketing, anti-slickness, anti-everything that big media stands for.
The show that dares to ask:
Why is Karl Rove’s head so big? Is he an alien life form, left behind by some space ship? And if so why did they leave him HERE? Is this their prison colony, their dumping grounds for dirty-tricksters and slime-ball manipulators? Were they trying to drop him off on a planet where…apparently…the people NOT ONLY don’t care…but actually allow night crawlers like Rove to suck upward, like capillary action, through the sweaty t-shirts of power?…If so, that would certainly explain something.
And…why is Dick Cheney so mean? Was he raised by Orcs? Did he escape from the pages of the Lord of the Rings to set up his own real life kingdom of Mordor?
And…Does George W. Bush have the reverse Midas’ Touch? Does everything he touches turn to shit? That would explain something…Here’s a man who ruined every enterprise he ever put his hands on, and then was allowed to become CEO of the biggest business in the world. The United States Government. He plundered the Treasury so he could plunder Iraq, and presided over the most corrupt administration in U.S. history. Will he be remembered as the worst president of all time? More inept and corrupt than Richard Nixon?…I certainly hope so.
I’d like to drop all three of them out of a plane over Papua New Guinea with a pocketknife and a book of matches, and see how well their vengeful God and their Social Darwinian, every-man-for-himself philosophy, fare out there, in the real jungle.
This is the show that talks about ideas. Not issues. Not sound bites. Ideas. The show that digs deep beneath the headlines and media flourishes and asks fundamental questions. We shoot for the gut.
And since we’ve stumbled upon it, I might as well talk about Social Darwinism right now…We live in a country where the Left champions Darwinism and decries Social Darwinism, and the Right decries Darwinism and champions Social Darwinism. They’re both walking around with their heads up their butts.
On another show I am going to talk about evolution. I am NOT going to claim God did it. But I am going to walk you through the huge holes in evolutionary thinking. I will not call evolution a science because it’s not a science. It’s a belief system, with all the inherent flaws of one. It accomplishes little more than employing overpaid professors to fool around with old rocks, while someone else grows their food and builds their houses. The theory of earthbound evolution is a colossal hoax…
So…if both of these theories are wrong what’s left? What’s left is…spacemen did it. Or more properly, space itself did it. Our planet was seeded with genetic material from other parts of the universe. It came here on comets and it came here in space dust and that’s the only theory of the evolution of life on earth that makes any sense at all. God didn’t do it in six days and Darwin didn’t do it with random mutations. But I’ll take all that up later on…It’s Social Darwinism that really eats my brain.
Does anyone actually believe that human society flourishes because of the biological doctrine of survival of the fittest? That human beings prosper pursuant to the unrestrained exercise of power, of the strong over the weak? What about Hitler? How long did he last? What about Stalin? And yes, what about George W Bush?
With the possible exception of ants, human beings have the most integrated, most interrelated social systems in earth history. We don’t fight with each other for food and transportation and energy, we DEPEND ON EACH OTHER for food and transportation and energy. We cannot survive without each other. And people have been brainwashed to believe that survival of the fittest is some ingrained biological program that runs on and on and on without us being able to stop it. We stopped it 2.2 million years ago. And ants stopped it long before that. Survival of the fittest is such a crappy popular theory I feel like I’m telling you the emperor he has no clothes. How did we ever get to this? Don’t we look out our windows in the morning? Survival of the fittest is utter bullshit.
But that’s how we think evolution works and that’s how we think the world works. And that’s why we let rich people get away with the things they get away with. Remember this, for there to be rich people there have to be poor people. There’s no way around that one. And you cannot tell me that rich people work harder than poor people. That’s never been true in all of human history.
The Idea of the Week THIS week is:
Should we tax stock market transactions?… Should we tax stock market transactions?
Doesn’t seem all that exciting huh? Doesn’t have that strong back beat? Just wait.
When I go to buy a pair of socks, I pay tax. When someone buys $400,000 worth of stock they pay no tax. That’s OUT…RAAAAAGE…OUS.
I have purchased a necessity that drives the economy. The stock buyer has made a luxury purchase that benefits one person. The stock buyer is a gambler…no more, no less. He is attempting to get money without working. He is trying to make money grow without doing anything. He is a parasite. And we, our system, let him get away with it. By NOT taxing his purchase we are subsidizing his gambling HABIT.
Few people realize that when someone buys stock, the company that issued that stock, does not receive one penny. NOT ONE PENNY goes to the company. Not one penny goes to buying new equipment or hiring new workers. The only person who benefits is the last person who bought that stock…and is now reselling it. Like a used car. How come when I buy socks, or shoes for my kids, I pay tax? How come when I buy a used car I pay tax? How come this investor, this person with more money than he or she can spend, pays no tax on their purchase, or sale?
OUT…RAAAAGE…OUS.
Ralph Nader said that a one half of one per cent tax on stock market transactions could pay for national health care for everybody. Everybody. 280 million men women and children.
But…you say…wouldn’t INDUSTRY suffer? No, industry wouldn’t suffer…far from it…industry would prosper. Remember…the company that issued the stock gets NO money after the initial sale. But that’s nothing. That’s bird turds. [note: another signature phrase; AUDIO: a few bird cheeps]
What do business leaders complain about? What’s the main reason they tell us why they have to lay off workers and relocate to China?
Two words: Health Insurance.
The main excuse corporations use for their lack of competitiveness is…the “spiraling cost of health care.” The spiraling cost of health care. Americans pay more money for health care, and get less actual health care, than the top twenty countries in the world…countries like France, and Germany and Canada and even Cuba.
In 2002 the United States spent $5,267 per person on health care. Canada spent $2,931; Germany spent $2,817; Britain spent only $2,160. Yet the United States has lower life expectancy and higher infant mortality than any of these countries. Countries with national health care.
What’s the solution to the spiraling cost of health care? Tax stock market transactions and fund national health insurance with it.
That’ll help our corporations keep jobs in this country…or at least expose them in another one of their lies.
What’s the solution to the spiraling cost of health care? Tax stock market transactions and fund national health insurance with it.
Page two [note: obviously another signature phrase and homage to Paul Harvey]
Time for a bird break.
[5-8 sec bird break fading under voice]
Ideas v. Ideology
The institutions of our time have failed us. We have governments that don’t govern, schools that don’t teach, free market economies that steal from the poor and give to the rich. The Hurricane Katrina debacle in New Orleans revealed that government does not understand its purpose – which is, to help people, not corporations.
There’s a reason for this mess. The reason is that the institutions of our time are driven by ideologies…Ideologies.
What are ideologies? Ideologies are good-sounding ideas taken to ILLogical extremes.
“Democracy is the best form of government” is a respectable idea.
“Therefore every country on earth should be a democracy” is an ideology.
“Free markets are the best economic system,” is an idea.
“Therefore all countries in the world should have free markets,” is an ideology.
“Education is important”, is an idea.
“Therefore children should spend 18 years in school…learning the skills they need to compete in the job market…(in other words…the skills corporations want them to learn…)” is an ideology.
“Jesus offers salvation from suffering.” Idea.
“Therefore everybody on earth should accept Jesus as his savior.” Ideology.
“Women don’t have equality,” idea.
“Therefore, men must be oppressors of women,” ideology.
“A woman has a right to choose what happens to her own body.” Idea.
“Therefore she should be eligible for abortion on demand and the government should pay for it if she can’t”. Ideology.
Ideologies sits astride ideas on the one hand, and issues on the other hand. Ideologies link ideas to issues.
In 1968 American right-wingers got together in Bohemian Grove, California and agreed on a set of ideas that spawned the ideologies that posed most of the issues of the past 35 years.
Idea: big government is bad. It’s inefficient and steals from the people. (not a hard sell during Vietnam)
The Ideology they concocted was: we need to cut government spending (which is political code for lowering rich people’s taxes).
Possible Issues to drive the ideology were: reduce military spending…No, can’t do that. Too many big campaign contributors in the defense industry. Reduce price supports for dairy and sugar and other agricultural corporations…No, can’t do that. Same reason…Reduce welfare for poor people…Ah hah. Even a Business Democrat like Bill Clinton will climb on board for that. Poor people don’t have the money to contribute to campaigns. So they get screwed.
Since the Democrats won’t come forward to reduce military spending or reduce agricultural price supports, we all end up lining up on either side of issues like Welfare Reform or National Health care. We are fighting over the issues THEY raise, not the ideas WE should be raising.
We’re not talking about the things we SHOULD be talking about because right wingers, with the support of Corporate Media, have generated the ideas that spawn the ideologies that pose the issues of our time.
Since Franklin Delano Roosevelt the American Left has not cooked up a set of ideas to generate the ideologies that pose the issues of our time. We spend our time reacting to Right wing issues.
A respectable Leftist idea would be “corporations are bad. They are inefficient and steal from the people”.
Ideology: “people need protection from corporations.”
Possible Issues: tax corporate pollution to induce them to reduce emissions. Or ban corporate lobbyists from Washington. Or eliminate Corporate Welfare. Or tax stock market transactions.
We don’t even have these kinds of debates in this country – taxing corporations for wrong doing, or banning corporate lobbyists or preventing corporations under investigation for fraud or waste from bidding on government contracts, or taxing stock transactions.
While the economic core of this country rots, Leftists whine about the Patriarchy or gay marriage. Grabbing at fantasy social issues and half-baked ideologies, that are devoid of functional and comprehensive ideas.
I was an early and outspoken SUPPORTER of feminism, because I thought that when women got power they would transform the institutions of our time. I couldn’t wait for half of all bricklayers, and roofers, and policemen, to be women.
Then along came Margaret Thatcher who gutted the British economy for corporate profiteers. Madeleine Albright who said that 100,000 Iraqi civilian deaths per year, due to U.S. sanctions, was an acceptable loss. Hillary Clinton who was Sam Walton’s lawyer. Carly Fiorina of Hewlett Packard who said, “American workers can no longer expect to have jobs with American companies”. Sandra Day O’Connor who cast the deciding vote to put George W Bush in office. And Condolezza Rice, Neocon Ant Jemima and author of the “mushroom cloud” fear scenario that catapulted us into Iraq. Pure unadulterated evil. Just because a woman is doing it, doesn’t mean it’s good.
No…women in high places did not transform the institutions of our time. They didn’t thwart the patriarchy; they BECAME the patriarchy…Or rather, what I call, the Corporatarchy. They got bit by the Corporate Vampires and became one of them.
The Left has failed because we did not spend the time to develop the Ideas that spawn the Ideologies that pose the Issues of our era. We just let the right do it, and spend our time reacting to issues.
We need Ideas. Ideas that unify us and give us a vision. Not more issues, more ideas. Not more opinions, more ideas. By simply debating issues we are letting the right wing set the agenda of national debate. We are never digging down to the roots…the roots being the fundamental ideas that spawn the ideologies that pose the issues. Debating issues without understanding ideas is like trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon. Like trying to grab clouds with your hands…It can never ever work.
If you don’t understand that corporations are MORE corrupt, MORE inefficient, MORE wasteful, and much much MORE irresponsible, and heedless of human needs, than government is, you can easily be backed into a corner that ends on an absurd half-truth like…well, everyone knows that government is inefficient.
And if you don’t understand that for thousands of years men have died in wars and died fighting fires and died of black lung disease creating safe zones for their women and children, you can easily be backed into a corner that ends on a preposterous falsehood like…Well, everyone knows that men are the oppressors of women.
We don’t have one more minute to waste postponing the propagation of new ideas. Not one more minute to waste bowing our heads to ideologies. Let me choose my words carefully here…FUCK ideologies. Ideologies enslave the human race. Elk don’t have ideologies. Pelicans don’t have ideologies. They adapt to changing conditions and survive through ice ages and meteor impacts. But humans?…From the 5000 year-old ideologies surrounding the Sun King in Ancient Egypt…right down to the ideologies swirling around Christ the King today…we are crippling ourselves with ideologies. Fuck ideologies. They serve only one purpose…To sustain an upper class of people, on the artificially under-priced labor, of a lower class of people. We need to grab our brooms and sweep ideologies off the ends of the earth.
[donkey? Gator roar?]
How can you help? How can you get your hands dirty?
Go to therudeguy.com and click on the links…therudeguy.com
I’m sponsored by a few dedicated people – NOT CORPORATIONS – PEOPLE. They make this possible and they deserve a little support. Check out Rich Zubaty’s books and oil paintings and his Corporate Vampires DVD. By helping him you’re helping me…You think I’m strange you should meet that guy some time… Never makes any money doing what he does…so he calls himself a not-for-profit BUSINESS…and sails along like a happy fool…check out his web site too…happyfool.org…that’s what he is…happyfool.org
And email me. EMAIL ME…so I know I’m not just talking to the clouds. therudeguy@hotmail.com
[fade in bird calls and hold softly under the voice through the end]
This is the Rude Guy. I’ll be back next week.
Stay strong. Don’t let anybody intimidate you. Don’t let anybody shame you.
No more bullshit. That’s our motto. NO MORE BULLSHIT!
Ahhh [note: like taking a shit. Another signature phrase]….feels a little better already.
[bird calls, fade out]
