A Paradigm Shift

We watched “The Titanic” tonight. There have been several depictions over the years.

Overall, the tragedy of the Titanic, at the beginning of the twentieth century, has been pointed to as a tragedy of arrogance and hubris regarding the new technologies of the day. At the time, there was the expected investigations and shock at the negligence of the ocean liner company that disregarded the danger of running a shipload of passengers at high speed through an iceberg field.

Of course, nobody at the time could have detected the paradigm shift the sinking of the Titanic symbolized. Certainly editorials of the day decried the poor preparation and the negligence. But the real paradigm shift, of corporations showing little regard for human life in pursuit of profit was not detected until the Great Depression. The folly of technological infallibility was detected, the greed and avarice of the ocean liner corporation was not. The current movie catches it, and shows the demands of the shipping public relations to go fast to set a crossing record, assuming tragically that the Titanic’s hull was impenetrable.

This realization takes place almost 100 years after the event.

We are faced with a very similar event today with the Gulf of Mexico spill. The difference is this time the timing is reversed. It took almost twenty years and a World War to get to the Great Depression, when people began to realize that corporate greed, not just technological over-confidence had led to thousands drowning in the Atlantic. The Great Depression was caused in part by corporate greed and irresponsibility; especially in the banking industry. The paradigm had shifted in 1932, and people easily understood that corporations could not be trusted with public safety.

This led to the New Deal, that put regulation (and tax rates) into practice that led to winning World War II, a huge increase in productivity and American wealth, and the growth of a democratic middle class.

Unfortunately, Ronald Reagan came along, reversed much of this, and set in motion the slow deterioration into mindless conservatism, that once again has given us economic disaster. This same lunacy has also led the ecological disaster formulating in the Gulf of Mexico.

Today we are in the middle of the same kind of realization that a paradigm shift is possible. After eight years of a very pro-petroleum industry administration, we are faced with a catastrophe that was caused by the same hubris and corporate irresponsibility that Mr. Reagan introduced.

This time we have an economic catastrophe in 2008 that is so close historically that the lesson of corporations not being trustworthy is glaringly obvious. In fact, the paradigm shift should be like the shock of the cold Atlantic as it sucked the life of those 1500 unlucky souls who drowned that fateful night. All Americans should awake with a shock to the new paradigm of corporate greed and corporate control of our political process.

I am sure the petroleum industry will throw millions at the “problem” in an attempt to fool people into believing that, as the wing-nut governor of Texas said, it was all an act of God.

The facts run counter to these right wing lies:

1. Drill Baby Drill is inherently much more dangerous than we have been conned to believe.
2. There is no technology that can safely drill for oil in 5000 feet of ocean.
3. Self-regulation, which was pushed by the Republicans for eight years, does not work in banking, oil drilling, or anything for that matter.
4. Corporations lie. Conservatives, their watercarriers, lie.
5. Politicians bought by corporations lie.
6. The public welfare and safety is not being served today.
7. Oil companies are betting the American People will drive to hell in their automobiles.
8. They may be right.

Today the American People are being tested like never before. Corporations have never been so bold and so nakedly opposed to the general welfare. They have developed, with right wing help, an almost fascist corporate model, that puts business ahead of human health and happiness. BP, Goldman Bankers, Coal Mining Corporations; etc., don’t even bother showing responsibility anymore because they really believe they own us.

And they might be right.

If they are, then the American Dream is dead and so are we….

It is only a matter of time that a calamity will occur that will end democracy in this country and life as we know it on the planet.

It is up to us.