Freedom
A columnist, Star Parker, wrote a book entitled: "Uncle Sam's Plantation." In it, she made clear that many people that were looking out for themselves before the "War On Poverty" came along, decided to live on Uncle Sam's plantation where they would give away some of their freedom in return for food, housing and other items. Of course, once on the plantation, it is almost impossible to get off of it.
She now has written about the bailouts for corporations and says the corporations are jumping onto Uncle Sam's plantation. Once on the plantation, corporations must give up some of their freedoms, like setting executive pay levels. For sure there are other freedoms that will be lost. The effects will be the same for corporations as it is for the individuals who live on Uncle Sam's plantation.
posted by Marcel at
2:15 PM
4 Comments:
Yes sa Master Marcel, yu jus talk the trut.
By
patb, at 2:57 PM
I really like reading Star Parker's work. She is an excellent writer and has a way of illustrating exactly what's going on in our government.
Tracy
By
Anonymous, at 7:32 AM
Marcel, Tracy,
I never read Ms Parker's work but from your brief description it seems to me that "plantation" is a bad analogy. Plantations were privately owned and slaves had to work hard or perform a service for their shelter and sustenance. Not true for welfare recipients. Also, I don't know of any "freedoms" welfare recipients give up like corporations do. What am I missing? How does a "plantation" compare with the war on poverty?
By
John Beauregard, at 1:44 PM
John, Spoken like a philosopher, you focus on the differences and want them explained. What is necessary here is to see the situation as a poet, to see the similarities.
On the privately owned plantation the slaves were property, and as such, they were taken care of as property. Just as with all other property, the property owner wants his property to increase, be healthy, prosper, and be a credit to the plantation. (Virginia had a surplus of slaves and sold them just as they would their plantation animals. South Carolina on the other hand always required more slaves because their work in the rice fields was so hard that many of them died.)
At the end of the Civil war most slaves left the plantation in order to be "free." They were asked to stay on the plantation and work there but few did, and the gross product of the South decreased. Once free, the former slaves still needed food, clothing and shelter. This they now provided for themselves by working for wages.
Of course, there is a great disparity on the worth of the labor provided by people, some do economicly well and others do poorly. When on the plantation, all were cared for, when free, some were not faring at all. To return to the slave times and get food, clothing and shelter as they once did, they fell onto either charity or Uncle Sam. As government benifits got better more and more people stopped striving for their sustenance and went to government for help. The sence of looking after themselves, as a free person, became lost. Of course, those recieving assistance are not called slaves but they have lost that freedom of doing things for themselves and are satisfied to continue allowing government to provide.
The government wants to care for those people under their juristriction, as, similarly, the plantation owner cared for his slaves.
The major question arises; are there some people who do not value freedom at all and will allow (demand?) others to provide for their sustenance. Or, is freedom truly a felt desire of all people, and we have created a system to take away their ability be free.
For corporations: can they produce the profit they need to survive? When they ask the government to help, what freedoms do they give away?
By
Marcel, at 10:13 AM
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