Gyroscope

A newsletter for those unmoved by spin.
No. 11, October 6, 2003

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A school for conformity, a business where workers contribute quietly without asking about the purpose of the decisions, a wounded soldier being asked to shell out $8.10 a day for food while the general gets a tax break, and the wife of the soldier has her financial records pawed over by defense contractors while she flies to meet him on his return.

While America has always had its inequalities of wealth and the unequal distribution of power, it might seem that the lines are becoming just a bit more fixed. Income inequality declined for many years and well into the sixties and seventies before increasing sometime just about around the time Ronald Reagan became president. Presumably just a coincidence.

The American Dream of starting out poor and, by dint of hard work, winding up a rich person for the next generation of poor to aim at, did actually occur. I'm not one who thinks it was always an illusion or mere propaganda.

Now, a better strategy would focus on stock options. As the company's leaders extract value from the workers, buy and sell business units, lay off and overwork, that energy goes into the stock price. Wealth creation by financial manipulation rather than by product creation. Do a better deal on the same old mouse trap and the investors will beat a path to your door.

Except, except, that it may actually turn out that keeping people happy might be profitable. That's the burden of a long article in the Financial Times that suggests that for best results, you might wish to train your workers, listen to their input and work to keep them.

So what this means, is that the work of the schools to make us the efficient good consumer didn't quite work. Some bit of soul is still left after High School, and that responds to being treated well and to be treated as a valued member of the organization, not a cog in the machine.

Bush's efforts to cut soldier's combat pay have been reported before, but dinging them $8.10 a day for food - and for famously bad hospital food - is a new low. What better un-says "support our troops" then that? Soldiers are props in Bush's 2004 campaign, needed for a backdrop on the flight deck while the President, himself AWOL for a year, while in the National Guard, pretends to be a "man of the people."

Still, the soldiers in those photos were smiling and laughing and seemed happy to be there. But soldiers are trained to obey orders, at least from Republican presidents, training that began in Kindergarten. Some soldiers and soldier's families are beginning to question and stories are leaking out about the conditions in Iraq.

Perhaps some day a story will be written that taking care of ordinary Americans would generate more profit for the wealthy in the long run. Or that taking care of ordinary Palestinians and Iraqis might generate less terror in the long run. For now, the strategy seems to be to try to get everyone into the same conformity inducing schools that we had to sit through in the hopes that Iraqis can be led to desire only Coke and the latest shades of makeup. If only Bin Laden could be made to endure an American High School.

JetBlue Airline gave a list of one million passengers to a government contractor, allowing the company to identify Social Security numbers, financial histories and occupations. JetBlue apologized and the contractor claims the data has been destroyed.
-- New York Times, Sept. 20, p.1

The wall Israel is building with the intention of stopping terrorist infiltration will pass through the middle of a sports field of Al Quds University. At one point the proposed line for the wall will penetrate 15 miles inside the 1967 boundary line.
-- New York Times, Sept. 20, p.2.

The current design of K-12 education was deliberately intended to mold citizens who would take their place in the industrial, consumer culture without causing disruption. Using a Prussian model, the aim was to divide up the underclasses and instill fixed ways of responding to authority, writes John Taylor Gatto in the September Harper's at p. 33.

President Bush said there was "no evidence" Saddam Hussein was linked to the September 11th attacks. 70 percent of Americans believe he was reports the Financial Times, Sept. 18th, p.1

"We cannot allow the world's most dangerous weapons to fall into the hands of the world's most dangerous regimes."
-- Undersecretary of State John Bolton, speaking of Syria on Sept. 16, 2003, reported in the Financial Times, Sept. 18th. p. 16.

"Mr. Bolton said he was "unable to confirm" that Iraq transferred WMD to Syria late last year - a claim for which the only source is Israel. Despite the sound and fury about Syria selling night vision goggles to Iraq during the war, US commanders found no Iraqi wearing any," reports the Financial Times, Sept. 18th. p.16

A man who had added his name to his ailing wife's credit cards was declared to be dead by J. P. Morgan and credit reporting agencies after she died. Repeated appearances in the bank (including one with a TV camera crew in tow) were not adequate to convince the bank to repair the error, reports the Wall Street Journal, August 31st, p. C1

Soldiers will "probably" not face any punishment for incidents of killing several Iraqi policemen and for killing three civilians inside their house, reports the New York Times, Sept. 26, p. A10.

One of the three women on the Iraqi governing council member died of wounds inflicted in an attack. She was also a former member of the Ba'ath party and a close ally of the Saadam regime and of Tariq Aziz in particular, reports the Financial Times, Sept. 26, p.5.

"Happy workers are increasingly the key to success, but this is still widely ignored. ... the obsession of mangers with mergers and acquisitions, downsizing and strategy prevents them from seeing the more sustainable gains from managing human capital." reports the Financial Times, Sept. 26th, p.7

Wounded soldiers in Iraq are billed $8.10 a day for hospital meals, reports Philip Gold in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Sept. 28, p.F1.