In favor of justiceOccupy Wall Street is evolving in fascinating new ways. I’m working on a post that will point out some marketing lessons I’m seeing in action. I feel like this movement is almost like a lab to see if some of the ideas corporations have been talking about, but not really acting on, can have impact. In the meantime, Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone has written some short, powerful, actionable ideas.
Societies that have a large class of exploited people never function. Look at history. It’s a short-term win/lose situation and a long-term lose/lose. We have a form of greed-fueled slavery happening right under our nose.
There’s a large class of people who would live better in prison. Sure, the sex might be less than perfect and there is no freedom, but what are they free to do now? Take a bus for an hour to work for minimum wage to get home exhausted and still below poverty with no hope for their children. And those are the lucky ones.
At least in jail there’s a bed, a roof over your head, medical and dental care, a gym, clean clothes and three meals a day guaranteed. You might get killed, but that could happen anywhere as most poor people in bad neighborhoods know. Prison is the closest thing we seem to have to an institution that takes care of people. And it’s not hard to get in to.
How did we take a society with a sound foundation and a good plan and turn it into such a hopeless situation? Until we redistribute the money so that everyone who gets up each day and goes to work can afford to be safe and have possibilities, democracy and freedom are irrelevant concepts.
A recent article by Christopher Ketcham in the Onion Magazine posted on truthout really amazed me and led me to redirect my blog to a much more proactive stance. I learned that, if New York were a nation, it would come in as the 15th worst among 134 countries ranked by extremes of wealth and poverty.
It notes that when Stone Age pottery was examined, there was a point when patterns no longer advanced. Instead old patterns were recycled. There was only repetition. Pattern exhaustion. We’re there. Thanks to television, we’re starting to think alike, look alike, buy alike.
A scary well presented case for the need to act now.
Just called to return something to VS which came in the wrong size, Extra Small instead of Medium. I’d just use the form, but don’t want to pay the $5.99 shipping return since it was their mistake. Call the 800 number and get stuck in one of those “talk to the computer” loops. After hanging up and calling back twice because they don’t actually have an option for “returns” and I already have a catalogue I finally figure out that the only way to speak to someone who can make this happen is to say “place a new order”. Do that, and I’m connected to a very sympathetic person who expresses “Oh, no”, when I say wrong size came, then says she’ll transfer me to customer service which, apparently is a recording of “I don’t care what they say” played for about 5 minutes. I finally believe they don’t and hang up.
What’s with all the birds in ads lately? I wish I could see the research that led to this. Both Bulgari and Vuitton seem to think that without a parrot, your ad is sure to be ignored. So if you should see a bunch of mindless followers walking round with parrots, at least you’ll know why.
If we saved the financial institutions because they were too big to fail, how did making them bigger improve things, except for the the financial institutions that is? The last thing we need is even more monopolstic greedy idiots. When and how can we stop this madnes? Who elected Goldman president? Wouldn’t supporting smaller local banks make more sense that solving the “too big” problem by making things bigger?
How did we ever live without this nifty watch that does everything a watch should except give us the time? Knowing the time is so yesterday anyhow, for when people had jobs and had to be someplace. Now for just $295 you can wear a watch that looks like a Rolex, but isn’t, which shows that you’re not a luxury person , but you do know what luxury is, and which doesn’t actually give you the time, which shows that you have all the time in the world. If you have to ask what time it is, you don’t deserve to wear this watch, or bracelet…or whatever it is. If you ever do need to know the time, check your phone.
