Are You Free?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Lets not just stop there. Think about any business that your betters (By which I mean, your government) has considered too big to fail. Automotive, Chemical, Energy production and transport infrastructure are all sectors that have been in receipt of massive bailouts. The stated reason is always that we MUST help these things or we will ALL pay. Cars with a myriad of options must be built and stockpiled. Power plants must be subsidised or suppliers will refuse to build them. DOW Chemicals gets a free pass on Bhopal because it's not affecting OUR freedom.

The reality of the Stick is that practically every business that measures profit and turnover in the tens of millions and billions has a horrific human cost every single day. From the workers in the 3rd world supplying raw materials and labour right the way down the chain, cost and profit potential is emphasised above the well being of any of your fellow humans. The Stick encourages you to exploit the guy next to you because fuck him. And If you don't fuck him, he'll fuck you. And if you both choose not to fuck each other, the boss will fuck you.

The Stick is fear. Fear of Punishment, Fear of consequences (Real or imagined), fear that the other guy will somehow come out better than you.

We all use the Stick too. It's only somewhat our fault, we've been beaten with it for so long that the methods of The Stick seem natural. Anyone who has ever had responsibilities over others at any point (Co-workers, children there's little difference) will in times of duress return to threats and The Stick to get the objective accomplished. What does this teach those you are influencing? That when you don't get your way, Pick up the Stick. When others are not acting according to your desires, Pick up the Stick.

Pretty soon, you can't remember to put the Stick down. 

The stick is essentially the fnord, except that it WILL eat you.

[LMNO]

This whole thing is awesome.

And yes, it needs to be eventually compiled and released.  I tentatively volunteer.

[Junkenstein]

One other thing:  If you're rich and powerful enough to be dangling the carrot in front of others, then to a certain extent you are immune to the stick as well.

I need to think about this some more, but I'm not entirely certain that's the case. I strongly suspect that there's just a different aspect for the Stick depending on your relative position in the world. Look at Obama. By all accounts, at least one of the most powerful men in the world. Do you think Obama is Stick free? Or is his stick just held by people that would have no concern or interest to hold yours?

[LMNO]

Obama is not free, because there's market share to consider.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

One other thing:  If you're rich and powerful enough to be dangling the carrot in front of others, then to a certain extent you are immune to the stick as well.

I need to think about this some more, but I'm not entirely certain that's the case. I strongly suspect that there's just a different aspect for the Stick depending on your relative position in the world. Look at Obama. By all accounts, at least one of the most powerful men in the world. Do you think Obama is Stick free? Or is his stick just held by people that would have no concern or interest to hold yours?

I think Lloyd Blankfein is stick-free.

[Junkenstein]

One other thing:  If you're rich and powerful enough to be dangling the carrot in front of others, then to a certain extent you are immune to the stick as well.

I need to think about this some more, but I'm not entirely certain that's the case. I strongly suspect that there's just a different aspect for the Stick depending on your relative position in the world. Look at Obama. By all accounts, at least one of the most powerful men in the world. Do you think Obama is Stick free? Or is his stick just held by people that would have no concern or interest to hold yours?

I think Lloyd Blankfein is stick-free.

I'm still not sure. On the surface, yes, there is little you can really threaten the man with. He has extensive wealth and power. However, there have been others in similar positions where the Stick eventually came into play. Think Enron.

I think it may be more accurate to class these kinds of people as "people the Stick has no vested interest in beating".

The guys at Enron got out of line. The Stick had to be used publicly to let everyone know it was still there and has a nail in it. We've not seen the Stick really hit any of those nominally "responsible" for the latest economic fuckup. That can't last forever. Part of the Stick is the public visible punishment side. The token offering of blood to appease everyone. The solemn reminder that this can not and must not happen again. Or we'll use that Stick again.

Anyway, to the point: Everyone is Stick Free, until you're not. The Stick might come when you get into work, or it might come when you create a PR fuckup and get caught with your hand in the till. To claim to be Stick free is to practically invite it. You can't escape the stick entirely with wealth and power, you can only soften the blow. In many of these cases what the stick will cost you will be money and power rather than freedom and your life. While this would seem to be preferable, I doubt many of the exceedingly wealthy would consider it anything less than death in another name. Think about the Sultan who had a hissy fit over the "Rich List". That's a perfect example of how you can be free and yet still totally under the Stick.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I'm still not sure. On the surface, yes, there is little you can really threaten the man with. He has extensive wealth and power. However, there have been others in similar positions where the Stick eventually came into play. Think Enron.

G/S is to Enron as Enron was to disenfranchized poor kid from Flint, MI.

I think it may be more accurate to class these kinds of people as "people the Stick has no vested interest in beating".

I can't see a real distinction, here.

[Junkenstein]

I'm still not sure. On the surface, yes, there is little you can really threaten the man with. He has extensive wealth and power. However, there have been others in similar positions where the Stick eventually came into play. Think Enron.

G/S is to Enron as Enron was to disenfranchized poor kid from Flint, MI.

I think it may be more accurate to class these kinds of people as "people the Stick has no vested interest in beating".

I can't see a real distinction, here.

I'm still thinking about this, so may be quite wrong:

The Stick creates it's own narrative to a degree. We "know" that Police are honest, Politicians upstanding and Judges just. We know these are "good" people and so seek very good reasons and lots of evidence before mentioning the Stick to them. You'll be lucky to see the stick actually used against them, as these are parts of the system that make up the Stick. Apparently, Society would collapse without these people.

There seems to have been an extension to the list of people who would doom society by their absence. If you own/run a company big enough, you are granted exceptions to the Stick and favourable terms when you encounter it. This elevates you to the same level as
police/politician/judge. Only what is expected of you is profit. Fail to deliver in this regard and the Stick will suddenly give a shit again.

I think I'm looking at profit potential. The potential earnings of say, me or you are nothing compared to the daily salary of a football player. Their earnings again nothing compared to multinational CEO's. Yet the relative level of privilege afforded at those 3 wage levels is massively different. I think that may be because the Stick is much more interested in me and you. The footballer currently profits from the system, the multinational CEO practially creates the system. You and I just operate levers and we are easy to replace.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

Bamp!

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Oh, shit, I loved this thread.

Needs Edward Snowden.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

Oh, shit, I loved this thread.

Needs Edward Snowden.

I was looking for it because of the new guy but he seems to have flounced already.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Oh, shit, I loved this thread.

Needs Edward Snowden.

I was looking for it because of the new guy but he seems to have flounced already.

He's still here, lurking.

[The Wizard Joseph]

I'm glad it got bumped. This is a good thread that hits two issues I find important.

The original pics and the "is this person free?" question kinda breaks me a bit. Do I really know what freedom looks like? Then a thought about putting the OM into FreedOM struck. I had to accept that I DON'T know just by looking. I need knowledge of the STORIES to ever say I know for sure. Even obvious context in the images like bars or that kid with his, sadly doomed if I read right, fist up in the air and his GRIN wide could not tell me just by looking. Where this could OM things would be in getting those trapped by the illusion of freedom to at least question their own ability to recognize this nebulous thing they feel they understand well enough to identify with it, if not outright realize that have no idea what it actually looks like.

The Stick could really be a whole lot of good lessons and the ones presented so far are amazing. I've found myself wondering what the stick could possibly be for those at the very tippy top of the system. There's a sick feeling in my gut that in the end it's just MORE STORIES accepted as true without real knowledge even as they go about manipulating the stories others hold true.

In both cases we have the sad state of affairs where a delusion has formed that informs all decisions made by those afflicted. It a sort of a sort of story poisoning from misabsorbtion of a fiction as fact. One SO powerful that it can drive folks to murder either to reinforce "the cannon" or remain in a powerful position as a self-styled Storyteller. Of course once you've explicitly shed blood to "prove" the story you believe it HAS TO be more real for you and anyone that hears of it. To accept that it was a senseless death at the hands of an ape with broken toys in its attic is TRULY unthinkable, especially when the ape is you!

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

At the tippy top you get to hold The Stick. That's the whole promise of the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" narrative.



In fact, that's really all the carrot we give most people. If you do good enough, you get to shit on someone else. If you survive boot camp, you can go stick it to those smudgy brown people. If you make enough money, you can get away with literal murder. If you're smart enough, you can figure out how to pay no taxes at all and those dummies will applaud you for it.

It used to be that everyone got to use The Stick on the regular, as long as you had a sufficiently narrow definition of "everyone." But now we can't offer vaginas as a carrot anymore because those bitches got uppity and started having ideas like "choosing their own partners" and "actually not being cool with borderline or actual sexual assault." And then you couldn't use The Stick on your wife anymore or else the cops might use The Stick on you, and then they decided you can't use The Stick on your kids either, which means the only way left is to make so much money that nobody cares what you do anymore.

Or you go buy some guns and use The Stick unauthorized at your local school.

[The Wizard Joseph]

"Thy rod and staff, they comfort me" now clearly and blatantly pro-stick propaganda. 

You make a fine, if unpleasant, point there QG.