Nobodies

Recently read Nobodies

http://www.amazon.com/Nobodies-Modern-American-Global-Economy/dp/0812971841/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1223610386&sr=8-1
Interesting. Of course it's not really a surprise that we have slavery going on in this country, although it is a shock. It's a little disturbing that $50 a year to the family food budget of all american families would get the laborers a decent wage. But then, the poverty level, which was pretty much made up by one woman arbitrarily round about WWII who decided for the sake of having some number that it would be three times the price of food for a year. No one's ever wanted to go back and make a change, but someone has estimated that it's now four times the price of food. But part of that is the move away from real food.
Anyway, the slavery is petty in some way, petty from us and petty from the behavior of the slavers. Actually, I've come by the back way to something that I was going to work my way towards.
Bowe goes through the idea that in the old south that the plantation owners didn't actually profit from the ownership. I find that hard to believe. Maybe in a strict sense, as they were leveraged up to their eyeballs, but even if the planters didn't make money, the country as a whole DID profit from slavery. I'm digressing again. He then asks why did people commit slavery. (Maybe that's not a good phrase, I don't know.) His answer: We like having power over other human beings.

I can't refute that. There well may be other factors, but I think that's a big one, and it's been a huge mover of history.
In some way, I"m an optomist, and I believe that knowing what we are capable, makes it easier for us to avoid those sins. And I do believe that "sin" is the appropriate term. That there is a wrongness to some behavoir despite the non-existance of dwag. but my guess is that we have to rediscover that wrongness anew with every generation. That's based on the lack-luster teaching of the "holocaust" and american chattel slavery in my childhood schooling. Of course, it is hard to discuss the evil in men's souls with children, but I distrust the impulse that makes it something "they" do. Rather than something that we are all capable of. I hope I never am faced with the opportunity to commit evil on that scale.
Can I still call annoying people Hippies?