The concept of profit in a capitalist society is essentially devoid of ethical considerations. There is one goal:  increase net profit; even if it involves attaching misnomers to your pitch or creating subterfuges. It is usually only the most vile that resort to such extremities; however, even in the simplest sell-and-buy transactions there occurs a certain amount of manipulation.

Manipulation may simply occur through misrepresentation of person or skill. In a recent encounter with a woman who claimed that her calling in life was to help people heal their broken heart (once they had bought a certain book that she had written), I asked her what her perspective was on free advice to people who could not afford her book. She smirked and replied saying that in assisting people who did not pay, she would be wasting time and neglecting the customers who did. There are also spiritual healers (sangomas), back-door abortionists and such (essentially charlatans) who offer overpriced solutions to the ignorant, desperate and impoverished. In South Africa, there was a case in which a practicing 16-year-old spiritual healer mixed something toxic and killed himself and his family (an approximate total of 16 people died).  Profit sucks out the soul of humanity: any help needed comes with a price tag; all price tags come with an included and invisible mark up (pure-hearted charity excluded).

Even the poor manipulate and make money off the poor. In certain clinics in South Africa, which are meant to aid the impoverished and provide medication to the sick, there are nurses who steal the government-provided medication and sell it instead of distributing it to the sick who approach the clinics for help. In old age homes, there are assistants who steal the belongings of the elderly to sell and make a profit. Orphanages are also robbed of their comforts with charity given toys and food being taken by the assistants for their own usage. Certain companies even use charity as a marketing gimmick – ‘for every (product) purchased, a percentage will be donated to (a random charity organisation)’.

In every finance-involved situation there is a capitalist salivating over the prospect of profit; be it a supposed act of goodwill or straight cut business deals. The most indigent are non-existent. Charity organizations and NGO’s can only do so much to assist them.

However, there also exist the genuinely good-hearted people who help out in times of need… free of charge. I like to think of such people as miniature land-bound gods; free of the capitalism shackles. As for me, I’m refining my entrepreneur skills in an attempt to profit of the rich – despite the soul-less nature of capitalism, everyone needs money. Myself included.

ASSERTION:
The government should help to ensure that no business profits excessively off the sick, disabled, or poor.

Tharuna Devchand is a young lady from South Africa with quite a talent for writing and entertaining. We’re excited to share her wit and her viewpoint with you.

Dan Rickabus is a musician from Michigan who we just featured on the site. We asked him to be our music blogger and he luckily said “yes.” I think you’ll find his music writing very cool and very enlightening.

Tharuna and Dan both love to hear opinions and share ideas, so don’t be shy.

First let me say it was an enjoyable conversation and I respect his desire to keep his morning listeners engaged and entertained even though I do not agree with many of his positions.

This past week I had shared some thoughts via CNN on the attempts by Sen. Bunning and Sen. Kyl to depict we the unemployed as lazy and with no ambition to find work. I, like millions of Americans, found this an insulting assertion. Allman had me on to discuss my “slam” as he called it. (can we retire that word yet?)

Instead of discussing the real consequences of the economic crisis and instead of focusing on the realities that it has brought – Allman chose to focus on me and my year of unemployment.

Side note - last week I received the first call for work I’ve had all year. I have sent out many resumes and received no response. A friend refered me to a company he worked for and they called. We talked and I did not book the gig. Today I learned that my friend no longer works there and is himself unemployed.

Allman’s solutions for the unemployed seemed to entirely focus on part time jobs. He seems to be in denial about the severities of this crisis and seems to want to depict the victims of it as deviants. This is unacceptable and if the conservative community continues to be representated by voices like Allman’s I can assure you they will never be taken seriously again.

People are hurting. People are starving. And Allman doesn’t appear to care to offer up real solutions. He repeatedly brought up McDonald’s and Walmart as potential employers for the over 6 millions people currently unemployed. I am not certain if they are simply sponsors of his that he’s trying to cleverly place within an interview but I am fairly certain that they can not hire all of the unemployed and certainly not full time. And I am confused why conservatives seem to have communist ideals – they seem to think everyone has a right to a job no matter if there is a need for a job. Just because I want a job does not mean I just get one.

Now – I listened to much of the rest of his program this morning and found one bit of his opinion interesting and oddly confusing. He and his callers seemed to advocate neighbors helping neighbors rather than relying on the government. As if the government was some outside influence into people’s lives. (something I can somewhat understand given President Bush’s wiretapping habits) Allman also kept talking about how 40% of his income goes to the federal government and he thinks that if he was taxed less that he would have more money to help people. All interesting ideas – except for one thing.

Governement is just people helping people. That is actually it’s intent.

One of his callers asserted that the founding fathers were just people helping each other – good neighbors. And we need to return to that. I wonder if the caller understood that when Franklin, Washington, Jefferson and the rest decided to help each other – as good neighbors – they did something called forming the government!

It says in our founding documents “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” I think these words stand on their own but I think some folks should pay attention to “promote the general welfare”. I wonder what that means? I think it means helping each other have a strong quality of life. We are a united country, not a divided on.

We work together, for apart we are nothing but people bumping into each other trying to survive.

It is our governemnt. It is our way of helping each other and lifting our nieghbors up. It only works if we pay attention and take part. And it only works if we do not allow ourselves to be distracted by the voices floating out there in the airwaves on our morning commutes. We must be involved. We must get to know our representatives. We must know how to read the laws that are being debated and we must pay attention. We must in order for our country to function well.

Now I can understand why conservatives have such a negative view of government – I mean every time a conservative is in power our country begins spying on it’s citizens, launching us into dangerous wars and they always end their tenure with the country in a deep recession. I may be making a bit of a joke here but the facts do speak for themselves.

One reason I no longer vote republican (and I use to) is because I noticed this hypocrisy and it pushed me away from their party and my conversation with Allman today reaffirmed my concerns about their point of view. I’m not saying the democrats are perfect but they at least understand that government is meant to help, not hurt and intrude. For example I am always appalled that conservatives are okay with profiting off of the sick and the poor and whenever Democrats try to keep that from happening the republican party stands up and crosses their arms – protecting profit – no matter the morality.

I mean according to Allman all the unemployed should be denied unemployment insurance. I ask him this – what if the 6 plus million people currently unemployed just can not find work? Can not find permament work? What would that do to our country? What would the ripple effect be of 6 million people not paying their bills, not buying goods? How many more people would be out of work?

I think Allman forgets that for many of us this is life and death – it is not a joke. It is not a topic for a radio show to have fun with – it is serious. It is life and death. If we do not find work we die – especially if Allman has his way.

That is unless our neighbors help us stay alive – like Allman suggests. And given the sheer number of people that are unemployed and the ripple effect it would create – we would need to organize some body to help our neighbors. Probably elect some leaders to organize the effort. And very soon – neighbors helping neighbors turns into well….a government.

Which we already have.

Soundtrack to this post: “Dollars & Cents” by Radiohead, from Amnesiac. (I’ll be doing this for every post I make. It will always be a song that relates directly to what the content of the post, and you can listen to it while reading, after reading, or not at all! Just a suggestion, and honestly, another excuse to share music!)

Radiohead performs “Dollars & Cents” on BBC Sessions.

“Money, so they say, is the root of all evil today. But if you ask for a rise, it’s no surprise that they’re giving none away.” Too right you were, Roger Waters.

Making true art in our mile-a-minute capitalist society has always been a tricky process. So much so, that one would instantly assume and anticipate a struggle after making the decision to pursue music as a career. That is, unless you have the unhindered backing of a big-time record label like in your dreams. However, all too often the concept of profit is held in higher regard than the concept of true musicianship. Pressure to sell and mold your sound accordingly definitely wasn’t in your dream, but it is without a doubt in the reality of major labels. As a result, there is an intense increase in the number of bands who have dropped from the big-label scene to lesser indie supporters, allowing them to do what they want. After the monumental success of their 2008 self titled debut, Seattle’s Fleet Foxes were met by five offers from the big dogs, and they turned every single one down. Their lead songwriter, Robin Pecknold was quoted as saying that major labels were “anti-music.” Quite a bold statement, but a justified one. When profit enters into the artistic process, it begins to feel like attempting to fit a circle into a square. This odd couple of the rigid, money-based world and the fluid universe of music is the foundation for the “music industry,” and I think we can all agree it’s a shaky one.

To utilize a metaphor that will solidify my nerd-dom, profit seems to be to music as The Force is to Jedi knights. The right amount of money used in the right way can be the light from heaven for a band or musician. It can provide new equipment for experimentation of tones and sounds. It can increase the overall well being and comfort of the musicians, allowing them to forget about monetary stresses and focus on true expression. For example, imagine if a musician like Andrew Bird, whose multi-instrumentalist and arranger characteristics impress the buh-Jesus out of every listener, never had the money to buy a loop-pedal?

Andrew Bird performs the mind-blowing “Anonanimal”

However, money can be a true poison to good music. Success, if large enough, can induce a kind of artistic apathy in later work. We’ve all heard the term “sell-out” that is all-too-often thrown around by angsty punkers and hipsters showcasing their disgust for anything the general public enjoys. However, the term does hold some kind of meaning at it’s core. Enough profit can promote changes in music to steer it more toward the direction of mass popularity. It can also promote a static nature to a band that has achieved recognition for their single, and chooses then to simply replicate that formula to keep the bankroll bulky. Take Nickelback for example: A band that gets debris thrown at their foreheads at their own concerts for their general artistic dishonesty.

Nickelback’s Narrow Escape

The bottom line is, music is an everchanging, plasmatic entity. It’s already extremely risky to box it and tranform it into a product. The purity of this audible artform can be nearly destroyed by attempting to squeeze it into a monetary system. However, everybody’s gotta eat, right? And musicians definitely aren’t nobody. What determines the distinction between profit being a blessing or a curse to music is the honesty and strength of the artists themselves. Fortunately for us, there are enough genuine artistic geniuses in today’s world to provide us with one of the most unique and groundbreaking musical climates the world has ever seen.

As a journalist, reporting on divorce – or worse, the aftermath – has become just about as common as reading a release on the latest reality star’s jaunt into the music industry. Neither is particularly pleasant, but both also captivate readers in a kind of train-wreck curiosity. The scary part about it all is that readers often begin taking sides, analyzing public marriages and divorces as though the public personas they are familiar with — the red carpet smiles, the publicity-driven acts of charity and the bouts with the paparazzi — are anywhere near the genuine essence of the marriages they read about.

In the public eye, divorce has become a speed bump. It’s a tedious process that is more of a hassle than an emotional ordeal. Time used to be that divorces were a rarity, deemed a sort of failure on both persons’ parts; now it is an ugly sometimes-necessity for people who know better than to try to work it out. What this teaches children, and subconsciously ingrains into the minds of young adults everywhere, is that there is an easy alternative to the strife of marriage: get out.

This is an age of quick-fixes, and if it’s okay for celebrities to count their number of spouses on their two hands, then it must not be that terrible to split from what troubles us as well. Critics would argue that this is because marriage as an institution is outdated, that some people would rather have long partnerships than get married because of the many implications marriage holds. I would counter that the main reason divorce is now no longer viewed as a terrible fate is because of the pace of life. Change needs to be instant — think plastic surgery and crash diets — and there isn’t much that can’t be fixed with a little money. This means that, in a strange way, divorce has become a weird status symbol of sorts. How much did she get after the settlement? How much did they invest into the case? People have to have a certain standard of living to be able to afford divorce procedures.

In reality (and not reality TV), however, divorce shouldn’t be such a callous business transaction — and it’s usually not. When I think about the children who have to endure the pains of back-and-forth battles between their parents, I think and know that their own take on marriage down the line will be severely impacted. Distrust or lack of commitment become the way for them to approach the once-sacred institution, and the cycle continues on.

Scary thought.

As proven by way of reality TV shows, society is fascinated with watching other people’s lives onscreen. Or perhaps more gratuitous still, watching an altered version of themselves onscreen and then mimicking that in real life. It’s a dangerous blurring between real life and the glamorous pictures on the other side of the glass, but it’s also unfortunately all too common. Divorce as we know it today, divorce as I read and write about on a daily basis, is the modern common cold — easily caught, a hassle to deal with, swiftly dealt with.

That’s the truth. We, as Americans, love our right to divorce. We love the ability to bail. To leave. To quit. We love quitting. Love it. We love giving up more than we love admitting our own faults, more than we well…love love itself.

That’s not to say some folks don’t have real legitimate reasons to leave their spouse. Many women and men make the tough decision because they have been abused physically or emotionally. And sometimes there were warning signs, sometimes not. This is not about them – completely. If they had children – then they should keep reading.

This is about the real victims of divorce – the children.

I am a child of divorce. I won’t get into the personal details of what happened as this is not about blame or revisiting the past. This is about understanding.

As a child of divorce I can speak about the consequences that fell on my shoulders. There were the physical changes – suddenly I was doing laundry and occasionally cooking at the young age of 12. My time was split between two homes. And like many children of divorce not only was the home split but also who I was to each parent. I was one person for my mother and one for my father. And I was counselor to both.

Many in my generation had to suffer through one of the most selfish periods in U.S. history – the “Me Generation” of the 1980’s. We saw our parents, many whom were deeply traumatized by their own upbringings or the repercussions of Vietnam, spend their mid-life searching for answers to their own pain. This search meant that they were no longer able to pay attention to us. And we noticed.

And it hurt. Deeply.

It hurt to see and hear the many things that come from a divorce. The words said by one parent about another – sometimes both parents forgetting that I was from each of them, not just one of them. It was confusing. The truth became a blurred figment that after awhile was too exhausting to try to get into focus. A child of divorce might simply find him or herself nodding and smiling, saying whatever will get them through that moment. I know I did.

It hurt to see your father or mother cry. Wail to the sky and ask that most obscure of questions – “Why? Why me?”

It hurt because so often they never looked over their shoulder and saw us standing there. They never asked us how we were doing. They just kept asking themselves “Why me?”

I wondered that too. I wondered why my parents went from love note writing teenagers to divorced, broken adults. I worried that I would follow the same path. I worried that I made the wrong decision when I decided to stay with my father. I worried about all these strangers coming into my life. I worried a lot. And did I feel helpless…

I hated having to grow up so fast. I hated traveling between two worlds and never finding one that fit me. When I think of home I don’t think of a physical place – I remember knick knacks that my mother had or pictures in an album capturing one second of time. There were and are no permanent monuments to my youth. No childhood home. No neighborhood that I grew up in. Partly because we moved a great deal but also because there were always two homes and two parents who both wanted me to consider where they lived home.

But home never existed. Not really. Not to me. Not without both of my parents under the same roof it didn’t.

Both parents remarried, my father many times, and with each new step-parent came new siblings, new photos on the wall of people who were strangers to me but important to my step-parents’ past. They were good people. They were. But as they moved in, part of me, well, moved out.

Divorce may just be a signature and a court date to our parents but it changes our lives forever.

My wife and I are both from divorced families. This is something that frankly has bounded us closer as neither of us see that as a solution to any problem. We love each other and that’s pretty much that. We took oaths on our wedding day and oaths means something to us.

There’s one period of the year that I think clearly illustrates the permanent solution that divorce becomes and the consequences that are felt for years on end. That period is the holidays.

For a child of divorce this is the hardest time of the year. As a teenager my father and mother lived in different states – so for the holidays it was a question of who did I stay with that year – my mother or father? Since I lived with my father I would spend Thanksgiving with him and come the Christmas break would fly out to visit my mother. This of course was stressful. My mother, who I didn’t see nearly as often anymore, would try to fit in a whole years of memories into a week period. I understood completely. It was hard. It’s hard to not see your mother.

As adult children of divorce we still never get to just have a holiday. We always have to try to balance our time between our various parents and of course we not only have to find gifts for our two biological parents but also for their spouses and any and all step-brothers and sisters. It’s stressful. It’s a lot. But it is the solution that our parents chose for us when they signed those papers.

Now I know that there are always reasons – trust me I heard them as did every child of divorce. And many of us were privy to the reason that the divorce happened. We saw the fights. We witnessed the cheating. We heard the crying. We saw the sadness creep in to our parents eyes. But that does not change that we are forever scarred and we were so rarely even asked how we were coping. How could we? Where was the room?

I do not write this as a guilt trip. I write this because it’s the truth.

My generation has to now pick up the pieces of family and try to start over. As a fairly newly married man I find I have no model to follow for marriage. I have no direct example from which to draw – well except my great-grandparents. They knew what love was and how to live it. I’ll tell you a story about them in closing.

My great-grandparents were married for over 50 years. My great-grandmother suffered from dementia in her late age and had to live in a home. Too old himself to care for her any more he would have to live with only visiting her. I can’t imagine what that’s like. Knowing your love is so close but you can not lie next her anymore, you can’t hear her breath next to you. You don’t see her when you wake up in the morning. You don’t get to feel her embrace or hold her hand whenever she needs some support. You have to visit her, like a stranger keeping an appointment. On one of his visits he sat in a corner chair, watching her sleep as I heard he often did. He nodded off in the chair, feeling calm in the presence of his love, his wife, his soul mate. And on this particular day – he never woke up.

That’s how my great-grandfather died. Sitting next to the woman he married. Sticking with her until the end. Never giving up. Never quitting.

We hope to name one of our children after him someday.

That’s love. Love does not quit.

Love is real.

Welcome, Angie. We’re glad to have you with us!

I’m a recent divorcee from a marriage of 5 years, now a single mother to a 3 year old daughter, and a woman just trying to heal some emotional wounds. I suppose no one really begins a marriage with the intent that one day things will end up this way, and I’m sure the list of reasons can go on a mile long. But after it’s all said and done, for me anyway, it’s more than just about surviving the divorce. For me, it’s about facing the reality of the wounds that were created from decisions of both parties and finding some sort of acceptance. It’s about finding peace in knowing that I did all that I could do and it still wasn’t enough to make a square peg fit into a round hole.

I’m not exactly sure how it works, but, somehow, instinctively I know that in order for me to deal with it, I need to face it head on. It seems logical to me that if I shelf it, I’ll just have to deal with it later. In the meantime leaving me with bitterness and resentment — baggage that will no doubt haunt me and any future relationships that I might have (romantic, mother-child, or otherwise). The healing process for me is more than just a temporary band-aid where there is a risk of it falling off at some inopportune time. I’m on the path of making my heart whole again, most likely with a scar. But as with all scars, you still have the memory of what happened, but somehow not the sting.

So I press on with the strength of my family, my friends, and the love of my daughter. And somewhere along the way, I’ll find the strength and courage inside of me that I never knew was there. Or so I’m told.

Angela Richelle

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For those who know a little about photography, here is my EXIF data for this shot:
Nikon D300, 50mm f/1.2
ISO 400
Aperture f/1.2
Exposure 1/80