Myths to Die By, etc.

The compromise Immigration Bill has a serious fault from the onset: it doesn't address the why, why illegal immigration is so epidemic. Earmarked to any illegal immigration bill should be a call to repeal NAFTA; because as long as the Mexican economy is tied into this free-trade treaty, as long as the OverClass can hire illegals on the cheap as they do, the flood from the south will keep coming regardless of how many border checkpoints, fences, fines that are imposed on the illegals. Frankly, the businesses that have hired illegal aliens should pay any levied fines. This bill will do nothing to stem the flow of illegal aliens, and Senator Kennedy should know better.
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It seems like the World Bank is the next stop for foreign policy failures like Wolfowitz and previously the architect of the Vietnam War, McNamara got the post at the World Bank. It was humorous to hear following Wolfowitz's announced resignation from the WB, that George W. Bush lamented that it was regrettable since Paul Wolfowitz was "helping the poor". If anything, the World Bank is an edifice to aide the international OverClass to loot the Third World and privatize everything from pensions to the position of dog catcher.
We need to worry about establishing a true 'National' Bank, and such global entities that serve the interests of the cosmopolitan economic Predators, such as the above, the IMF, WTO need to be strangled and buried.
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Have been reading considerably lately about the thing called meritocracy. It is amazing who many people swallow old myths today, and this notion that hard-work, education and the "right attitude" can and will propel anyone to greatness and riches is one of the biggest old wives' tale. Even millionaires themselves do not believe in the core principle of meritocracy - hard work. In a survey of Forbes millionaires, they were asked to list five essential ingredients in what made them tick: 'Work' came in dead last. The very people who lack socioeconomic mobility, the Working Class(who 'work' the hardest),seem to believe in the Work Ethic the most though it perennially gives them fractional and illusionary gains. It seems that meritocracy is the real opiate of the people in this sense. And most remarkably it plays into the hands of the caste that knows that meritocracy is bunk, that is screwing the hard- working worker over.

Meritocracy is something that we all want to believe in, however. It is analogous to an agnostic Christian who wants to believe in salvation, but everything in his/her mind knows that it just isn't so. It is perhaps just another dopey-daffodil utopian scheme, the notion that one can rise based on merit alone. But the desire is to make myth reality here, and many have set at drafting boards trying figure out a scheme to have a natural aristocracy, have the best and brightest running the show.
As usual I am pessimistic. Probably nothing outside The Brave New World can we have anything resembling a meritocracy, and few would sanction a society like that. Yes, the problem, the main roadblock to a meritocracy is THE FAMILY. Family Values is the bugbear. Social conservatives need to get a reality check here that the problem is that we have always had too much Family Values. Or at least the wealthy have.

It is academic that if the 'pull-yourself-up-by-the bootstraps' individualism worked on a utilitarian scale, how come the affluent do not kick their kids out of the house when they reach their majority? Why not have them fend for themselves and get their own money and way through life? Instead, regardless how Mom &Pop came into their fortune, they send their children to the best schools with other rich spawn and fairly much give their own children cradle to grave care. Forty percent of those on Forbes got a large portion of their wealthy via inheritance;the higher a mogul is up on the Forbes list, the more likely he or she had a substantial trustfund from a rich mommy or daddy - it takes big money to make big money is oh so .We must realize fully that we live not in a democratic meritocracy, but an oligarchy. The odds on that someone can start from the bottom and work their way to the zenith of the socioeconomic scale is egregiously astronomical. Winning the PowerBall lottery twice is more practical to compare.

Straussians say that the herd need their myths, and the merit-system is the Numero Ono - even surpassing other myths like those that believe in Adam and Eve, 'Intelligent Design', Tom Jefferson was for the People and Ron Reagan ended the Cold War. Better it is to address the reality that we do not have a meritocracy and never did. Maybe something benevolent can sprout from people dwelling on what Miquel Unamuno dubbed as the existential 'Tragic Sense of Life' than proliferating myths that make us forget it. Or maybe the suicide rate would skyrocket if we all did.