SnowBowl/ double class

Last class was pretty informative and pertained very well to the Lake Tahoe Basin in many ways. We talked shortly about the "Capitalist Tower" and how the tope tear is comprised of a very small percentage of people (>0.01%), but those at that level probably have most of the wealth in the our economy. The upper class is dependent on the labor class and with out them, the gears would stop because there would be nobody to turn the economic wheel. Some feel that there needs to be a better distribution of wealth; instead of keeping most of the people impoverished, there should be a restructuring of how much income everybody makes. This would make life easier for most of the populous, but the powers that be want the people to be impoverished (unhappy) because it keeps them dependent on the system even more so, because that makes the working force only focus on producing, rather than focusing on time for themselves (happiness). The idea of making a more fair pay wage for all is hard to conceptualize for some because we are not hearing the whole story because we have the same people telling the story (the >0.01%).

Another key thing we learned was the difference between Fair Trade and Free Trade. Fair Trade is the idea of fighting for good wages for LDCs laborers, versus Free Trade which actually is the opposite. Free Trade is where international corporations undercut prices of goods to get rid of local products or other competition.

To cap off the class we went and watched a Native American Series movie about the struggle with the Native populous and the Snow Bowl Ski Area in Arizona. In short, the ski area is making man-made snow that is made from re-claimed water. The multiple native tribes in the area hold the snow bowl mountain as sacred, and feel that spraying the re-claimed, man-made snow on the mountain is the same as spraying pee/ poo water on a Church. The Native plea has fallen on def ears, and just goes to show how the hierarchy of the Capitalist Tower plays out in the real world. As far as I know the Feds (USFS) has allowed for snow making to be built, with no plans to yield to the Native's requests. Here is a recent link to the Snow Bowl battle:

-http://www.onthesnow.com/news/a/16715/arizona-snowbowl-wins-another-round-in-snowmaking-pursuit