Wifing Politicians: I don’t love these politicians (plutocrats)

I am writing to satisfy one issue, and that is why do folk take up for these political plutocrats regardless of political affiliation? It is as if folk cannot see they are all in the same gang of scratch my back crony-capitalist crooks. And for those unaware, crony capitalism refers to the intercourse between the state and corporate power. These cats have two sets of laws, one for us common folk and one for the elite folk. This manifested by two kinds of economic models of capitalism which breaks down to the over-regulated capitalism we have to abide by and the protected and unregulated variety for corporations, cartels and said participants.

Personally, as a libertarian, I unlike conservatives or liberals or progressives believe that part of the price of freedom is allowing others to have their freedom equally. Moreover, I believe whether I agree or like or dislike something, if it is peaceful and voluntary and harms no one, I can tolerate such. Unfortunately, this is not the game played by the ruling political elite regardless of party affiliation.

And even with all of the empirical evidence we observe, we allow these folk to play us like a fiddle, telling us things that do not even make sense yet many of us accept without question because we love our politicians. Love them so much we will let them lead us to poverty and a penal existence. So enthralled with them that we allow them, the federal government to give billions tax free in the form of TARP and even more via Quantitative Easing and all that so they can make loot in the markets at the cost of money that in theory should have gone to pay salaries of average employees. 

The real concern is that in order to do this, we have to be complicit in our own death. To accomplish this, they make up stuff; I mean artificially contrive stuff as well as the proof to support the stuff they made up in an effort to communicate impending doom. Take Global warming for example (ironically newspeaked into climate change) or any environmental cause. This the strategy used by plutocratic political elite and it is grounded in their sense of “moral absolutism” that makes them feel that since they have money, money shouldn’t be an issue to you thus your value as being regular folk, only exist to make them believe “WE” need them to tell us what to do.

We can also look at the civil rights and black power movements as examples. What did these folks do then? Well we were it before global warming and the environment. First, they focus on inequality amongst various societal sub groups like African Americans and encourage us to act against these certain political targets. It was just a few weeks ago the democratic held an all-nightclimathon talking about global warming.  This was 28 democratic senators all because some rich cat said he wanted to put $100 million behind politicians dealing with global warming. And we all know, including the money behind them, the politicians and the masses, that 60 percent in America think the economy is the most important issue to address and climate change next to the bottom, especially us black folk. Why, because climate change makes them wealthier.

In the early 1970s, Aaron Wildavsky, the former Dean of the Graduate School of Public Affairs at California Berkeley described their play book as being designed to “have middle class civil servants, hire upper class whites, to use lower class blacks” to stack the front line to complain against the political institution or policy (or lack of) at hand. And this minus-sum game as Wildavsky describes, often leaves African Americans worse off than we were before.

Take the recent election of Barack Obama. The change and hope mantra had folks wanting to tear the club up. But in 2014, what do we see? We see home sales going up for those with a price tag of $10 million plus, but not regular folk, especially if they are African Americans. Black Americans, Obama's most loyal supporters, are among the hardest hit by this uneven recovery.


The average price for a kilowatt-hour (KWH) of electricity hit a record of 13.5 cents in March based on data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics: meaning it was up about 5.5 percent from 12.8 cents per KWH in March 2013. In March, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics also shows that shrimp prices jumped 61 percent from a year earlier. Cost for pork items, especially bacon are also dramatically on the increase.  Ironically the story line is due to a disease. The increases of cost in agricultural and beef products have been conveniently blamed on a drought (disease and drought equally environment). 

All to make you think there are more things (the environment) which are more important than feeding your family, earning a living and maintaining a roof over your head (humans). Think about it PETA will tell you not to eat meat and that slaughtering cows is inhuman but they get their lot from VISA, who owns Omaha Steaks and got big loot in the Kentucky Derby (can’t make this ish up). 

You might be a progressive, but you are not a progressive elite and you, if defined as such are not seeking the same goal as they are.  The recession officially ended in June 2009, but we still are down 6 million jobs from pre-recession levels and now these cats got us believing that Obamacare and the economy are separate issues. But fact is that the new trend is not giving part-time workers company health coverage like Target, who will no longer offer health insurance to part time workers. Meaning, class, African Americans will be the hardest hit by this.

The disparity between rich and poor has blossomed since 2009 and the job participation rate is way worse, not to mention the average person has less money to spend and is taxed much more - all when our nation's debt is our greatest concern because WE paying the debt. And you know how I know we paying the debt? Because, more than 23 million American households rely on food stamps. Households operationally defined let us say as being four per household which equals 92 million Americans. And although more whites on welfare than blacks, we rely on it disproportionately more than whites.

This one reason why neither democrats nor republicans will ever simplify the tax code because this is the plutocratic politician’ main source of revenue (taking huge contributions (bribes) in exchange for tax breaks for the super-wealthy. They want inflation because the math proves that inflation (when prices go up) raises GDP subsequently making federal debt cheaper to service every year. But where we live and everywhere else, median household income is down 7% since 2000. And don’t forget if we removed the top 1% households from this equation, the decline for the bottom 99% would be more than closer to 30% (my math). Thus via the tax code and quantitative easing, the purchasing power we have is slowly being siphoned and swindled and given on purpose by our government to super rich folk, who in turn get to borrow money from the Fed at an interest rate of zero.

American politics is completely, owned, run and operated by the most powerful economic elite that politics and corporate America can proffer, which leaves out the democracy this republic was created on for the rest of us.  Yawl, especially black progressives, needs to stop wifing these politicians.  I mean if black folk regardless of political orientation put as much into protect, defending and believing in self and our communities as much as we wife these politicians, we wouldn’t have am problems. But we don’t, and now a majority of us believe and trust the government. When did we start to believe in and trust the government I ask again? Of all folk, African and Native Americans should never trust the government, especially the federal government. But that is just me, and unlike most, I don’t love these politicians.

President of the Few Exaggerates Impact of Sequestration

Now I know that for many folk, the sequestration is either serious or not. Although I do accept the ramifications of the process, it is hard to get real involved in make believe political nuance. But as such, It is equally as hard not to weigh in on the inside the beltway kabuki theater we surmise as Washington politics. First, what get me is the big deal folk make out of this entire thing per an economic issue. If anything it is an issue of national security first and foremost (42 percent of cuts will come from defense). But I suspect this is what President Obama anticipated when he first proposed sequestration for whatever reason in 2011 (which in itself is another essay). I say this because I think he really believed that Congress would bow down to protect their cash cow “defense spending.” But they have since then taken his player card.

Truth be told from a federal agency perspective, it only $85 Billion (north of $40 billion this year), that they have to cut. I think what is missed mostly in all of this is that our issue really isn’t related to debt or the deficit, but rather credit and borrowing. Yes we spend too much no question, but ours is a credit problem – we borrow too much which makes economics ignore what is essential – that one can address the debt and deficit and encourage economic growth by leasing in on cutting wasted and duplicated spending.

Again it is just $85 billion. AIG got two times as much when the government bailed them out, yet we can find money to bailout Wall Street but not cut from what we already spend? I find that hard to believe because the average individual, family and small business owner, if had to, could cut less than three cents from each dollar earned without going bankrupt or homeless. I know less than 3 percent is possible from history alone. If FDR could cut the federal budget by almost 40 percent at the start of WW II in one year, surely we can locate 3 pennies of each government dollar currently spent.

Maybe this is why the theater. Three cents on the dollar won’t hurt if done correctly (end waste and duplication.) But if it hurt anybody it will be us, the poor folks in America who depend on services like head start and similar provisions. President Obama knew he was taking a risk, but instead of the wealthy he pretends he wants to tax, he put folk on the hook who live pay check to pay check, struggling to survive in poverty and who depend on head start on the hook as bait for house republicans. And they didn’t take it because they only grab on behalf of rich lobbyist (as well as democrats). Now we are back to Washington at its best, seeing that pointing fingers is more important to the administration and the congress than moving pencils and using erasers. The result is all outside in real America being stuck in the weeds on this matter.

In four days we will have Armageddon as the president describes it. Although all parties agreed to it, why is it Armageddon now and it wasn’t then? America outside the beltway isn’t growing fast like Washington, DC and Wall Street. Since looking at what has happened from 2009 to 2011, more than twenty major corporations have paid no income taxes. Including the likes of General Electric, Boeing, Verizon and Amazon [Amazon made billions in sales in 2011, while paying nothing in corporate taxes]. The reality is that since Obama has taken office, corporate taxes in the U.S., at an all-time low in which we see the most profitable companies paying nothing at all. Yet instead of fighting for the payroll holiday to continue President Obama did not fight for it, for these people were on the hook as bait. In 2011, Facebook made billions and paid not taxes yet was given a rebate of more than $400 million dollars the same year.

The fact is all of the above demonstrates that both the present administration and the members on the hill have only corporate interest at hand. Not only is it government for the few, it is also President of the few. Drake almost got it right, but I would say “we started from the bottom and we still here.”