CHRISTIANITY: IS IT REALLY ABOUT GOD, OR MANIPULATION AND GREED?
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I give truth and common sense priority over any kind of political or religious ideology, because politics and religion are one and the same, they both deal in manipulating the naïve, gullible and uninformed for money and power. So my one and only philosophy is to follow truth wherever it leads and regardless to whose ox it gores. . With that, most Christians would say, but "the word of God" is truth, and then immediately start quoting the Bible to prove their point and suggest that I'm a closed-minded heathen destined to go to Hell if I don't change my thinking. But these people have been so completely indoctrinated in Christian dogma throughout their lives that they completely fail to recognize that the only reason they accept the Bible as "the word of God" is because the Bible says it is, and they have absolutely no other evidence of that fact other than the Bible itself.
. But that's where "faith" and/or gullibility comes in, and why faith plays such an important role in ALL religions. Even though Jesus was born in the desert, and even the Bible describes him differently, Christians portray him as a White Scandinavian with blue eyes. If that were true they wouldn’t have had to crucify him, he would have died of Sunburn. So if they even lied about what the man looked like, what are the chances that they're telling us the truth about what he, or anybody else said? It's not very likely. So I view Jesus as an enlightened philosopher - period. He wasn’t God, or any more supernatural than the rest of us. That’s why when they stabbed him, he died just like the rest of us are going to - and he's not coming back, so we need to give that Hocus-Pocus nonsense a rest. This is real life, not Mother Goose, and we're adults, not children. . In a 1841 speech, Frederick Douglass said he was in church and witnessed a young Christian White woman go into a trance. When she came out of it she claimed to have visited Heaven. When she was asked were there any Black people there, she hesitated, and then said, “I don’t know. I didn’t go into the kitchen.” Can you believe that any person who is that far out of touch with reality is being informed by God?
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Nevertheless, one of the main tenets of Christianity is that its adherents maintain absolute and unwavering "faith" in what they are told. One of the worst sins that can be committed by a Christian is to lose faith - not just faith in God, but faith in what they're being told about God. This serves two very important purposes. First, it prevents people from even thinking about whether or not what they're being told makes sense, and secondly, it allows preachers - or "men of God" - to step into God's place as his surrogate. So essentially, they become God, and speak on his behalf. As a result, many Christians are not actually worshipping God, but their preachers. That's why they make them so rich. . When Christians give to the church, subconsciously, they think they're buying their way into Heaven. For a mere 10% of their earnings they can receive absolution for all of the dirt and abuse of others they've committed that week. That leaves them perfectly free to go out and commit more social atrocities the following week - like firing people from badly needed jobs, mowing down unarmed Black people on the street, or letting the people who commit said murders go free - and all in good conscience, and with God's blessing. So it's the perfect solution for everybody - it keeps scoundrels free to commit sin, and the "men of God" in big homes and fancy cars. And they do all of these things in the name of God, and with the ardent support of the very people who are the most negatively impacted by it. . But truth and common sense dictates that it's all nonsense. If a devout Christian born in Georgia had been born in Israel, he would be a devout Jew, or if in Iran, a devout Muslim, or if he’d been born in China he would be a devoted Buddhist. That clearly demonstrates that religion is not of God, but of man. People are actually socialized into believing what they believe. If God had created religion to guide us, would he have created so many of them that they would cause man to hate, brutalize and murder one another? I don't think so, not a loving God. .
PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MIND
GOD GAVE YOU, JUST LISTEN TO ME.
So although it is claimed that religion was placed on Earth as a blessing to mankind from a loving God, in reality, organized religion is without a doubt the most evil and destructive force on the face of the Earth. It’s the primary source of all manner of hatred, bigotry, and misery in the world, and that's an indisputable fact. . Nevertheless, if a person chooses to be a "Believer" that's up to them. Ordinarily there would be no problem with that if people would simply believed what they believed and go on about their business. But that's not good enough for people who are prone to be religious fanatics. They're convinced that they're carrying out God's will, so they want to proselytize, and shove their religious beliefs down everybody else's throats, and then, go on to demand that laws be passed to institutionalize their beliefs. A perfect example of that mindset at work was senatorial candidate, Roy Moore. He wanted to make it against the law for gay people to marry, but thought it was perfectly alright to molest 14-year-old girls. We have the same problem with Donald Trump, who routinely uses narrow-minded religious bigotry to gain support for mean-spirited social policies. So instead of the people's so-called love of God spreading love and enlightenment throughout the world, it's being used to sew hatred, misery, and division among the people. . The fact is, God is whatever force, entity, or process that’s responsible for what we refer to as existence, so if we exist, God exists, regardless of whether God is a he, she, or it - but he hasn't said a word to nobody. The mere fact that we’re here to question God’s existence, however, proves God’s existence. But that’s all we know, and that's all we have to know - period. . I recognized these facts as a mere child, and I also recognized that I didn't have to be religious to be Godly. I'm one of the most God-loving people I know, but I don't feel that I have to believe in walkin’ dead men, talkin' snakes, or have to put up with foolish preachers struttin' around on stage giving paid spoken-word concerts every Sunday morning to prove I love God. Embracing that nonsense is where loving God crosses over into brainwashing and Voodoo, and it's shocking to me how many otherwise intelligent people buy into it. . As a rule, the more undereducated people are, the more religious and bigoted they tend to be, and if they're Black, they tend to be more conservative, critical of other Blacks, and eager-to-please and submissive toward Whites. I could never identify with such people, so as a young adult I came up with my own religion. I guess you could call it the Gospel of Wattreeism. My Bible is only one page long, and has only three Commandments: . 1). LIVE THE BEST LIFE YOU CAN. 2). HELP OTHERS WHENEVER YOU CAN. AND 3). MIND YOUR OWN DAMN BUSINESS. . Now, that's Godly, because it doesn't create hatred, hostility, mayhem, or chaos, and I think God would agree with my basic theology, because God’s where I got it, not from some money-hungry and fanatical preacher. It's important to remember that Jesus didn't have any "faith" in the word of any man. He found God within himself, because that's where God resides, and when I seek God’s council, that’s where I look. On the other hand, the video below portrays what you get from organized religion - maybe not always so blatant, but the end-game is always the same - money:
RELIGION: THE KEY TO WHITE SUPREMACY . A LOT OF BLACK PEOPLE ARE NOT GOING TO LIKE THIS BECAUSE WE’VE BEEN SO BRAINWASHED OVER THE CENTURIES THAT WE SEE SHAKING OFF THE SHAKLES AS A SIN. BUT THIS IS SO IMPORTANT FOR BLACK PEOPLE TO UNDERSTAND DURING THIS ERA OF DONALD TRUMP THAT I DECIDED TO UPDATE IT AND REPEAT IT. . LET'S USE OUR CHURCHES TO ORGANIZE AND IMPROVE OUR LIVES, AND STOP TRYING TO USE THEM TO BEG THE LORD FOR HELP. GOD DID HIS PART WHEN HE GAVE US A BRAIN, SO LET'S FOLLOW HIS WILL AND START USING IT. . WE'VE GOT TO WAKE UP, PEOPLE - AND FAST.
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Ed,
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I assume that you’ve read the entire Bible, yet you consider what I have to say “shit” and not even worth the time to consider? What’s the problem, am I not sufficiently White for you to accept the fact that God might find me worthy of speaking to? If that's the way you feel, I can certainly understand it. After all, if we base our assessment of God on the books in the Bible you love to thump, he only speaks to White men. He never speaks to women, he never speaks to Black people, and he never speaks to Asians - at least, none of them are represented by books in the Bible. And in spite of the fact that he sent his “only begotten son” to be born in the desert, both Jesus, and the entire population of the desert are portrayed as White.
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So why is that important? It's important because it clearly demonstrates that the Bible was the creation of man and not inspired by God, because God is neither a chauvinist nor a bigot. So the Bible has man's fingerprints all over it. As a result, it’s not a bit surprising that according to most portrayals that I’ve seen in your “Holy Book,” God bears a striking resemblance in both appearance, and disposition, to the people who taught us his “Holy word” while they had us tied next to the mules. In other words, he bears a striking resemblance to a bigot, which has always given me pause (as it should also give you), and it leads me to believe that bigots created God in their own image.
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But in spite of how your “Holy Bible” portrays him, God does speak to me. He’s speaks to me constantly through the intellect that he bestowed upon me, and he tells me that your “Holy gospel” notwithstanding, we can only know his will through what he has done, and not through the self-serving words of man. He says that he made birds to fly, fish to swim, and man to think, and any creature that fails to adhere to their nature cannot survive. That’s why birds fly south in the winter - and without benefit of maps or a holy instruction manual. They simply follow the innate prescription in which God created them to follow, and that allows them to survive in perfect harmony with nature - unlike man. Man tries to re-write God's prescription to accommodate his own agenda for power, wealth, greed, and hubris, and that's where religion comes in. That's why we have so many of them. Wouldn't you think that if God put religion on Earth to guide mankind, there'd only be one of them? Consider that.
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All of your religious beliefs are merely an accident of birth? If you'd been born in Israel, chances are you'd be a Jew; if you'd been born in Iran you'd be a Muslim, or in China, a Buddhist. So your religion isn't so much God-inspired as it is a result of the environment in which you were raised. You were SOCIALIZED into believing what you believe so passionately. Thus, if you truly believe that a person born in Israel, Iran, or China is going to Hell because they weren't socialized to believe what you believe, you're delusional. And if you believe that God sent a White Scandinavian with Blond hair and blue eyes to be born in the desert to instruct people of color in how they should live their lives, you're not only delusional, but you're stupid - if that had been the case, they wouldn't have had to crucify Jesus, he would have died of Sunburn.
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The Bible that Christians Worship today was compiled and “bless” by the Catholic Church, not God. Any book that disagreed with the Catholic Church was banned. What Christians call "The Holy Bible," and what preachers run around thumping, wasn’t even compiled until almost 400 years after the death of Jesus. So everything in it is hearsay. In terms of years, at the time the Bible was compiled they were twice as far away from the life and times of Jesus Christ as we are away from the life and times of George Washington today. So in reality, they didn’t know fact from fiction, any more than we know whether or not George Washington actually chopped down a cherry tree:
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"For the first 300 years of Christianity, there was no Bible as we know it today. Christians had the Old Testament Septuagint, and literally hundreds of other books from which to choose. The Catholic Church realized early on that it had to decide which of these books were inspired and which ones weren't. The debates raged between theologians, Bishops, and Church Fathers for several centuries as to which books were inspired and which ones weren't. In the meantime, several Church Councils or Synods, were convened to deal with the matter, notably, Rome in 382, Hippo in 393, and Carthage in 397 and 419. The debates sometimes became bitter on both sides. One of the most famous was between St. Jerome, who felt the seven books were not canonical, and St. Augustine who said they were. Protestants who write about this will invariably mention St. Jerome and his opposition, and conveniently omit the support of St. Augustine. I must point out here that Church Father's writings are not infallible statements, and their arguments are merely reflections of their own private opinions. When some say St. Jerome was against the inclusion of the seven books, they are merely showing his personal opinion of them. Everyone is entitled to his own opinion. However, A PERSONS PRIVATE OPINION DOES NOT CHANGE THE TRUTH AT ALL. There are always three sides to every story, this side, that side, and the side of truth. Whether Jerome's position, or Augustine's position was the correct position, had to be settled by a third party, and that third party was the Catholic Church.
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"Now the story had a dramatic change, as the Pope stepped in to settle the matter. In concurrence with the opinion of St. Augustine, and being prompted by the Holy Spirit, Pope St. Damasus I, at the Council of Rome in 382, issued a decree appropriately called, "The Decree of Damasus," in which he listed the canonical books of both the Old and New Testaments. He then asked St. Jerome to use this canon and to write a new Bible translation which included an Old Testament of 46 books, which were all in the Septuagint, and a New Testament of 27 books"
(http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080928064041AATOZUD).
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SO THE POPE HAD SPOKEN, AND THE ISSUE WAS SETTLED. THUS, WHAT CHRISTIANS REFER TO AS "THE HOLY BIBLE" IS NOT THE WORD OF GOD, IT'S THE WORD OF POPE DAMASUS I.
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The gift of intellect is God’s most precious blessing to mankind, but you’re taking it and slapping him in the face with the very blessing that he bestowed upon you by choosing man’s words over God’s deeds. You’d rather have “faith” in man’s contrived tales of walking dead men, talking snakes, and demons than to use the common sense that God bestowed upon you to recognize that demons don’t exist, dead men don't walk, and snakes don't talk, and they never did - period! Thus, you don’t believe in God, you believe in man. You’ve let man convince you that if you ever doubt his word by having the audacity to cave-in to GOD’S will that you use common sense and intellect to guide your life, that the Boogie Man’s gonna get you and drag you into eternal damnation. That’s the kind of tactic that’s used to manipulate children - fear. But you’re a thinking adult, so wake up.
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It's all a farce. Think about it. In spite of all the nonsense man preaches about “loving thy neighbor,” if a slave walked out of the field on a Sunday morning and into a so-called “house of God,” and then sat next to a White woman to worship the Lord, the preacher would stop his sermon on “loving thy neighbor” mid sentence, just long enough to lynch him. So I respectfully submit, sir, that you’ve been thoroughly brainwashed - and most Black people have been brainwashed. We’ve been brainwashed into hating ourselves, because the underlying message in Christianity is Black is evil, and White is pure and holy. That’s why they portray Jesus as White, and wearing all white, in spite of the fact that he was born in the desert (can you just imagine what that flawlessly clean white robe would look like in the desert!!!?). So if you can't even trust them to tell you what he looked like, how can you trust them to tell you what he said? Yes, there is a passage in the Bible that says his hair was like sheep's wool, but how often do you hear that passage, and how is he portrayed? As a child when I said my prayers, I pictured myself praying to, and worshiping, a White man with long flowing blond hair. That's how our minds were stolen.
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Now, I can see children believing in Santa Claus, but to see so many allegedly educated grown people enthusiastically embracing this utter nonsense is freighting. It proves that man can get other men to believe in anything. As a direct result, none of us are safe. We’re not safe from our children being shot down in the street, or sent to foreign lands to die for the profit of other men, or being blown up by various and sundry lunatics and religious fanatics who have other beliefs, as we’re currently seeing all over the world. The vast majority of all of the bigotry, pain, suffering, and hatred in the world can be traced directly back to religion - or the word of man. So while I’m a firm and passionate believer in God (every morning at 3:30 a.m. I go into my back yard and commune with him as I stare out into the universe and into his face), you can spare me the Christian Voodoo. That’s not for me. It smells far too much like the man who enslaved my people, and who is keeping them mentally enslaved to this day.
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But when I debate preachers on this issue, they try to conflate themselves with God by wrapping themselves, the Bible, and God into one neat little bundle as though they are one. They asks, "Where's your faith? Don't you believe in the word of God (as though it goes without saying that the Bible is the word of God)!!!?" My response is, I don't have to have "faith" in God. You only have to have faith where there's doubt, but I KNOW that God exists without any doubt. God is whatever being, entity, or force that is responsible for creating the universe and what we refer to as reality. So the mere fact that you and I exists is irrefutable evidence of the existence of God. So the only question that begs to be asked is, whether or not I have faith in you and your "Holy book," and the answer to that question is definite and unequivocal - absolutely not.
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So every time I see Black people dancin’, and shoutin’, and cryin’ in church, it makes me want to throw up, because I know it’s all based on ignorance and a self-serving lie. And it’s no accident that the most devout Christians either live in the South, came from the South, or were raised by people from the South, because that’s where the brainwashing tradition was most pronounced. The more undereducated and country a person is, the more likely he or she is to be a devout and unthinking Christian.
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What they don’t understand is, regardless to what the preacher says, they can neither pray their way into Heaven, out of poverty, or out of any other kind of adversity. God did his part when he gave them a brain. So they've got to think their way out of adversity, and since God already blessed them with the tools to do that, it's not only senseless, but ungrateful, lazy and greedy trying to beg God to do what they should be doing for themselves. But preachers keep them in that mind-set because it keeps them coming back to church and paying the preacher to help them "speak to Jesus." The only reason people can't see through this transparent game is because they were born playing it - their mother and father played it, their grandparents played it, and all the people around them are playing it. So they need to step back and take an honest look at their belief-system with the common sense that God bestowed upon them.
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"God helps those who help themselves." A perfect example of that axiom is if a man is sitting on a rail road track and he sees a train coming, if he decides to get on his knees and try to pray that God stops the train instead of using his God-given common sense to get out of the way, he’s gonna to perish. That’s just how the universe works. But many Black people are doing exactly like that man on the rail road track, perishing, as a direct result of trying to pray their way out of adversity instead of using their God-given ability to think. That mind-set was instilled in us while we were in slavery when White folks used to tell us not to worry about how bad we were being treated. They'd say, “Just put your faith in the Lord, and you’ll get yours by and by.” Many Black people embraced that philosophy and they're still clinging to it today. That's why, in spite of our intellect, we're at the very bottom of the social ladder.
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One of the primary reasons we're still clinging to that ridiculous philosophy is because instead educating Black people to reality, again, many Black churches are using that very same game to fleece Black people themselves. The preacher will simply give them an inspirational spoken-word concert and a little entertainment on Sunday morning (because when emotion, or the "holy ghost," walks through the front door, intellect flies out the back window), and then once he's got them sufficiently emotional, he'll convince them that if they simply pay him enough money he’ll help them to “grow in their faith” to the point where God will stop the train. Well, it ain’t gonna happen, and the preacher knows it - but he doesn’t have to worry about the people ever figuring that out because he’s already convinced them to believe in talkin’ snakes, and neither does he ever have to worry about anybody coming back from the dead (like he claims Jesus did) to tell them that he's been lying to them. So it’s the perfect hustle.
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So let us be clear. You cannot pay admission into Heaven or fool the creator, regardless to how loud you shout “Praise the Lord!” on Sunday morning. If you want to carry out God’s will, you’ll use your common sense to make this a better world. Instead of making your preacher rich, and trying to lie to God, you'll pay your tithes to the hungry family of your neighbor who just lost his job, help provide shelter for the homeless, demand that your church remain open seven days a week to provide community services, stop supporting entertainers, athletes, and businesses that don’t support the community, and organize to turn out ruthless politicians. That's praising God, and if we all did that we could answer our own prayers. But instead, we embrace the Bible and the following kind of self-serving nonsense written by man:
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“Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ.” - Ephesians 6:5
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“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son” - John 3:16
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FIND EARTH
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God neither wrote, nor inspired, that nonsense. It was inspired by the self-interest of self-serving and greedy men, the very same kind of self-serving and greedy men that exist today (if they were around today they'd probably be on Trump's transition team). God created you to be your own master, but you don't believe in God, you believe in the word of man, simply because you've been convinced that the men who wrote and compiled the Bible had some kind of special connection with God because they lived and died 2000 years ago. Embracing such nonsense is why Black people are suffering, and will continue to suffer, until they wake up and demand that their preachers stop preaching them a sermon, and start living them one.
What's Wrong With America - We've Turned Our Political 'Employees' Into Aristocrats
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I often hear people complaining about how our system has broken down. As a solution they generally propose that we put term limits into place, and/or institute government-financed elections. I’m all for the latter, but I’m totally against term limits because it takes away the citizens’ right to return people to office who represent them well. I’m against any measure that takes away a citizen’s ‘right to choose.’ . But the assertion that the system has broken down begs the question. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the system as it is. WE are the problem, not the system. We are negligently apathetic. Those of us who even bother to vote and keep ourselves informed about what’s going on around us assume that we can simply vote for the politicians we like then go on about our business and allow the politicians to run the country, but that’s not how it’s supposed to work. . The United States is a huge corporation, we’re the Board of Directors, and politicians are our EMPLOYEES, not our leaders - we’re THEIR leaders, and we’re doing an absolutely horrible job of leading. So again, the system is not the problem, we're simply an incompetent board of directors. . Instead of staying on top of the day-to-day activities of our corporation as any competent board of directors would do, we’re choosing to remain at home watching BET, MTV, ESPN, and allowing our employees a free hand to run our valuable corporation as they see fit, and as a direct result of our gross negligence, our employees are doing what unsupervised employees are prone to do - taking advantage of the situation by giving themselves undeserved raises and perks, doing favors for family, friends, and favored associates, and generally squandering the corporation's assets. . So we need to get a handle on this, and we can do just that very easily - and without changing one law. All we have to do is decide that enough is enough, and start firing employees. Corporation's don’t control this government, we do. But the problem is, we’re allowing corporations to control us by using their wealth to influence our thinking. That’s the one and only thing that gives money clout in our political system, it’s being used to influence our thinking. So we’re right back to square one - we’re being manipulated because we’re refusing to educate ourselves and we’re ALLOWING ourselves to be. We are, LITERALLY, allowing snake oil salesmen to come into our homes and convince us that we’re un-American if we don’t buy their snake oil. . We’ve allowed the Supreme Court to tell us that a non-citizen head of a foreign corporation has as much of a right to the freedom of speech in OUR political system as an American citizen, and we're merely accepting that - and virtually, without even a whimper. That is patently a corrupt and ridiculous ruling. So of course the system is breaking down, because we, as the nation's board of directors, are being stupidly incompetent and unassertive. . Again, even if we were talking about exclusively American corporations, that ruling is corrupt and ridiculous, and we need to be taking aggressive action against it. Because the fact is, the only reason a corporation is a corporation in the first place is so its members can avoid personal responsibility, and liability, for its missteps. So the members of the corporation can’t have it both ways. If a corporation is a person, then EVERY person that is a part of that corporation should be held PERSONALLY responsible if it pollutes half the Eastern seaboard due to an oil spill, or causes an earthquake due to fracking, or causes devastating hurricanes due to heating up our environment. And another thing that makes the ruling ridiculous is EVERY member of a given corporation ALREADY has the freedom of speech as individuals, so by also allowing them to assert their will, or speak, as a corporation, is by definition, giving them more rights than the average American citizen. While we may shout, this conservative Supreme Court has given corporations, including foreign corporations, a megaphone.
So what can we do to turn this situation around?
In order to turn this situation around, we must, first, educate ourselves and change our mindset. We must make pouring tons of money into a political campaign a liability rather than an asset in our political process. If we see that any politician or political initiative is being backed by a huge political war chest of funds, we should simply assume that the politician is in the pocket of some corporation or entity that’s not working in the best interest of the people, and the same is true of any political initiative. . If the people would simply tune-in to the fact that corporations are trying to buy the government, then vote any politician out of office who supported them, and thereafter, exact a pound of flesh from the corporations in the next congress for even attempting to manipulate the system, we wouldn’t have to change one law - even Citizens United. That is the way this system is supposed to work, and that would make money meaningless in politics. Thus, we should seek out our political information through research and grassroots sources, because ultimately, education is the key to resolving all of our problems - at least, the systemic ones. .
Secondly, we must bring the political perks and salaries of politicians back into line with the median income of the American middle class. As I continually point out, America is currently knee-deep in a class war. A study done byPrinceton University declares that America is no longer a democracy; it is now an oligarchy, completely controlled by the wealthy, and easily researched facts bear that out. Even since the attached chart was produced the numbers have changed. Today, the top 10% of the people in this country control 90% of the wealth, while the bottom 90% of Americans only control 10% of the wealth. Once that percentage dwindles down to 5%, and then 2%, we’ll be virtual slaves. As I’ve mentioned before, the only difference between the condition we’re going to find ourselves in and actual slavery is we’ll have to provide our own housing. . Yet, we’re paying the people who "represent" us such huge salaries and perks that we’ve elevated them into the class that seeks to enslave us. We’ve got to correct that situation, because our so-call representatives are doing so much better than we are that even if they wanted to, they can no longer identify with us, and many of them no longer even try. So we need to place a ceiling on their salaries and perks not to exceed the median range of the American middle class, and also attach them to a given percentage above the minimum wage. . And finally, we need to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine in order to curb the flood of demagoguery and disinformation that’s completely overwhelming truth in our political system. . The Fairness Doctrine provided that if any television or radio station in America broadcasted a purely partisan perspective on a public issue, they had to provide equal time to the opposing point of view. The doctrine’s purpose was first, to keep the American people informed, and secondly, to prevent the demagoguery that we see today on Fox News, and it served its purpose well. It provided endless public debate on every public issue, and that, in turn, served to keep the nation informed of every side of every issue. In addition, a person like Rush Limbaugh couldn’t have existed under the Fairness Doctrine, at least, not without having a liberal sitting right next to him who could challenge every lie he told. But some stations found that too combative, so they simply gave a liberal a show with equal time that immediately followed shows like Rush Limbaugh's. . Some suggest that the Freedom of Information Act abridges a network's right to freedom of speech, but I contend that no network should have the right to corrupt the system with lies. That's akin to shouting 'fire' in a crowded theater - or worse, because we're not simply talking about bringing possible harm to a room full of people, we're talking about bringing DEMONSTRATED harm to an entire nation. .
But conservatives found that when the people were informed of the facts, the conservative point of view always fell short. That’s why it became so important to them to abolish the doctrine, so they could spew their lies and propaganda with impunity - and that’s exactly what came to pass. Immediately after Ronald Reagan abolished the doctrine, conservative-leaning corporations began to buy up most of the media outlets across the country, effectively shutting out the liberal perspective from the American people. That monopoly, and the ability to corrupt public discourse, must be brought to an end. . So the only thing left to discuss at this point is how are we going to get politicians to conform to our wishes. That one’s easy - we vote ‘em out of office if they don’t. . Eric L. Wattree http://wattree.blogspot.com/ Ewattree@Gmail.com Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA) . Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.Sphere: Related Content
How Black People - And Poor And Middle-Class White People - Are Being Used As Instruments Of Their Own Destruction
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I want to preface this assessment of America by assuring the reader that I'm neither a radical nor an ideologue. In fact, I don't even like ideologues, of any persuasion. Ideologues tend to give ideology priority over truth. Then when truth comes into conflict with their ideology, they try to bend and contort truth into a configuration that's a more comfortable fit with their delusion of reality. On the other hand, I believe in following truth wherever it leads and regardless to whose ox it gores. Thus, I suspect there are many people who are going to have a lot of difficulty digesting what I have to say here about America, since there are many oxes in America that need to be gored. Because in spite of the delusions we love to embrace regarding ourselves as Americans, the fact is, we are a highly dysfunctional people, who were forged from a grossly dysfunctional land. .
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Just last month Buzzfeed.com listed at least 15unarmed Black people brutally murdered by the police for no justifiable reason. If you'll notice, George Zimmerman's acquittal for murdering Trayvon Martin seems to have signaled open season on Black people - men and women - by every right-wing crackpot in America with the nerve and/or opportunity to commit murder. It's been happening so often, and so routinely, of late that I had to go back and lookup the names, circumstances, and statistics. The senseless assaults against Black people have become next to impossible to keep up with. Even as I'm writing this piece the news is reporting yet another grossly unbelievable atrocity that's been committed against the Black community in Charleston, S.C., where nine people were shot to death while attending services at the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. . That atrocity was committed by a 21 year-old misguided lunatic by the name of Dylann Roof, but what Roof, and many others like him, fail to realize is they're victims as well. They've been conditioned, brainwashed, and manipulated into sacrificing their own lives for a corpo-conservative regime that doesn't care any more about them than they do the Black people they're being enticed to hate. Because the fact is, to call this a "White Supremacist" system is a misnomer. This is a "corporate supremacist" system that simply uses race, hatred, and the division of the poor and middle class as a tool to maintain their corporate supremacy. . That has always been the case in America, and the social manipulators' method of operation has always been the same. First, they condition the right-wing nuts and other White people of low self-esteem to believe that they are of special significance and hold a special place in American society. Then they go on to convince them that whatever group the manipulators happen to be targeting for demonization at any given moment, is trying to encroach upon White people's special significance in society. That engenders hatred and the need to protect their special position as White Americans. That's what allows people like Roof to be manipulated so effectively. It makes them willing to go die in wars that promote the interests of the 1%ers, and it also serves to keep the poor and middle class so filled with hatred and animosity toward one another that even though they have common interests and the very same enemy, the social manipulators, they find it impossible to come together to protect themselves from being exploited. . This has been the case throughout American history. The average poor and middle class American citizen has ALWAYS been exploited. Then, while they're standing at attention and saluting the flag, with tears in their eyes as they're mourning the lost of their fathers, sons or brothers, the 1%ers are at the bank loading down their bank accounts with the proceeds from the senseless deaths of very people who are being mourned (have you noticed that the children of the rich are not even expected to go and die for this country any longer?).
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Thus, the average American's concept of America as "the sweet land of liberty" is a myth, and it always has been. And what we call the United States Constitution is a very eloquently penned work of fiction - and it's been just that, from the moment James Madison put pen to paper, and it continues to be a myth to this day. Because the fact is, in spite of it's eloquence and highfalutin ideals, history clearly demonstrates the United States of America to be the most evil and brutally vicious nation that has ever been established in human history, and we're seeing clear evidence of that in the brutal assault that's currently being waged against the Black, Brown, and Muslim communities today. So let us put the American myth aside for a moment and follow the truth of history.
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Patriotism notwithstanding, unadulterated truth dictates that this nation was even founded on a lie, since the very first words of the United States Constitution was a lie. The Preamble of the U.S. Constitution says the following: .
."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."
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It should actually read:
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"We the wealthy landowners of the United States, in order to form a more perfect instrument of exploitation, establish the illusion of justice, insure the common people don't rise up against us, provide for the common defense of OUR property and assets, promote OUR general welfare, and secure the Blessings of liberty FOR OURSELVES and OUR posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
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The revision of the Preamble stated immediately above are actually the values that America was founded upon, and it continues to be America's values today. Average American citizens have always been meaningless pawns to be conditioned, manipulated, and brainwashed into going to war and dying to either enhance, or protect, the property and wealth of the rich. Even as the Constitution was being written, Native Americans were being demonized (much like Black people are being demonized today, but more about that later) and slaughtered in land-grabs by the rich, and average Americans were dying in the process, because they'd been manipulated into believing that Native Americans were "savages" for simply having the audacity to try to defend what was theirs.
The True History Of The United States Of America
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The United States Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787, so it's been in existence for less than 228 years. Thus, it's still in its infancy based on the standards of most nations (Iraq has been in existence since 4000 years before the birth of Christ), but in the short time that the United States has been in existence - and in spite of its public relations campaign as "That shining light on the hill" - it has more than established itself as the most brutal, greedy, and malevolent nation in the history of all mankind.
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We demonize Adolph Hitler and the Third Reich (as we definitely should) for slaughtering 6 million Jews, but it has been estimated that the United States slaughtered as many as a 100 million Native Americans - the ethnic cleansing of Native Americans went on for well over a hundred years, or six generations of Native Americans - and we can't even get an accurate count on how many millions of African American slaves were slaughtered during slavery, and then continued to be slaughtered during the Jim Crow era and right up to this day.
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This nation's behavior during WWII is also instructive regarding the true mentality of this nation and our national character. The United States dropped not one, but two, atomic bombs on Japan, killing innocent men, women, children, babies, and even cuddly little kittens. And previous to that criminal atrocity, they rounded up innocent Japanese AMERICANS, took all of their possessions, and placed them in "internment camps" - that's a euphemism for concentration camps. And by the way, regarding the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - since terrorism is defined as the killing of innocent noncombatants to promote a political agenda, that one act alone makes the U.S. the most pronounced terrorist state in the history of mankind.
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Then later the U.S. went into Vietnam and killed by some scholarly estimates up to 3.8 million Vietnamese, 800,000 Cambodians, and a million Laotians. And then more recently, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney actually lied to go into Iraq and killed as many as a million Iraqis. . I love this country because I was born here, and I was raised to embrace all of the American myths about how wonderful we are. But the unadulterated truth dictated, and documented, by history makes the facts clear - when it comes to committing inhuman atrocities, the United States of America is the most brutal, greedy, and malevolent nation in the history of all mankind. The atrocities that the United States has committed in the name of "God, liberty, and justice" makes Hitler and the Third Reich look like incompetent boobs. Thus, while we like to claim to be "One nation under God," that's only the case when the word of God is not in conflict with our hatred and greed.
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Black People Need To Wake Up, And Stop "Forgiving And Forgetting," And Start Thinking
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Based on the horrendous atrocities cited above, one has to scratch one's head to figure out how the average American - including many Black people - can be so brainwashed as to react with shock over the brutal and unjustified atrocities that's currently being perpetrated against the Black community. The slaughter that's currently going on in the Black community is what America does best - it is its stock and trade, so how can anyone be so naive as to react in shocked over business as usual? So Black people need to wake up, because "The Final Solution" could be just one conservative lunatic away. . There's an unstated, but carefully forged agenda afoot. The Demographics in this nation is undergoing a drastic change. Radical White people and the powers that have previously controlled this nation can no longer take comfort in knowing they're the majority. Minorities are becoming the majority in this country, and the powers that be are not going to simply sit back and allow minorities to take over the levers of power without a fight. That's why we're beginning to see voter obstruction, gentrification, and the demonizing of Blacks and other minorities. They're also using religious bigotry, and the rights of women gays to divide the poor and middle class. If you look back at the history cited above, the first step in ethnic cleansing or nullification of any target group - whether it was the Native Americans, Black people during Jim Crow, the Japanese Americans during WWII, the Vietnamese prior to the Vietnam War, or the Iraqis prior to the invasion of Iraq - the very first step is demonization, and we're beginning to see the result of that ongoing process in the Black community today. That's what's creating people like Dylann Roof and the many cops who seem to feel that it's open season on killing Black people. . Racists tend to be the mediocrity of White society, so they try to use the fact that they were born White to define themselves and to compensate for their lack of personal value. Their entire sense of self-esteem is based more upon group association than individual value and accomplishment, and their entire claim to personal significance is, "Well, at least I'm better than them." . That's what's driving radical conservatives so crazy about President Obama - he's walking, breathing, evidence that they cannot claim superiority by virtue of the color T-shirt they were born in, and that simple fact alone is causing them to suffer a severe attack of cognitive dissonance before the eyes of the entire world. That's also why they're so determined not to allow President Obama to be successful, even if it means destroying the country - and international corporatists are using the social division inherent in those sentiments to lower the standard of living of the American middle class. . Thus, this entire nation, and the future of our children, is being threatened by the desperate attempt of a handful of insecure bigots to maintain their delusions of superiority, and as far as they’re concerned, if it means sacrificing the country, or even their own lives, so be it. The Republican Party fully recognizes that fact. Thus, their concerted effort to keep America angry, hungry, and frustrated, and their gross disrespect for President Obama stokes the flames of hostility in the nation, and it signals every frustrated conservative wingnut in America that open and blatant racism has now become not only acceptable, but laudable in America again. . So all responsible Americans should hold the GOP fully responsible for the hostile and deadly environment that we now find ourselves in today. President Obama is absolutely correct when he says that race relations have improved tremendously in America since the 50s, 60s. and 70s. The mere fact that President Obama was elected twice is irrefutable evidence of that. What makes things seem worse is we're witnessing the dying gasp of Jim Crow, but the corporate-GOP alliance are using their vast media resources in a desperate attempt to give him CPR. They're using the media to make a handful of the most radical people in the country, look like a majority.
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A Message To Responsible Americans
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The racist animosities of a handful of wingnuts that's running rampant among ALL segments of the American people are playing right into the hands of the those who are our most insidious enemy – the global corporatists. These people are intent upon enslaving us all. The only difference between literal slavery and what they have in mind for us is we'll have to provide our own housing. . These people are no longer Americans; they are now globalists, and America is just a virtual cotton field to them. And as long as they keep the poor and middle class fighting and hating one another, we’ll be powerless against their social and political manipulation. So "illegal aliens" and others are far from the biggest threat to the American way of life – the global corporatists are. . If Al Qaeda represents a rattlesnake in America's garden, the corporate/GOP alliance represents a python under our bed. Al Qaeda can only destroy buildings, but the corporate/GOP alliance wants to destroy our entire way of life and replace American democracy with a system of corporate feudalism, where corporations, literally, control the nation. So it is essential that every man, woman, and child who is a part of the poor and middle class begin to recognize that fact, put our petty hatreds aside, and come together to fight our most insidious enemy - the global corporatist.
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History is clear. Conservative Republicans don't mind spending money, they just don't want to spend it on those who need it - us. Remember, they're the party of Alexander Hamilton, one of the founding fathers of fiscal conservatism who believed that only those who owned property should even be allowed to vote - and based on the voter obstruction laws currently being passed in Republican controlled states, they're heading in that direction again. Hamilton said the following:
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"All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and wellborn, the other the mass of the people.... The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second, and as they cannot receive any advantage by a change, they therefore will ever maintain good government." Debates of the Federalist Convention (May 14-September 17, 1787).
. Hamilton's views were rejected by the founding fathers, mainly because many of them left Europe to escape the class system. But those who hold Hamilton's view are still among us. They simply have to remain discreet, and they must contrive various pretexts to camouflage their agenda in order to remain politically viable. But the agenda is clearly visible for anyone who takes the time to look, it's simply being disguised and hidden within the fabric of purposely instigated racism, sexism, xenophobia, and other forms of hatred and bigotry. The GOP specializes in using emotion to circumvent clear thinking.
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While they have the poor and middle class distracted by hating and fighting one another, the GOP/Corporate alliance is steeped in the process of undermining us all. Clear evidence of that is any and all legislation that benefits poor and middle class Americans is labeled "socialist," and the GOP fights it tooth-and-nail as "un-American." But they had absolutely no problem in bailing out Wall Street, even though the source of Wall Street's repeated problems result from their repeated attempts to swindle the American people. But Americans have been conditioned to believe that protecting ourselves is "un-American"; the American way of doing things is handing our wealth over to the rich. The scam is clear for anyone to see, but again, the American people have been conditioned to blame one another. .
The Republican Record of Economic Irresponsibility
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During the George W. Bush administration wasn't the first time that the American people had to bailout Wall Street as a result of Reckless Republican policies. As I pointed in my article, "The GOP: A One Hundred Year Record of Swindling The American People," due to the continued freewheeling fiscal policies of conservative Republicans, between 1986 and 1989, spanning the presidencies of Reagan and Bush Sr., the FSLIC had to pay off all the depositors of 296 institutions with assets of over $125 billion.
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The GOP's passion to further enrich the wealthy at the expense of the middle and lower classes seems to know no bounds and transcend all logic. From the moment the New Deal safety net to protect the American people went into place, conservatives have been determined to dismantle it. There are two reasons for that. The first is, it sets money aside for the American people that they'd like to get their hands on. The second is, it insulates the American people from being so vulnerable to corporate manipulation. We'll discuss how that works below.
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The closest the GOP has come to dismantling the New Deal started during the Reagan administration with Supply-Side Economics, or, "Reaganomics" - and the battle is currently raging in Washington D.C. as we speak.
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Supply- Side Economics was a scheme hatch by U.S.C. economist Arthur Laffer and the Reagan crowd which was supposed to cut the deficit and balance the budget. The theory behind Reaganomics was ostensibly, if you cut taxes for business and people in the upper tax brackets, and then deregulated business of such nuisances as safety regulations and environmental safeguards, the beneficiaries would invest their savings into creating new jobs. In that way the money would eventually "trickle down" to the rest of us. The resulting broadened tax base would then not only help to bring down the deficit, but also subsidize the tremendously high defense budget. It's exactly the same plan the Republicans in congress are pushing today. But when the plan was first floated, even George Bush Sr., Reagan's vice president to be, called it "voodoo economics." . Reaganomics, for the most part, sought to undo many of the safeguards put into place during the Roosevelt era and create a business environment similar to that which was in place during the Coolidge Administration. What actually took place, however, was even more like the Coolidge era than planned. . Instead of taking the money and investing it into creating new jobs, the money was used in wild schemes and stock market speculation. One of these schemes, the leveraged buy-out, involved buying up large companies with borrowed funds secured by the company's assets, then paying off the loan by selling off the assets of the purchased company. This practice cost the citizens of this country its industrial base. In addition, the bottom fell out of the stock market. On Monday, October 19, 1987 the Dow-Jones Average fell 508.32 points. It was the greatest one-day decline since 1914 - 15 years before the Great Depression.
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And what about Ronald Reagan's promise to balance the budget and lower the deficit? By the time he left office he was not only the most prolific spender of any president, but he also added more to the deficit than all of the other presidents from George Washington to his own administration combined. And what does the Republican Party propose to do about that? One of the Republican proposals was their "contract with America," a capitol gains tax cut - for the rich. . Then in 1988 Silverado Savings and Loan collapsed, costing the taxpayers $1.3 billion. It was headed by Neil Bush, brother of George W. Bush. The investigation alleged that he was guilty of "breaches of his fiduciary duties involving multiple conflicts of interest." The issue was eventually settled out of court with Bush paying a mere $50,000 settlement. . Then there was the Lincoln Savings and loan scandal in 1987, involving John McCain. The scandal was very similar to the one that played out on Wall Street in 2008. McCain was one of a group of senators dubbed "The Keating Five" involved in a scandal by the same name.
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In 1976 Charles Keating moved to Arizona to run the American Continental Corporation. In 1984, shortly after the Reagan era push to deregulate the savings and loan community, Keating bought Lincoln Savings and Loan and began to engage in highly risky investments with the depositors' savings. In 1989 the parent company, which Keating headed, went bankrupt, and it resulted in over 21,000 investors losing their life savings. Most of the investors were elderly, and the loss amounted to about 285 million dollars. . After having received over a million dollars from Keating in illegal campaign contributions, gifts, free trips, and other gratuities, the Keating Five - Senators John Glenn, Don Riegle, Dennis DeConini, Alan Cranston, and Sen. John McCain - attempted to intervene in the investigation into Keating's activities by the regulators. Later, they were admonished to varying degrees by the senate for attempting to influence regulators on Keating's behalf. Charles Keating ended up being convicted for fraud, racketeering and conspiracy, for which he received 10 years by the state court, and a 12 year sentence in federal court. After spending four and a half years in prison, his convictions were overturned. But prior to being retried, he pled guilty to a number of felonies in return for a sentence of time served. . Then came the George W. Bush administration that caused close to a million people to die uselessly in an illegal war in Iraq, robbed the American people blind, whose fumbling ignited the longest war in American history in Afghanistan, and whose greed came very close to sending the nation into yet another depression. . Now, after all of their repeated efforts to deplete the national treasury, they're unanimously voting against every piece of legislation that the Democrats propose to repair the damage they created and bring relief to the American people. Then they have the audacity to claim that they're doing it because they're concerned about deficit spending.
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They're against affordable health care for American families; they're against any kind of spending to put Americans back to work, and they're against extending unemployment insurance to relieve the burden of America's unemployed. What's particularly telling, however, is they're also against any kind of strong legislation to prevent the financial community (them) from being able to rob the American people in the future.
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Also interesting, considering their deep "concern" over the national debt, is the estimated $4 trillion Bush tax cut for the rich. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, "Considering both the direct costs of the tax cuts and the associated increase in interest payments, the tax cuts would increase deficits by nearly $4 trillion between 2005 and 2014."
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1811
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So the fact is, what they really wanted prior to the 2012 election was to maintain the status quo, and make sure that the American people remained miserable, hungry, and divided until the elections so they'd have a better chance to regain power and raid the treasury again. Republican Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, was frustrated and reckless enough to say it out loud - "Our No. 1 priority is to make this president a one-term president" - not to save America, or to bring relief to the American people, but to make Barack Obama a one-term president. Flag pens in lapels and patriotic rhetoric notwithstanding, that says it all about the GOP's lack of concern for America, or the American people. . Now that they've lost the 2012 election, their agenda has shifted to making sure that President Obama is not successful, because if he is, and you combine that with the rapidly changing demographic and Hillary Clinton's popularity, that could spell doom for the future of the GOP - and it should, because they're grossly out of touch with reality, and, America's best interest. They're out to create a corporate feudalist society. The government shutdown alone, clearly demonstrates that they have absolutely no respect for democracy.
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The Middle Class Slide Since the Reagan Administration
"In 1982, Forbes magazine began its now much-read annual list of America’s richest men and women. At the time of the first list, there were 12 billionaires in the country and fewer than 200,000 millionaires. By the year 2000, there were nearly 300 billionaires and about 5 million millionaires. Smith’s account of the rise of the rich and super-rich tells the story of five types of individuals: entrepreneurs, dealmakers, investors, tycoons (corporate executives, who are distinguished from entrepreneurs), and entertainers." http://www.beardbooks.com/beardbooks/the_rise_of_todays_rich_and_super_rich.html . "No matter how you slice it, when it comes to income and wealth in America the rich get most of the pie and the rest get the leftovers. The numbers are shocking. Today the top 1 percent of Americans control 43 percent of the financial wealth (see the pie chart below) while the bottom 80 percent control only 7 percent of the wealth. Incredibly, the wealthiest 400 Americans have the same combined wealth as the poorest half of Americans — over 150 million people.". A recent Princeton study Shows that America is no longer a democracy. We are now an Oligarchy, controlled by the rich. So it is essential that we wake up. Racism is no longer the war; racism is now merely a TOOL of war. We are now knee-deep in a CLASS WAR, and the American people are losing badly - ALL of the American people. .
Here’s the game that we're allowing the corporatists to run on us. They’ve convinced America that if we give the rich enough money, they’ll use that money to create jobs for the poor and middle class. Now, I don’t claim to be an intellectual giant, but it doesn’t take a great mind to understand that demand fuels supply, not the reverse. . If I made my living selling Gucci Bags, for example, I don’t care how much money you give me, I’m not going to hire anyone to produce any more Gucci Bags than I have in stock if I'm being forced to sell those bags in a homeless shelter. It wouldn’t make sense, because in a homeless shelter no one would have the money to purchase my product. The only way that you’re going to get me to hire people to produce Gucci Bags is if you gave that money to the people in the shelter so they’d have the money to buy my merchandise.
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That's exactly what's happening in America today. Corporate profits are at record highs, and the information and charts above clearly show that corporations and corporate executives are currently making more money than they've ever dreamed of in the past. So there's no reason for high unemployment. The rich are not putting that money into creating jobs; that money is going into offshore accounts, and we never see it again. That's why the rich are getting so much richer, and the middle class so much poorer. . On the other hand, if the Republican congress would allow President Obama to create jobs to repair American's infrastructure - repair bridges, dams, and interstate highways and the like - that money would create jobs, just like it did when it brought us out of the Great Depression. Then, Americans would have money to spend on goods and services. They would go on vacations, so hotels and restaurants would have to hire people to accommodate them, and the food industry would have to hire people to process and serve their food. They would also buy bicycles and toys for their children, and that would create jobs, and they would buy more clothing, gas, and make needed repairs to their homes, and that would create jobs. And as a result of all those jobs being created, more revenue would come into the government in taxes, which would allow us to pay down the national debt. . Again, think about it - the business community is making more profits than they've ever made in their history, so there's no logical reason for unemployment in America to be so high. The reason that unemployment is so high is because it's being kept high on purpose. . Consider this. In the sixties, Howard Hughes was famous for being one of the richest men in the world. He was considered so incredibly rich that they made movies about him. But compared to today's billionaires, he'd qualify for food stamps. Howard Hughes only had $4 billion, but today, Bill Gates has $79.1 billion, David Koch, of the infamous Koch brothers has $41.3 Billion, and even the young man, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, has $29.9 billion. So there is absolutely no reason for the American people to be suffering so severely, and for unemployment to be so high - yet, they have us hating and pointing the finger at one another as the cause of our misery, when as pointed out above, the wealthiest 400 Americans have as much combined wealth as the 150 million poorest half of Americans. . So it doesn't take a brain surgeon to see where the wealth of middle-class America has gone. It hasn't gone to "illegal aliens," or people requiring food stamps. Corporate welfare is nearly double the cost of all social programs. About $59 billion is spent on traditional social welfare programs.$92 billion is spent on corporate subsidies. So, the government spent nearly 50% more on corporate welfare than it did on food stamps and housing assistance in 2006. http://thinkbynumbers.org/government-spending/corporate-welfare/corporate-welfare-statistics-vs-social-welfare-statistics/ .
The GOP's supposed concern for the national debt is only a pretext to block spending and keep unemployment high. They are purposely trying to turn America into a homeless shelter, because the GOP and its corporate cronies have a vested interest in keeping us angry, miserable, and divided. . The GOP's motive is political - by keeping unemployment high and the American people miserable, it makes Obama and the Democrats look bad, and they're hoping that the resulting anger and division in the country will help them to get elected in a demographic that's shrinking to the GOP's disadvantage. And the corporatist are trying to squeeze the middle class. They’re trying to lower the American middle class standard of living to a level that conforms to the other countries in the global economy, where in many countries people make less per week than some middle-class Americans spend on lunch per day. So they're trying to squeeze the middle class to the point that it lowers our expectations, and we'll feel grateful for less. . Their ultimate agenda is to turn America into a corporate feudalist state, where the American people are totally dependent on corporations for their survival. That will greatly enhance corporate profits, and essentially, allow them to control this nation. That's why the GOP is attacking unions, our educational system, and all social programs that prevent us from being totally reliant on the business community. They want to have complete control over our lives. Here's the philosophy behind it and how it works: . I pointed out the following in a previous article:
In 1929 during Republican, Herbert Hoover’s administration, the stock market crashed - much like under the Bush Administration - starting the Great Depression, but back then there was no Barack Obama to come to the rescue or mitigate the damage early on. So in spite of the fact that by 1933 the unemployment rate was at 33.3% with 16 million people out of work, the Republican, Herbert Hoover, just sat, thinking that the economy would eventually rejuvenate itself. Much like Republicans of today, Hoover and his Republican Party had absolutely no compassion for either the plight of the American people, or America’s veterans who had put their lives on the line for this country.
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During Hoover's administration, 15,000 WWI veterans marched on Washington demanding that they be paid what they were owed by the government. Hoover responded by calling in federal troops to throw these ex-servicemen off government property. . The conditions were horrific. During the Great Depression there was no such thing as Social Security, so when a person became too old or weak to work they had no income, so they had to depend on their children for support. That meant instead of a husband and wife only having to support themselves and their children, which was tough enough during those times, they also had to support their parents. So three generations of a family could be living in one household - and in many cases, the parents of both the husband, and the wife lived with the family. . In addition, there was no such thing as Medicare or Medicaid, so when one of grandparents became ill the medical costs would devastate the entire family. These conditions kept lower and middle-class families in such dire need of funds that they had to accept whatever crumbs the business community chose to throw at them - and remember, at that time there was no Fair Labor Standards Act or unions to protect a worker’s rights, or a minimum wage, so businesses could treat the worker anyway they wanted, and pay them whatever they wanted. . They could work you 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, with no overtime, and no paid vacation. In addition, since there was no child labor laws, if your boss didn’t think you were being productive enough, he could insist that you bring your children in (as young as 9 years old) to assist you if you wanted to keep your job. Then if you protested, he could fire you on the spot, in which case, your entire family - sick grandparents and all - would be thrown out on the street, because there was no such thing as unemployment insurance. . As a result, in many cases the entire family, including the children, had to work long, hard hours under sweatshop-like conditions in coal minds and the like, which in many cases led to the death and/or maiming of young children. So in a very real sense, Great Depression era workers lived under a form of slavery - the one difference was, they had to go out and find their own housing. . Think back to the "Little Rascals" we use to watch as kids, and how ragged they were, or the cartoons we use to watch, where a landlord would come to the door (always portrayed in a black suit) and would tell a begging and crying mother that she had one more day to come up with the rent or she and her family would be thrown out in the snow. That was an accurate portrayal of the way people lived in those days, and those are the conditions that the conservative Republican agenda would restore in America today. Those are the conditions that they’re fighting to restore today. . Think about it - while the GOP comes up with various pretexts to explain their actions, they are oppose to the minimum wage, they would cut unemployment insurance, "modify" Social Security, they’re against Affordable healthcare, they’re leaving no stone unturned to abolish unions, they’re blocking every jobs bill that comes before them, and in spite of record corporate profits, their corporate cronies are sending jobs out of the country and keeping unemployment high until the American middle class caves in and accept a lower standard of living. .
IT'S NOT ENOUGH TO MERELY SALUTE OUR HEROES
Keeping unemployment high also serves another purpose - it provides an endless supply of young American men and women to use as canon fodder for neocon military adventurism. But what else do you expect them to do? We certainly can’t expect them to send their children over there to die for the country. Dying for your country is no longer for the "rich and wellborn," that’s for the "little people." Then, IF your children come back home maimed and broken from their service to the country, the GOP has absolutely no compassion for them. Just like with Herbert Hoover, they call them deadbeats and a burden on the nation for having to beg for food stamps, and then throw them off the premises. And that’s in spite of the fact that most of the GOP ran - like Dick ‘five-deferment’ Cheney - when they were called upon to serve the nation. The GOP only love our troops as long as they can carry a weapon. .
I WOULD START THE SEARCH IN DICK CHENEY'S OFFSHORE ACCOUNTS
The GOP/corporatist agenda also explains why they were so determined to send innocent American children to die in a senseless Iraqi war. The poor and middle class safety net put in place by the New Deal enjoys so much support among the American people that the GOP couldn't attack it head on. So they took us into Iraq to enrich their cronies and passed a tax cut for the rich that squandered trillions of dollars and ravaged our national treasury. That gave them a pretext to now claim, "We can no longer afford to fund the nation's safety net." But they could afford to build an embassy in Iraq that was so extravagant that it rivals the Vatican (U.S. Embassy Building will Rival the Vatican). And they could also afford to send so much unaccounted for CASH to Iraq that they could "MISPLACE" 6.6 BILLION dollars without a whimper from those who now want to count every penny that we spend on the poor and middle class. .
The primary challenge for Black people is that many of us have to rid ourselves of our Willie Lynch mentality. What many of us fail to realize is, Black people are the product of the very same racist environment as White folks. As a result, some of us are just as racist toward other Black people as any barefoot Hillbilly. I refer to such Black people as "bligots" (Black-on-Black bigots). As a result of such people we find it next to impossible to come together to get anything done. In addition, such people help White bigots to demonize their own people.
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Tavis Smiley and Cornel West immediately come to mind. Such people claim that they're simply addressing the issues, but the Black community resents any criticism of President Obama. But that's not true at all. What the Black community resents is the disrespectful tone of their criticism. Their disrespect of the first Black President of the United States gives the enemies of the Black community carte blanche to do the same - "How can you call me a racist? Cornel West said the same thing, and he's Black."
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And it's not like Cornel West is taking a scholarly tact and offering constructive alternatives to the President's policies; all he's doing is name-calling, and that cheapens the lives of the average Black man. After all, if the first Black President of the United States ain't about nothing, what does that say about the rest of us? So I've been convinced for some time that Tavis Smiley and Cornel West have greatly contributed to the hostility that's being directed toward the Black community - and I think, with respect to President Obama, they did it on purpose.
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Have you ever noticed that nearly every public pronouncement that spews from the mouth of Cornel West is literally dripping with racial innuendo? One of his latest racist slanders is that MSNBC is the ‘Rent a Negro’ network. West has said at various times the following:
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1). President Obama is "a war criminal."
2). President Obama is "ablack mascot of Wall Street oligarchs . . ."
3). President Obama is "a black puppet of corporate plutocrats."
4). President Obama is "a Rockefeller Republican in Blackface."
5). President Obama "has a certain rootlessness, a deracination."
6). President Obama Is "Afraid Of Free Black Men."
7). President Obama is "a global George Zimmerman."
8). Dr. Harris-Perry is "a fake and a fraud"
9). Dr. Michael Eric Dyson "is a sellout."
10). Al Sharpton "is a sellout."
11). MSNBC is the "Rent a Negro Network."
12). And if that’s not enough, now he’s quoted as calling the first Black President of the United States “a shell of a man.”
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Yet, when comedian Steve Harvey called him an Uncle Tom, he said, "When you are trying to talk about issues that affect the people, name calling gets in the way. Name-calling is nothing but another weapon of mass distraction."
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So name-calling is only objectionable when it’s directed at him. Such unmitigated hypocrisy is mind boggling - but for once, he’s right. Not one of the above assertions is a disciplined, constructive, or scholarly assessment of the facts. On the contrary, they're the reckless and intellectually undisciplined rants of a bitter, self-serving, and severely discredited academic fraud.
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For Cornel West, there’s something ‘racially defective’ about every Black person who has the audacity to preempt Cornel West from the limelight. West has a propensity for trying to denigrate the character of people whose been in the trenches for years, while West, himself, has done absolutely nothing beyond flappin' his lips. In order to gain clear evidence of that fact one simply has to ask oneself, what efforts have West made to try to improve the plight of the Black community?
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1). Is he in the community teaching 3rd grade to help ensure a better education for our children, or teaching at an Historically Black College or University to help "enlighten" young Black students?
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No. He’s never taught at a school that more than 1% of Black students can even afford to have lunch in throughout his entire career. He’d rather gain props by teaching the children of the economic elites, who he CLAIMS, is the enemy, whenever he MANAGES to do a
"Drive-by" through the hood.
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2). Is he in the community teaching our young men to cherish, honor, and respect our Black women - the very womb of our culture?
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No. He’s out trying to sell books filled with inane and misleading information, doing $30,000 an hour speeches, and trying to become a hip hop star.
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3). Is he advising his good friend and business partner, Tavis Smiley, to be consistent with his sermons by being "accountable" to the community, and returning the money that he made on the Wells Fargo "Ghetto Scam" loans that he helped to herd over 30,000 poor minorities into? Or is he out getting arrested in support of the Black Friday Demonstrations against Wal-Mart, the most prolific abuser of poor workers in the world?
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Nope, not a peep.
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The same is true of West's former puppeteer, Tavis Smiley. He can go all over the country in a bus criticizing President Obama in his Wal-Mart sponsored "Poverty Tour," and find the time to go "Dance With The Stars," but couldn't spare even a second of his time to walk down the street from his office to support the demonstration by Wal-Mart employees?
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Nope, all we've heard from Smiley regarding Wal-Mart abuse of poor workers is crickets
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So what West, Smiley, and their ilk actually see coming from the community regarding their criticism of President Obama is Black outrage over their indulging in the crabs-in-a-barrel tradition that was inbred in us as slaves. Black people recognize that many of President Obama’s Black critics, including Cornel West, aren’t really interested in policy; they’re just using public policy as a pretext for attacking the President himself, and they’re so steeped in their Willie Lynch mentality that they either don’t realize, or don’t care, that they’re doing a grave disservice not only to the African-American community, but to Black people all over the world.
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Because the fact is, many of Obama’s White conservative critics aren’t really interested in policy either. Like Obama’s Black critics, they have an ulterior motive as well, but their motive has nothing to do with crabs-in-a-barrel. Their primary motive is defending their claim of White superiority, and President Obama, in his soft-spoken, laid-back way, is dragging that claim through the mud. That’s why racists and conservatives hate him so.
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Conservatives recognize, as we all should - and especially Black people - that President Obama is not just another president. President Obama is the most high-profile symbol of Black competence in the world. In addition, what he has accomplished is the perfect equivalent of a conquered slave rising to become the emperor of Rome - and, one of its greatest emperors. So Barack Obama is going to be remembered by posterity as one of the greatest men in ALL of human history, and his story will be inspiring Black children a thousand years from now.
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Racists and conservatives recognize that fact, so naturally, they’re desperate to tear down Barack Obama’s image, and build up the image of criminals like Ronald Wilson Reagan, and there is no excuse for Black idiots like Tavis Smiley, Cornel West, and Boyce Watkins not to recognize that fact. That’s what makes them so detestable. Instead of trying to help racists tear down this Black icon, they should be offering RESPECTFUL suggestions in an attempt to ensure that Barack Obama is remembered as one of the greatest Presidents that this nation has ever had, even if they have to drag him up Mt. Rushmore kicking and screaming. But instead, they’re allowing themselves to be pointed to by racists who are claiming, "See, even Black people know he doesn’t live up to the standard of White presidents."
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Thus, people like Smiley and West are giving their own egos, self-service, and their Willie Lynch-inspired need to tear-down a Black historic icon priority over Black history, and the role that history is going to play in helping to raise the self-concept of the Black culture. In short, they’re trying to sabotage the self-esteem of Black children who are yet unborn. The mere thought of that kind of ignorant selfishness is absolutely disgusting - and especially when clothed in faux scholarship.
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So Cornel West and the others like him are not Black leaders, they’re clueless Black cultural afflictions, and if I wanted to take even more time (maybe I'll do it in a book), I could methodically take apart every argument that they've put forward against President Obama. But the short version is, there are some things we have to do for ourselves - and with good reason.
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As alleged "educated" men, they should all realize that Obama is merely President Obama, not King Obama. The United States Constitution is very specific in giving SOLE power over spending to the House of Representatives, which is controlled by Republicans (that’s why they could refuse to pay the light bill and shutdown the government). So President Obama can’t do a damn thing for us without getting the Republicans to go along with him. That’s why he has to slip us everything on the down-low, because if the GOP know it’s for us, they’re going to dig-in, and if Obama goes to war against them over the issue, they're not going to allow him to do anything for ANYBODY. And as President of ALL the people, he can't allow that to happen, so he has to wrap Black interests in the interest of ALL the people.
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FORMER OBAMA CRITIC AND NOBEL PRIZE WINNING ECONOMIST
In addition, as a thinking man (unlike many of you), Obama realizes that he has to think about precedents. If he grandstands like many of you suggest and say, "This is what I'm going to do for Black people," what are you going to do when the next White president says, "This is what I'm going to do for White people?" And he'll justify it by calling it "The Obama Doctrine."
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So Cornel West, Tavis Smiley - and also you others who share their backward-thinking proclivities - you need to use some of that alleged brain power to think, instead of burning it up trying to maintain your image, or attempting to hide your true motivations for attacking this President. I didn’t hear you saying a damn thing when Bush was in office. So you can try to clothe your true motivations in a tux, but it still has the funky smell of Willie Lynch all over it.
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I warned at the outset that there were many oxes that needed to be gored. I singled out Tavis Smiley and Cornel West because while they are constantly giving aid and comfort to those who seek to demonize our people, I have yet to hear either one of them offer a constructive solution to address any of the problems in the community. They'r singular specialty seems to be badmouthing other Black people.
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And Here's My Final Ox
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Where are the Black Churches, and where are all of the millions of dollars in tithes they're collecting every Sunday going?
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Our churches do a great job of giving inspirational speeches, but quivering voices are not what we need at this point in our history. There's plenty of time to quiver and shout on Sunday, but what are you doing to help the community Monday thru Saturday? I think that's what the Lord would ask. . The Black churches in every community should be forming consortiums, pooling the tithes they're collecting every Sunday to purchase businesses to provide jobs for our young people that pay a living wage; purchase property to provide affordable housing in the community; and churches should be open 7 days a week to provide affordable childcare for working mothers, and hire unemployed mothers to help in the daycare centers. That would go a long way toward relieving the suffering in the Black community. But most of preachers don't to want to do that. It's too much trouble. When the community needs something the preacher will tell us to take it to the Lord in prayer, but when the preacher needs something, he comes to us. So the community must start demanding more of them.
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In short, it's time to turn off MTV, BET, and ESPN, and start investing in our children, our community, and building our political clout. That way, WE'LL be in control of who's patrolling our streets. Many of the problems that the Black community is facing across this country is a direct result of our tendency to be reactive rather than proactive. Take Ferguson, Mo, for example. The Black community could have avoided the problems they had in that city by simply voting. The Black population in Ferguson is 67%, yet only 7% turned out to vote. As a result, the police department is 94% White. In the last election they corrected that problem with record Black voter turnout, but it was a little too late for Michael Brown. So let us learn from the Ferguson experience and be PROACTIVE in our response to what's taking place in our communities, because much like in the case of Michael Brown, it's going to be much too late to try to demonstrate AFTER the fact. So NOW is the time to get up-in-arms.
Strive To Become Your Own Hero... Then Let No One Remove Your Cape.
BIO
Eric L. Wattree is a writer, poet, and musician, born in Los Angeles. He’s been a columnist for The Los Angeles Sentinel, Black Star News, The Atlanta Post, and is a member of the Sigma Delta Chi Society of Professional Journalists (http://www.spj.org/). He’s also the author of "A Message From the Hood."
Some of the greatest minds I’ve ever known held court while sitting on empty milk crates in the parking lots of ghetto liquor stores, while some of the weakest minds I’ve ever known roamed the halls of academia in pursuit of credentials over knowledge.
Am I a hater, you ask? You're damn right I'm a hater. I hate injustice. I hate hypocrisy. I also hate demagoguery, apathy, and the stupidity that allows it to exist. Hater? Absolutely. I'm a big time hater. I hate what I see happening to this country, and I hate watching the development of a culture that embraces ignorance with a stupid sense of pride. So yes, I am indeed a hater, but not only that - I'm a hater with a very low threshold for bullshit, so step off.
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