McCamy Taylor
McCamy Taylor's JournalSorry, J.P. Morgan, But People Without Homes WILL Quarrel With Their Leaders
The attribution of the following quote has been debated. There is no debating the sentiment it expresses.
"Capital must protect itself in every way...Debts must be collected and loans and mortgages foreclosed as soon as possible. When through a process of law the common people have lost their homes, they will be more tractable and more easily governed by the strong arm of the law applied by the central power of leading financiers. People without homes will not quarrel with their leaders. This is well known among our principle men now engaged in forming an imperialism of capitalism to govern the world. By dividing the people we can get them to expend their energies in fighting over questions of no importance to us except as teachers of the common herd.
-J.P. Morgan"
For decades, the right wing has dreamed of unraveling the safety net crafted by Democrats like LBJ, Truman and FDR. Their goal? The quote above sums it up. If people have no homes, they have no wealth. They have no economic security. They become fearful. A frightened worker is a desperate, pliable worker, who will accept any wage, any work condition, any hours, any task.
"Capital"----the banks, the investment brokers, the multinationals---must have been disconcerted when People Without Homes decided to quarrel with this leaders this fall. For decades, they were promised a meek, pliable population of suckers who would work their fingers to the bone---and then say nothing when they discovered that their savings had been stolen by the very folks who were supposed to protect it. As late as 2008, People Without Homes appeared to be following the script. President Bush got on national television. He said that the banks were Too Big to Fail. Some Americans grumbled, but most of them nodded their heads. Too big to fail. Bankers basked in the glow that you see on the face of the favorite child, the one who gets all the toys, all the praise---while the siblings get nothing.
Capital assumed that when times got bad, we would savage each other, like a pack of caged dogs fighting over a bone. Capital salivated over the thought of more domestic violence, more violence against children, more crimes against immigrants, more inter-racial tension as one group accused another of stealing its jobs, its homes, its slice of the American Dream----
Want to know Capital's big plan?
"Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion."
(Robert O. Paxton from the book Anatomy of Fascism)
Fascism with a twist. Nationalism is now Multi-nationalism. Corporations are the new Fuhrer and Il Duce. In the 20th Century, corporations were content to be the power behind the throne. Now, they demand to be worshiped directly. Heil Exxon! Heil Chase-Morgan! Heil Microsoft! Heil Pfizer! Heil Archer Daniels Midland! A twist on fascism to make it palatable in the U.S., where goose stepping has never been in style. We refuse to bow down and worship a king, but surely we can be persuaded to bow down and worship huge piles of (blood, sweat and tear stained) cash.
I meet a lot of people in my day job. People who have lost their employment, their homes, their health insurance. Folks for whom hunger is a daily fact of life. Men and women who get to choose between eating and taking the medication that keeps them alive. I never hear them complain that the _____s stole their jobs. Never. They never talk about how much better it was before the ___s regained the right to vote. They never criticize the Occupy Wall Street movement. They never talk about how much better the U.S. was when it was being attacked by terrorists and everyone was waving an American flag. They never speaking admiringly of the profits posted by the big banks. They never tell me they sleep easier at night knowing that the Carlyle Group weathered the recession unscathed. They do not trust their employer to "do the right thing" when they have a personal or family illness. They do not call the elderly "deadbeats" for collecting their Social Security and using their Medicare. They do not close their eyes and stop up their ears and tape shut their mouth and hope that the bad times will go away, magically. They are fighters, and adversity does not pacify them, it energizes them---
Which must be why Capital is so desperate to keep them from the polls. Those most willing to "quarrel with their leaders" can not afford cars. Many of them are too sick to drive. That means they may not have a current driver's license.That means when they go to the polls next fall to express their displeasure with Capital, they will be turned away. Unless the Department of Justice and the ACLU and other concerned groups succeed in overturning the new Poll Tax. Unless we defy those who seek to make registering people to vote some kind of organized criminal activity. Unless we strip corporations of their right to channel unlimited amounts of foreign and domestic money into our election process. Unless we preserve freedom of the speech on the Internet, the last place where People Without Homes can make their voices heard in a nation whose news media is corporate owned. Unless we maintain funding for our schools, which provide education and food to the next generation of People Without Homes, making them strong in body as well as mind so that they can continue to "quarrel with their leaders".....
GOP Spin Machine In Action: If You Suffer from Vertigo or Dizziness, Do Not Read
Sorry, NYT, But the GOP Did NOT Pass an Extension to the Payroll Tax Holiday
The New York Times headline and front page blurb look like something out of Bizarro World:
“Defying a veto threat from President Obama, the House passed a bill extending a cut in Social Security payroll taxes, but the Democratic majority in the Senate vowed to reject it.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/14/us/politics/house-passes-extension-of-payroll-tax-cut.html?hp
Read the article, and you discover that House Republicans have voted along party lines to cut unemployment benefits by 40 weeks, fund the Keystone Pipeline, allow states to require drug testing for those receiving benefits, roll back environmental safety rules and cut federal spending for the new Health Care law. Oh, and if they get all this, then they will let middle America keep its payroll tax holiday and they will allow Medicare providers to keep their shirts.
Since most of this crap is unpalatable to Senate Democrats, House Republicans have now set up a fight in which they can claim (on the front page of the New York Times, no less) that they want to extend the payroll tax holiday but Obama wants to veto it.
I can almost hear next weeks campaign slogans: “Democrats want to raise your taxes by $1500 a year.”
WaPo has the same. Front page blurb:
"House passes Republican payroll tax package
snip
White House threatens to veto payroll tax extension"
Someone please show me where Obama has suggested that he is against a payroll tax extension. If you cite the front pages of the NYT and the WaPo, you go to the back of the class.
The article associated with the headline is here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/2chambers/post/house-passes-gop-payroll-tax-package-amid-white-house-veto-threat/2011/12/13/gIQA8ywbsO_blog.html
Note this near the bottom of the article:
"Michael Steel, spokesman for House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), responded Tuesday afternoon that “the White House threatened to veto its top legislative priority for reasons that The Washington Post has reported are entirely fictitious."
Here is the article that calls Obama a liar:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/white-house-budget-spin-on-the-house-gop-payroll-tax-bill/2011/12/12/gIQAuwhrqO_blog.html?hpid=z3
Can their logic get any more convoluted than this? The WaPo accuses Obama of lying about why he plans to veto the payroll tax bill, then Republicans are quoted in the WaPo claiming that Obama is lying about why he plans to veto the payroll tax bill citing the WaPo.
I put that last part in bold, because Obama is not planning to veto the payroll tax bill. He has been demanding for weeks that Congress continue the payroll tax holiday. He is threatening to veto all the crap that the GOP has tacked onto the bill. But, if you are one of those who gets your news by skimming the headlines, you will walk away convinced that the GOP wants to give you $1500 a year and Obama wants to tax you to death...presumably so he can give the money to a bunch of rich (Black) folks who are planning to vacation in Hawaii this year at your expense.
Fox News? Don’t even ask. Huge headline:
House Votes to Extend Payroll Tax Cut
I only bother mentioning this, because misleading headlines like these are the reason so many Americans are now convinced that Obama wants to chainsaw massacre Medicare even though it was House Republicans who voted along party lines last spring to end the program.
Dizzy yet?
Sick and Poor for Christmas
Wilma lives with her retired granddad. The two of them have to make do with the grandfather’s $600/month Social Security check. $600 does not last long. Sometimes, near the end of the month they have no money for food. One week, all they had left in the house was potatoes. Potatoes! As if this is 19th century Ireland under the yoke of British colonial rule.
Wilma has a bad heart, but she can not get any help from the government. She is one of those sick people who has not been sick enough long enough to qualify for aid. When people tell Wilma “Have a merry Christmas” she grimaces. Her Christmas wishes are simple. Something to eat. Money for her medications. It would be great if she could have both.
Valero Energy Company has $37 billion in assets, according to their website. Valero has refineries all across Texas. It needs to add equipment that will remove sulfur from its products in order to comply with federal rules. It has applied for a local tax abatement that will save it tens of millions of dollars---money that will be taken out of school funds. Public schools in Texas are already strapped for cash, and schools in south and west Texas where Valero operates are not wealthy. Far from it. One of the poorest regions of the country can be found in south Texas, close to the border with Mexico. It is one of the most polluted, too. The number of children born with birth defects in that area is scary.
Years ago, the Texas state legislature attempted to encourage refineries to decrease local air pollution by promising them a tax abatement if they would install equipment to limit their local emissions. Environmental justice. Valero thinks that the school kids in the Valley should pay to limit emissions in far away cities like New York and San Francisco. That is what is known as environmental injustice . So now, the state of Texas is debating whether or not to give Valero a huge Christmas bonus for obeying federal law---while doing nothing for the kids who live in the refiner’s own backyard. No, worse than nothing. They are taking away their textbooks, their school lunches. And ten other refining companies in Texas want to do the same thing. Because they believe that they have already given too much.
"Our children's education is extremely important, but it is also important to have a fair property appraisal. Even after our exemption is granted, Valero will remain one of the largest taxpayers -- if not the largest taxpayer -- in all the areas where we have refineries."
http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/12/11/3587287/tax-exemption-request-from-valero.html
Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich claims that food stamps are frivolous. Americans use food stamps to pay for their vacations. Newt has probably never talked to Wilma. Her granddad applied for food stamps. He was told he could get $25 a month. I wonder what kind of vacation Wilma and her grandfather can take for $25.
It’s Christmas everyday for corporate America. We, the people, just keep giving and giving until we have no more to give---and then we give a little more. Christmas only comes once a year for the rest of us. And for some of us, it never comes at all.
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