For decades now, American society has been bombarded by relentless propaganda, mostly paid for by the super wealthy, that Government is always bad and evil, and only an unfettered, deregulated economy will serve Americans best. This had been the wet dream as long as I have been alive, by Libertarians and their think tanks, which (what do you know!) coincidentally aligns with the ambitions of obscenely rich Americans such as Elon Musk or a Warren Buffet, also known as Robber Barons during the 1920s gilded age.
Even now, Americans are meant to believe, that despite record breaking profits by billion dollar corporations across the US for decades, and the extreme wealth that these corporations have brought to a handful of Men; despite the lack of real wage growth for Americans since the 1970s, and despite significant increases of productivity by American workers; and despite the obscene level of wealth inequality, the greatest it has ever been in the history of this country - Americans are still being told that they deserve what they get, which now includes having to go without food if they can't afford it, even while working.
The absurdly wealthy in the US are now telling Americans, much like Marie Antoinette did in France 1793, to "Let Them Eat Cake". One really does wonder how long this is going to go on, how long Libertarianism, given its most despicable, hateful decade upon decade attack upon American government (and Americans themselves) - will continue with its deathly, Ayn Randian immoral and hollow grip upon the American people - before Americans finally wake up to the fact they've been robbed blind with an ideology that turns out to have only benefited a handful of obscenely rich individuals, and left Americans scrambling now to just put food on their table.
YUP. STARTED WITH REAGAN. Joke was on us when he came out and stated THE GOVERNMENT IS THE ENEMY. yup. we are the government. so basically what he was saying was that THE PEOPLE ARE THE ENEMY. It was all right there out in the open.
What gets me is we always here screams of Socialism is Evil. That any kind of sharing of resources or collaboration of Americans makes you a "Commie!" Especially when it comes to our Health Care Industry, which makes record profits every year - while at the same time offering less and less to Americans in terms of real Health Care - to increase corporate profits even more - because that is what greed based corporations do.
But what's even stranger is that Privatized Health Care Insurance in the US is a SOCIALIZED system. Americans pay these extortionist and ruthless Health Care Insurance companies an absurd amount of money each year - but what is paid in goes into a POOL of MONEY - that is then PAID OUT not to each American that has paid into the INSURANCE POOL - but only to those the Private Insurance Companies deem worthy of getting the money for health reasons - that they themselves have criminally proscribed to the detriment and even deaths of millions of Americans (see Sicko by Michael Moore, a classic). Paying into a POOL of money and then sharing it with other people is SOCIALISM. And that's what American Insurance companies do.
The Health Insurance industry is a SOCIALIZED system, perverted by the interests of a handful of unscrupulous rich individuals to make a profit whenever an American needs to see a doctor, and the US is the only advance Industrial nation in the world that still does not have a Universal Health Care system handled by its own government - that would disallow the open robbery of the American people in a health care system run by psychopathic human beings who could care less how much your health insurance actually covers you when you get legitimately ill - and an industry that is the #1 cause for American bankruptcy, unlike any other advanced nation in the world.
And you can chalk this up to the BULLSHIT Libertarianism ideology that has been rammed down the throats of Americans now for the last half century, that serves only the obscenely rich while leaving breadcrumbs for 99% of the rest of ordinary Americans.
Calling SNAP a corporate subsidy is exactly the reframing we need. When Walmart workers require food stamps to survive, taxpayers are essentially subsidizing Walmart's labor costs. The real question is why should the public be paying for Walmart's deliberate decision to keep wages below subsistance levels while their profit margins soar?
One thing I think very few people understand is that to some extent the welfare state was put in place as an anti-revolutionary measure. It's very foolish indeed to think about social welfare as being about the deservingness or otherwise of individual people, rather it should be seen as a means of maintaining civil society & preventing unrest. What do they think is going to happen when a large percentage of people have no food? This is a cynical, accelarationist act that is nevertheless in some sense the logical endpoint of decades of neoliberal propaganda, as you so rightly point out J.P.
In an urbanised world where responsibility for providing for each other has been taken away and the working poor fall into deeper precarity; when the backstop of welfare infrastructure fails; when people have to feed themselves, as Andrew Wilkow and others suggest, then desperately hungry people with starving children will relearn hunting skills very quickly. I wonder what a rich person tastes like.
And why did the "Welfare Queen" trope work and Bill Clinton continue it's legacy? Because, while poverty is the top line issue, racism within the electorate was manipulated by the powerful and, more importantly, White Supremacy built into the structure of American society to shut out Black and Brown folks from achieving economic and social stability remained obfuscated and hidden from view. Even in this essay, there's a blind spot to how the elite use White Supremacy as a means to deny the masses their due share of an equitable society. If all are to be free and prosper in the promise of this Great American Society, we must confront, make amends and repair the harm inflicted by clinging to the cancerous ideology of White Supremacy.
The government has been taking care of the people for years and who is it to say they are responsible for the lower class? The rich become rich because they take risks. Some start from nothing just like the rest. They work for what they have. I am middle class and i have what i have worked for. I have done without just like the rest. My priorities have been for food, shelter and type of work i need to have those things.There are many who take advantage. I live by a church, who gives out food and the people who line up have nicer cars than me. There needs to be proof these people are trying to provide for themselves, trying to get work because i personally know someone who had a bunch of kids that is living off the government who has never worked nor been married and is not disabled. Her kids dressed nicer than mine. I understand helping people, we are to love our neighbor as ourself and alot of the rich do help and some of the middle class do help as well. Why is it left up to the government to feed families? Why arent more people loving their neighbor?
WRONG. The rich become rich from the exploitation of the people. its all right in front of you if you just bothered to look. AND a little education helps - the government is us.
its not THE GOVERNMENT - THE GOVERNMENT IS US! WE SHOULD FEED US. AND NOT ENRICH THE BILLIONAIRES
I deeply value how gracefully and strongly you write. This piece is phenomenal.
It's truly mind blowing that what you write here isn't self evident. It shows the sophistication of the propaganda machine from grade school on.
Absolutely excellent essay!!!
For decades now, American society has been bombarded by relentless propaganda, mostly paid for by the super wealthy, that Government is always bad and evil, and only an unfettered, deregulated economy will serve Americans best. This had been the wet dream as long as I have been alive, by Libertarians and their think tanks, which (what do you know!) coincidentally aligns with the ambitions of obscenely rich Americans such as Elon Musk or a Warren Buffet, also known as Robber Barons during the 1920s gilded age.
Even now, Americans are meant to believe, that despite record breaking profits by billion dollar corporations across the US for decades, and the extreme wealth that these corporations have brought to a handful of Men; despite the lack of real wage growth for Americans since the 1970s, and despite significant increases of productivity by American workers; and despite the obscene level of wealth inequality, the greatest it has ever been in the history of this country - Americans are still being told that they deserve what they get, which now includes having to go without food if they can't afford it, even while working.
The absurdly wealthy in the US are now telling Americans, much like Marie Antoinette did in France 1793, to "Let Them Eat Cake". One really does wonder how long this is going to go on, how long Libertarianism, given its most despicable, hateful decade upon decade attack upon American government (and Americans themselves) - will continue with its deathly, Ayn Randian immoral and hollow grip upon the American people - before Americans finally wake up to the fact they've been robbed blind with an ideology that turns out to have only benefited a handful of obscenely rich individuals, and left Americans scrambling now to just put food on their table.
YUP. STARTED WITH REAGAN. Joke was on us when he came out and stated THE GOVERNMENT IS THE ENEMY. yup. we are the government. so basically what he was saying was that THE PEOPLE ARE THE ENEMY. It was all right there out in the open.
What gets me is we always here screams of Socialism is Evil. That any kind of sharing of resources or collaboration of Americans makes you a "Commie!" Especially when it comes to our Health Care Industry, which makes record profits every year - while at the same time offering less and less to Americans in terms of real Health Care - to increase corporate profits even more - because that is what greed based corporations do.
But what's even stranger is that Privatized Health Care Insurance in the US is a SOCIALIZED system. Americans pay these extortionist and ruthless Health Care Insurance companies an absurd amount of money each year - but what is paid in goes into a POOL of MONEY - that is then PAID OUT not to each American that has paid into the INSURANCE POOL - but only to those the Private Insurance Companies deem worthy of getting the money for health reasons - that they themselves have criminally proscribed to the detriment and even deaths of millions of Americans (see Sicko by Michael Moore, a classic). Paying into a POOL of money and then sharing it with other people is SOCIALISM. And that's what American Insurance companies do.
The Health Insurance industry is a SOCIALIZED system, perverted by the interests of a handful of unscrupulous rich individuals to make a profit whenever an American needs to see a doctor, and the US is the only advance Industrial nation in the world that still does not have a Universal Health Care system handled by its own government - that would disallow the open robbery of the American people in a health care system run by psychopathic human beings who could care less how much your health insurance actually covers you when you get legitimately ill - and an industry that is the #1 cause for American bankruptcy, unlike any other advanced nation in the world.
And you can chalk this up to the BULLSHIT Libertarianism ideology that has been rammed down the throats of Americans now for the last half century, that serves only the obscenely rich while leaving breadcrumbs for 99% of the rest of ordinary Americans.
There is another all-caps response available to the government’s role in society…
IT’S NOT THE GOVERNMENT’S JOB TO PROTECT YOU AND YOUR PROPERTY
Let them with the greatest numbers and the largest rock gather food from any what hath hoarded it.
Gonna guess that won’t make it on Shitter (“X”)
Calling SNAP a corporate subsidy is exactly the reframing we need. When Walmart workers require food stamps to survive, taxpayers are essentially subsidizing Walmart's labor costs. The real question is why should the public be paying for Walmart's deliberate decision to keep wages below subsistance levels while their profit margins soar?
One thing I think very few people understand is that to some extent the welfare state was put in place as an anti-revolutionary measure. It's very foolish indeed to think about social welfare as being about the deservingness or otherwise of individual people, rather it should be seen as a means of maintaining civil society & preventing unrest. What do they think is going to happen when a large percentage of people have no food? This is a cynical, accelarationist act that is nevertheless in some sense the logical endpoint of decades of neoliberal propaganda, as you so rightly point out J.P.
In an urbanised world where responsibility for providing for each other has been taken away and the working poor fall into deeper precarity; when the backstop of welfare infrastructure fails; when people have to feed themselves, as Andrew Wilkow and others suggest, then desperately hungry people with starving children will relearn hunting skills very quickly. I wonder what a rich person tastes like.
And why did the "Welfare Queen" trope work and Bill Clinton continue it's legacy? Because, while poverty is the top line issue, racism within the electorate was manipulated by the powerful and, more importantly, White Supremacy built into the structure of American society to shut out Black and Brown folks from achieving economic and social stability remained obfuscated and hidden from view. Even in this essay, there's a blind spot to how the elite use White Supremacy as a means to deny the masses their due share of an equitable society. If all are to be free and prosper in the promise of this Great American Society, we must confront, make amends and repair the harm inflicted by clinging to the cancerous ideology of White Supremacy.
The government has been taking care of the people for years and who is it to say they are responsible for the lower class? The rich become rich because they take risks. Some start from nothing just like the rest. They work for what they have. I am middle class and i have what i have worked for. I have done without just like the rest. My priorities have been for food, shelter and type of work i need to have those things.There are many who take advantage. I live by a church, who gives out food and the people who line up have nicer cars than me. There needs to be proof these people are trying to provide for themselves, trying to get work because i personally know someone who had a bunch of kids that is living off the government who has never worked nor been married and is not disabled. Her kids dressed nicer than mine. I understand helping people, we are to love our neighbor as ourself and alot of the rich do help and some of the middle class do help as well. Why is it left up to the government to feed families? Why arent more people loving their neighbor?
WRONG. The rich become rich from the exploitation of the people. its all right in front of you if you just bothered to look. AND a little education helps - the government is us.