Following the Money

Illustration: “Because so much money creeps into my sack, the whole world climbs into my hole” (1568), Jan Wierix

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Traditionally, throughout history, the rich have robbed the poor. This is so deeply accepted as a norm, that a greed-crazed billionaire will characterize helping the poor as "criminal".

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There are no U.S. laws that contain the footnote: "Super-wealthy individuals may ignore this."

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If I had more wealth than anyone in the world, and if I also wanted people to admire and respect me, I would provide food for the hungry and medicine for the sick. I would repair bridges and roads. I would build affordable housing.

On the other hand, if I had all that wealth and wanted to make people hate me, while attracting the admiration of sadists and criminals, I'd cut off supplies of food and medicine to babies and others who really need it. I would build only projects that were flashy and ego-pumping.

How we really choose to use the resources that are available to us tells more about our value as human beings than any speeches, slogans, or promises we speak.

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Eat the rich, and you feed your family for a day.

Tax the rich, and you feed them for life.

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Another Day at School

Imagine you're eight and in the second grade. All you had for breakfast was nothing because your mom leaves for her job in the meat processing plant at 6:00 am, and your older sister (twelve) gets you up at 8:00 am, but she doesn't cook breakfast, and there's no food in the kitchen except some candy corn left over from Halloween and a couple of beers your mom's boyfriend left in the fridge (you already know you don't like beer). Oh, yeh, there's a box of Hamburger Helper, but no hamburger meat. Sometimes the lady next door gives you a peanut butter sandwich, but not today. There's also a half-empty jug of milk next to the beer, but it smells bad.

You're in class. The teacher is saying something about fractions, but you feel embarrassed because the growling in your stomach seems louder than her voice. It's almost lunch time. Not that you care, because you didn't bring anything and you don't have any money for the cafeteria. At this point, which would be the best thing to help you focus on your schoolwork? A wall poster listing the Ten Commandments, or a free breakfast?

 

They Want it All, And They'll Take it From You

The oligarchs have more wealth than they can possibly use, and even if they never made another dime, they, their children, their grandchildren, and their great-grandchildren would still be incomprehensibly wealthy.

They can have anything they want or need: Big houses, big vacation houses, spare apartments in cities around the world, nice cars, designer clothes, the best food cooked by private chefs, whatever medical care they need at top hospitals with famous doctors, multiple yachts, private hunting ranches, hairdressers who travel with them on their private jets, secret bunkers (underground mansions) in case of nuclear war, their own private security force, private schools and top-notch universities for their kids, lawyers on retainer, ownership of TV stations, newspapers, and tech companies, and the hired help needed to acquire and maintain all their possessions. In summary, they have everything. ^@themrswest

Yet, somehow, that isn't enough. Not only do they constantly want more, they want to make sure that everyone else has nothing. They crave a world where they have absolutely everything, whether they need it or not: All the power, all the means of production, all the necessities, all the luxuries. And they want that world to be populated by impoverished serfs who have nothing and live short lives of sickness and pain. Why? I truly don't know why. It's very hard to get into a mindset where other people's misery is perceived as making your life better. But there it is.

Link: The Koch brothers' political activism and its damage to America - "The Kochs' Ayn Rand–inspired hellscape has yet to completely come to fruition, but the ideas the duo promoted are now part of the regular discourse—and have been for a while."

Link: While the Planet Burns: Billionaires Are Busy Hunkering Down for the Apocalypse - "Many of the wealthiest people in the world have decided that Earth is a Titanic heading for an iceberg. As a result, they have decided to create luxury lifeboats for themselves."

Link: The Koch Brothers Are Even Worse Than You Think - "Koch was found guilty of criminal conduct in many cases.... The workplace is becoming more dangerous under this constant pressure to produce profits."

Link: Robbing the poor to pay the rich - "Socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor is increasingly popular as we leave the 20th century, especially in this country"

 

Things I Don't Write

This morning on the way to a fast-food breakfast I saw an apparently homeless man lying by the side of the road, passed out next to the plastic bag that held his extra-large beer can. I could have snapped his picture and then used it to illustrate a blog post about the problems of homelessness, alcoholism, or just the good fortune that last night's temperature in the Valley did not drop below freezing. But I just couldn't bring myself to take that picture. There are plenty of people who become prize-winning photo-journalists based on their willingness to exploit report on other people's misery. My distaste for doing that is doubtless one of the factors that doom me to blog obscurity. Oh well.