News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. March 20, 2020: Tipping points … the point at which a series of small changes or incidents becomes significant enough to cause a larger, more important change.”
America is a nation of STAKEHOLDERS, not stockholders, or should be and must be. In fact, our nation has long acted like a nation of STOCKHOLDERS, those who own all the stock, bonds and other assets, aka the rich and powerful, own America. What COVID-19 has done is exposed the fraud.
Yes, as long as things seem stable, the rest of us get by one way or another and we accept our fate because there is no other choice. There have always been TWO Americas and TWO versions of every other country on Earth.
Charles Dickens wrote about it long ago “A Tale of Two Cities.”
Well SURPRISE, COVID-19 is exposing the scam. In fact, the rich and the powerful cannot exist very well without the rest of us. We are all STAKEHOLDERS in America. Of course, the rich and powerful hope and indeed expect once COVID-19 disappears America will again return to be a nation of STOCKholders, and the rest of us just holding on to the crumbs.
ONLY IF 300 MILLION PLUS Americans are that stupid. Blatant and ever-increasing INEQUALITY in America is a deadly virus that will not go away unless we do something about it. If not now, then when? Never? This is why, after all the suffering and death from COVID-19 is done, it is the best opportunity we will ever have to create the NEW America we desperately need now….
One in which we create a government and society in which wealth and power – they are inseparable – are far more equitably distributed. The OBSCENE wealth of the 1% is not something they have earned; they have simply won a rigged “lottery” in which laws, our tax system and so much else is written in their favor and not that of the 99% of Americans.
Jeff Bezos is the “perfect” current example if there was any good logic to Bezos being the richest person on Earth at $122 BILLION and growing every day. It would only be worthwhile to the rest of us if his fortune is based on the fact he has done more for America and humanity than any human alive today.
WRONG of course. What Bezos has done is monopolize the online retail universe. It is impossible for anyone to effectively compete against him. AND WE LET HIM GET AWAY WITH IT. Wrong again. The more precise reason is that his wealth and power ensures that he and others with wealth and power control the decision making apparatus of government that allows it. Not us.
Bezos more than anyone else is the “prime,” (yes, I used the word purposely), example of the class of all billionaires and the entire 1%. Bezos is today’s John D. Rockefeller. Rockefeller was the richest person on Earth 100 years ago, not because he deserved it, but because he monopolized the oil industry.
They both won the MEGA lottery which is rigged. Jeff Bezos is, and John D. Rockefeller was smart and driven, but no more so than many millions of other Americans were and still are and always will be. What Bezos, Rockefeller and the rest of the 1% do is stifle the potential of millions other Americans and destroy the REAL far greater potential of America and Americans.
So why are they making BILLIONS of times more than the rest of us? There is NO good reason except they and those like them have CONTROL. If we lived and we need to live in an alternate America in which OUR government took in taxes, half of Bezos fortune would be gone, leaving him with JUST $60 BILLION …
Should anyone other than other Billionaires complain? NO, NO, NO.
QUESTION: Would Bezos go into a deep depression, be unable to function, lose all his drive, go homeless maybe kill himself in desperation if tomorrow he was ONLY worth $60 BILLION? ANSWER: NO, NO, NO!
I hope I don’t sound like Bernie Sanders because I am expressing something very different, not his basket full of goodies for the rest of us he used to win votes. What we need goes far deeper than individual pieces of legislation.
If we do not grasp the systemic problem and opportunity, nothing changes.
America post C-19, America for the Future, America for ALL of us, must fundamentally alter the concentration of power and WEALTH in America and in doing so, in tandem, lift the BURDEN of 90% of Americans carrying a VERY UNFAIR load of financing our government for the benefit of the few.
BREAKING NEWS …. Everyone should have noticed for a few days there was much talk in DC about ELIMINATING the payroll tax; REAL name payroll INCOME tax for the rest of the year. Then that disappeared in favor of sending small checks to everyone. WHY????? Because the SUPER rich who control the government quickly realized if the payroll INCOME tax was eliminated temporarily, there would be a push to make it permanent….
KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS? Bezos and the others plus the richest companies would be FORCED to pay more taxes from now on. Sending modest $,1000 checks to all Americans for two months, by simply printing more money, is what they decided to do, and Trump & Congress agreed of course.
Let me offer an analogy to the Civil War and Slavery – a very different kind of COVID-19 crisis. There was no way to “compromise” on Slavery although many took such positions. It was in fact a reality; a Black & White issue in the most existential way. Either Slavery or NO Slavery.
In the case of the Civil War, the result was very incomplete. New forms of almost slavery took hold in the South and across America that still exist today. The all-important lesson for us in the Age of COVID-19 is if we do not truly remake America, then STOCKholder America will return and ….
ENSLAVE all the rest of us again.
Much more in coming episodes!
(This series dedicated in honor of the late Liu Xiaobo & Jamal Khashoggi)
