For The Love of Money!

This morning I woke up with this song, For The Love of Money and America on my mind. In this country we are far more fond of fiction than we are of the truth.

Far too many Americans are ignorant to the truth of American history. This song is the truth about our country. Until we acknowledge it we will never change it. The truth is that when the early settlers landed on Plymouth Rock they weren’t here to escape religious persecution. They were here to build economic opportunity that they could never have in Europe. The truth is that slavery was the vehicle they chose to drive their economic prosperity. Slavery was the means to having the labor to do the work. It was never about having enough, it was always about having more.

From 1619 until the end of the Civil War great wealth was built by a select few on the back of slave labor. Indigenous people who had been instrumental in helping the early settlers were rewarded by being slaughtered and pushed off of their land because white men felt it should be theirs for the taking.

For a brief moment during reconstruction enslaved people were given the opportunity to see a flicker of light. That didn’t last long because the consistent hallmark of America as always been greed.

Almost every war that this country as fought is about greed and wanting to exploit resources that didn’t necessarily belong to us. Hawaii is a state because of American greed. Rich white men saw opportunity so they displaced the sovereign leadership of Hawaii and replaced it with a white Governor.

The pattern of exploitation continued unabated through the Presidency of Eisenhower. Before leaving office Eisenhower delivered a warning about the direction the country was headed in.

When the GOP’s darling, Ronald Reagan was elected he single handedly ushered in the era of attacks on organized labor. While he preached to the nation about welfare queens he presided over the biggest transfer of wealth in this countries history. Reagan’s policy of reducing taxes on the wealthy and corporations created huge deficits in spending. Trickle down never delivered on the promise. To the contrary it ushered in a slowdown in wage growth for the middle class and economically advantage while those at the top saw wage growth unparalleled in the nation’s history. Greeds paid handsome dividends for those at the top. Not so much for everyone else. While Reagan was creating those huge tax cuts for the rich he presided over having social security be treated as taxable income. That legacy is still in place today.

In 2016 we were living in a grievance filled country. America had elected a black man President and for 8 years he had been constrained in putting forth a progressive policy framework because of a Senate dominated by an obstructionist GOP.

Americans responded to right years of a ⚫ black President by electing a totally inept grifter posing as a billionaire. Stockholm syndrome is real. In the face of evidence to the contrary the grifter was able to convince a segment of the American populace that he was a success and that he alone could Make America Great Again. Never mind his multiple bankruptcies. Never mind his history of being a virulent liar and a racist. He was white, he had the veneer of wealth, and he was placing the blame for American shortcomings on everyone but Americans. What was there not to like. Like many of his GOP predecessors he immediately proposed tax cuts for the wealthiest segment of the populace.

All the promises to bring manufacturing jobs back to US shores proved empty. The dow Jones average became his mantra. He talked about how much peoples 401K were growing. The average American didn’t understand that the only time you can really measure your 401k’s value is when you’re ready to start using it.

Now we find ourselves in the middle of a global pandemic. America the great is among the least prepared nations of the planet. In just a few days we will have seen 300,000 fellow Americans who have lost their lives because of the pandemic.

We’ve made some horrible choices. Most of them driven by GREED. Just how is that love of money working out for us and where would be be if we could be satisfied by having enough??

THINK!!
EYES WIDE OPEN!!!

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