What’s with the Anti-Welfare Argument: “I can spend my money better than the government”?

Well, sure. If you’re rich you can spend the money that fell into your lap better on YOURSELF than the government would after taxing some of it back from you. Duh!

How does that disqualify taxes or government spending on the poor, though?  

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Equality of Means, not “Opportunities”

What we need is not the neoliberally toted equality of opportunity, but an equality of means!!! The word opportunity can be interpreted in quite unequal ways, turning the equality of opportunity mantra into a trick to scam people into accepting gross disparity in real living conditions. The remote opportunity of the rags-to-riches legend which hardly ever turns into reality for anyone (and usually only by harming others in the process) compares poorly with what I would call a means equality. Considering the vast difference in life’s starting conditions between upper class privilege and lower class deprivation, the claim of having equality of opportunity becomes a sarcastic joke. Furthermore, when someone falls down on their luck, should we have no compassion whatsoever and deny any help based on the sociopathic idea of everybody being responsible only for themselves?  

Independence Day: What Are We Celebrating Today?

Today is the big national holiday in which we traditionally celebrate independence. But independence from what? From the U.K.? The U.K. nowadays has full health coverage and a democracy (of a “constitutional monarchy” type). If we were still part of the U.K., tens of thousands of Americans wouldn’t needlessly be dying each year from lack of healthcare.

Geography matters little. What we meant by independence from the British crown was an independence from aristocracy, the British aristocracy back then, its kings, dukes and so forth. In other words, our founders had had enough of being ruled by a handful of oligarchs and replaced their rule with a republic-style democracy. (a republic is a representational democracy by definition, not an alternative to a democracy as some head spinners sometimes claim) Democracies have their flaws, but putting the steering wheel in the hands of the people who are affected by government policies is the best guarantee for responsible policies, a point which Thomas Jefferson tirelessly kept driving home. (see quotes at the bottom)  

On Average, Each American Employee would make $17,000 More Each Year If…

…if it weren’t for the rich stealing from us. … if about 40 years ago they hadn’t begun revving up their plunder of working Americans — this made possible by them having bought the government and having used it to deregulate themselves (removing the referee from the economic game) and also by having used it to shift the tax burden on working families.

I reported on these economic statistics in the past and calculated that the rich are raking in at least half of our earnings (that we work for and they don’t). In fact, my own calculation came to the average working class family making $45,500 more per year if we weren’t getting robbed by the rich.

TYT recently gave a report detailing some of these stats. The clip gets most informative towards the end (6:44 min in) — the preceding stuff is less clear:

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “BREAKING: Wages Falling Dramatically”)  

Is the People’s Takeover of the “Democratic” Party Working?

Below, I have written some powerful words, or so I hope. But lets first start with an analysis of recent “Democratic” upheavals by Jimmy Dore’s team to give us some perspective and a starting point for putting our heads together:

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for Jimmy Dore and the title: “Ocasio-Cortez & Progressives Win – Is it Enough?”)

(Link: Report on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her spectacular win in the primaries presented here on Beanstock’s World a dew days ago.)

So, is the people’s take-over of the “Democratic” Party working? Sadly, the answer is clearly no. Too many attempts of voting in people’s candidates have failed, succeeding only with a handful who don’t carry enough weight to change the party from within. And once they are in, they face obstacles like superdelegates, party bosses, undemocratic structures and top-down rule, gerrymandering and internal riggings, huge Big Money influence, mobbing and a gang mentality, and so forth. They get turned ineffective by layer upon layer of barriers that have been erected to neutralize the will of the people and even the party base.  

Yeah! Bravo, New York! The Candidate for the People Won!

Hooray! She did it! She won, and thus we the people won… in New York for now. There are many more places where we must and can win. If you missed it, here is last night’s election coverage of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (about whom I shared again on Sunday) running against one of our top corruptitians (by TYT, the only good coverage I could find so far… sure, TYT has its issues often still being stuck in old-fashioned party politics, but they still do good work with some regularity, better than the big corporate networks for certain):

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for TYT and the title: “JUSTICE DEMOCRAT ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ DEFEATS JOE CROWLEY “)

Note: Remember, NY has public campaign financing making victories of people’s candidates running against the establishment so much more possible. Alexandria described it in a video clip shared on here last November. Here it is again, the part on Public Campaign Financing at 13:52 – 15:45 minutes:  

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Interview — Activist running for office instead of a Sell-Out

Data: NY-14, primaries election day: THIS TUESDAY! (June 26)

I hope she wins!

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Scaring The Democratic Establishment “)

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Did A Politician Finally Mess With The Wrong Woman?”)

Quite inspiring, right? Now… there’s something to think about: