Fourteen Years and Counting

Fourteen Years and Counting

by C. A. Matthews

 

Most of us can remember our “first, real paying job.” For Americans, we were most likely in high school, and a classmate mentioned to us between classes how their boss was looking for more summer workers and that we should apply and make some money. I had been babysitting for our neighbors since I was about twelve years old, but it was very hit and miss work, and there was a lot of competition on our street. This was my chance to enter the “real paying job world” at age sixteen. I road my bicycle a couple of miles from my home to interview and got the gig. I worked a long, hot and stormy summer standing on my feet for eight hour shifts in a soft-serve ice cream walk-up stand along Main Street and made the huge sum of $1.25 per hour for about 32 hours of work per week.

Hard to believe $1.25 an hour was considered "good pay,"but that was the state’s minimum wage for “tipped employees” at that time. All restaurant workers were paid that amount hourly. It didn’t matter that we didn’t get tipped making ice cream cones for folks who walked up to the window. We were still considered “food service workers” and paid that lowly wage. I worked hard that summer and ended up getting a raise—a whole $1.35 per hour.

Wow. I thought I’d had it made.

The next summer, a friend told me about a job working at a warehouse clearance sale for a national franchised dress shop located in our local “mall,” a newfangled place built on the east side of town and not located downtown where a few of the big department stores were still to be found. I was overjoyed when I heard what this job paid—a whole $2.35 an hour! It was the federal minimum wage. It was what older people made working similar jobs, so I really felt like an adult at age seventeen. Even though I spent a lot on clothes with my employee discount of 10% off that summer, I saved a bit of money that I later used to get ready for college.

Almost a half century and many jobs later, the federal minimum wage hasn’t moved upward all that much when adjusted for inflation. For the past fourteen years, the federal minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25. But why? Corporate profits are up practically across the board or so we’re told on the nightly news. CEOs get huge bonus packages. “Bidenomics is working,” neoliberals insist. What’s wrong with us if we’re struggling to get by in the midst of all this “booming economy” we’re told exists in the US today?

Maybe it’s not us who are wrong about the reality of our situations. Consider this:

The federal minimum wage in the United States would be more than $42 an hour today if it rose at the same rate as the average Wall Street bonus over the past four decades, according to an analysis … by the Institute for Policy Studies.

Citing newly released data from the New York State Comptroller, IPS noted that the average Wall Street bonus has increased by 1,165% since 1985, not adjusted for inflation.

Last year, the average cash bonus paid to Wall Street employees was $176,700—75% higher than in 2008 but slightly lower than the 2021 level of $240,400.

The federal minimum wage, meanwhile, has been completely stagnant since 2009, when it was bumped up to $7.25 from $5.15. While many states and localities have approved substantial pay increases in recent years, 20 states have kept their hourly wage floors at the federal minimum.

US Minimum Wage Would Be $42 Today If It Rose as Much as Wall St.Bonuses: Analysis

So, where’s our $42 per hour? I guess it’s in the same place where our $600 went when we were promised $2,000 COVID relief checks when Biden took office, but we only received $1,400, right?

What’s a working stiff in the US to do? We can’t even afford to rent an apartment anywhere in the fifty states working full-time hours (if you can get them) at $7.25 an hour. There have been talks and protests centered around raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, but can anyone even afford to rent a decent place to live on that amount? It’s doubtful. Not even a $25 minimum wage can help a family rent a home in many cities.

American workers do have one powerful option, but it’s rarely been discussed since Reagan took office. We have the ability to strike—if we’re not forbidden to do so by federal law, such as the case with railroad workers or air traffic controllers, that is. But so many Americans have been brainwashed into thinking that a strike will cost them their job and their health insurance, so they simply won’t consider it.

Are Americans cowards? Not necessarily. I’d say we’re realists. We know we have no safety nets like workers in other countries who are blessed with universal health care and universal basic income or "UBI" payments. With no way to provide for our families without our lousy paying jobs, we’d best stay put and put up with the harsh treatment of the bosses.

But are strikes really all that risky for workers? Where did we get this idea that we the working class are essentially powerless and only billionaires can get what they want? Consider this:

The Teamsters Union and UPS have reached a tentative agreement on a new contract to cover the 340,000 Teamsters who work for the package shipping giant.

According to a statement released by the union, the new contract is “the most historic tentative agreement for workers in the history of UPS,” promising wage increases, an end to the two-tier wage system, new air conditioning in vehicles, Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a full company holiday, and more.

In the days and weeks to come, members will debate the pros and cons of the proposal as thousands of UPS Teamsters vote on whether to ratify the contract. But one thing seems undeniable: Any significant gains won by Teamsters against a reluctant employer will have come about because rank-and-file workers showed the company that they were prepared to strike.

UPS Workers Disproved Corporate Media’s Narrative That Strikes AreHarmful

I put that last sentence in italics for emphasis. It bears repeating: Any significant gains won by Teamsters against a reluctant employer will have come about because rank-and-file workers showed the company that they were prepared to strike.

Rank-and-file workers actually have power? Yes, we do! Even the possibility of a strike can motivate a reluctant employer to sit down and discuss the workers’ grievances and demands. And if push comes to shove, the workers walk out and give the employers even more to worry about as the company's profits take a hit and its reputation as being a fair and honest employer is thrown into the dumpster.

Fourteen years of a stagnant federal minimum wage (with no maximum wage for billionaires set) and no universal health coverage for all Americans should be a wake up call even for the sleepiest of workers. Our government doesn’t work for us, the people, but for those who already have more than enough wealth and power and obviously don’t give care one bit about how many workers can’t even afford to rent an apartment or put food on the table for their families. Our government doesn’t care if we or our loved ones get sick, and we have no way to afford medical care other than to beg strangers for donations via GoFundMe.

Face it, America. It’s time to lose the blind loyalty to both your employers and to our government. They don’t have our best interests at heart. And we have the power to make them see things our way—strike! 

Related Articles and Interesting Links:

UPS Workers Disproved Corporate Media’s Narrative That Strikes Are Harmful https://truthout.org/articles/ups-workers-disproved-corporate-medias-narrative-that-strikes-are-harmful/

UPS & Teamsters Reach Tentative Deal, Averting Strike https://scheerpost.com/2023/07/28/ups-teamsters-reach-tentative-deal-averting-strike/

 

“We have to show them we’re not going to retreat, we’re not going to concede”: Southern California warehouse worker speaks out against UPS contract https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/07/28/upsi-j28.html

The UPS Strike Looms As Corporate America Cashes In
https://popularresistance.org/the-ups-strike-looms-as-corporate-america-cashes-in/

Record Wages Should Be Received If Record Profits Are Being Generated https://popularresistance.org/record-wages-should-be-received-if-record-profits-are-being-generated/

US Minimum Wage Would Be $42 Today If It Rose as Much as Wall St. Bonuses: Analysis  https://www.commondreams.org/news/minimum-wage-wall-street-bonuses

‘An Abomination’: Today Marks 14 Years Since the Last Federal Minimum Wage Increase https://scheerpost.com/2023/07/25/an-abomination-today-marks-14-years-since-the-last-federal-minimum-wage-increase/

Michigan Amazon Workers Stage Largest Delivery Station Strike Yet  https://labornotes.org/2023/07/michigan-amazon-workers-stage-largest-delivery-station-strike-yet

Canadian and US autoworkers must fight together in upcoming contract battle https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/07/27/kxes-j27.html

 

Ignoring Warnings of Mass Job Loss, Fed Hikes Rates to Highest Level in Decades https://www.commondreams.org/news/fed-rate-hike-july-2023 

 

Americans With Health Insurance Are Increasingly Putting Off Important Medical Treatments They Can’t Afford
https://capitalandmain.com/americans-with-health-insurance-are-increasingly-putting-off-important-medical-treatments-they-cant-afford

Chris Hedges: The Forgotten Victims of America’s Class War https://scheerpost.com/2023/07/30/chris-hedges-the-forgotten-victims-of-americas-class-war/

The Yellow Corp. bankruptcy: A brutal attack on the working class
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/07/31/rntl-j31.html

A Vital Atlantic Ocean System Could Collapse Sooner Than Previously Thought
https://scheerpost.com/2023/07/31/a-vital-atlantic-ocean-system-could-collapse-sooner-than-previously-thought/

A video tribute to Daniel Ellsberg
www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/watch-my-video-tribute-to-daniel
 

 

Patrick Lawrence: No, The Truth About Biden Is Not Democratic

https://scheerpost.com/2023/07/27/patrick-lawrence-no-the-truth-about-biden-is-not-democratic/ 

 

The Russiagate psyop was about trying to prevent the rise of BRICS, and it’s failed to do this https://rainershea.substack.com/p/the-russiagate-psyop-was-about-trying

Zelensky: The Selling of a President https://open.substack.com/pub/joebrunoli/p/zelensky-the-selling-of-a-president

Why Capitalism Is Leaving the US in Search of Profit
https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/07/21/why-capitalism-is-leaving-the-us-in-search-of-profit/

The Star-Spangled Kangaroo https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-star-spangled-kangaroo

Dr Jill Stein & Kshama Sawant Join RBN | Building Power Outside The Democrat and Republican Parties
https://www.youtube.com/live/C4_IAQHrfHU

US post-9/11 wars caused 4.5 million deaths, displaced 38-60 million people, study shows  https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2023/05/18/us-911-wars-million-deaths-displace/ 

 

Largest School District In Texas Eliminates Libraries https://popularresistance.org/largest-school-district-in-texas-eliminates-libraries/ 

 

Five Myths In The House Anti-Trans Hearing Against Gender Affirming Care https://scheerpost.com/2023/07/30/five-myths-in-the-house-anti-trans-hearing-against-gender-affirming-care/ 

 

RBN's Labor Organizing Summit Part 2 Livestream -- featuring Kshama Sawant. I sat on a panel with other Green Party members and former presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein. (It starts at approx. 3:02 and the video should start there.) Hear what I and other Greens have to say about the labor situation in the US currently. (The answer to many of our troubles is to "Go West!")

https://www.youtube.com/live/1-4DD-KwXY8

 

Coming soon, the first book from The Revolution Continues blog:  The Little Red Book of Revolution

How can you get your e-copy? The easiest way is to subscribe to The Revolution Continues on Substack as a paying subscriber. Choose what level you'd like to subscribe at via the buttons on any post online at: https://therevolutioncontinues.substack.com

If you'd like to help out in the meantime, buy me a coffee!  https://ko-fi.com/therevolutioncontinues

More details to come. Power to the people! 

Behind The Curtain

"Pay no attention to the man behind that curtain!"

In these weird times, sometimes it's good to take a break and look back into our past and see what all we can learn from those who came before us. Sometimes, it's just good to take a look back and see where we went wrong and do our best not to take the same or similar path again.

This week, during the big wind up to the coronation of King Charles III, I had a conversation with our resident historian and British person, Coast Watcher, about who's really the power behind the throne. We both agreed that Charles has no real power outside of his billions in the bank and his ability to boss around (and fire) his household staff. But is the power in the UK really in the hands of the so-called Prime Minister, either?

The same could be argued about who is the power behind the American presidency in the twenty-first century. Who really manipulates and control the president's agenda? Nowadays no matter who is in office, no matter what part of the "uni-party" the president claims to be a member of, it seems that the same ol' things occur.

Wars are started on the flimsiest of excuses in order to take resources (oil, natural gas, lithium, etc.) from other countries. This is particularly true of nations that try to disengage from doing international trade using the petrodollar, such as Libya and Iran. These countries eventually wind up being either bombed and/or economically sanctioned. Millions die. US banks and big corporations are bailed out of debt, but the working classes aren't.

The Princeton Study clearly shows how corporations own everyone and everything in the US, but who exactly pulls the strings on a daily basis? Who are those "men behind the curtains" worldwide? Let's take a peek...

Behind the Curtain
by Coast Watcher

Back in the 1980s there was a hugely popular BBC TV comedy series called Yes, Minister. It portrayed the bumbling antics of Jim Hacker (played by Paul Eddington), Minister for Administrative Affairs, as he negotiated the labyrinthine pathways of British government. Working behind the scenes was the Machiavellian Sir Humphrey Appleby (played by Nigel Hawthorne), the Permanent Secretary attached to the ministry.

Minister Hacker was frequently left in the dark by his supposed civil service underling, Sir Humphrey, who always had an eye for maintaining the hegemony of the British Civil Service while enhancing his own position and prestige wherever possible. As the character of Sir Humphrey says, "Ministers may come and go, but the Civil Service goes on forever."

And so it is with most Western governments. Like that of the UK there’s always a solid core of apparatchiks determined to advance their own cause and feather their nests, often at the expense of government transparency and efficiency. Like Sir Humphrey these people may be permanent fixtures in the civil service, but there are always some who come and go over the course of years, taking advantage of the revolving door between government and industry. 

The elected politicians are not really of any consequence to these non-elected career civil servants. Many politicos don’t last the course, either losing voter support or doing just enough for long enough to earn all those lovely benefits that come with holding public office. Sir Humphrey definitely knew of what he spoke of.

Such an environment is fertile ground for deep conspiracies which are seldom in the best interest of the public. Of course, the elected ones can always proclaim they had no idea what was happening behind the curtain after these heinous deeds are exposed to the world by a whistleblower like Julian Assange, whether or not their professed ignorance is real.

For instance, it was revealed recently that the CIA had recruited and operated two of the 9/11 conspirators. Whatever the reasoning behind this spectacular self-centered goal, there’s no denying it was certainly not in the interests of the American public—nor that of the citizens of Iraq, whose country the Western coalition invaded by using 9/11 as a pretext under the false flag that it held WMDs (Weapons of Mass Destruction).

It’s no secret, either, that the intelligence services have their hooks deep into the body public. The CIA began as the OSS—Office of Strategic Services. Drawing many valuable lessons from the British Special Operations Executive, the OSS morphed into a powerhouse organization with virtually unlimited budget and almost zero accountability to the public.

The first head of the Central Intelligence Agency was John F. Dulles. A personal friend of President Eisenhower, Dulles’ influence enabled the CIA to set almost all elements of US policy toward the Soviet Union and Communist China. Such influence is still apparent today, with the operations against Russia in the current conflict in Ukraine and the wind up to start a war with China over Taiwan independence. 

There’s no denying the woeful impact the manufactured war in Ukraine has had on the peoples of the European Union. They are paying through the nose for natural gas to heat their homes after US Navy divers sabotaged the NordStream II pipeline. In many ways, it’s turning into a defeat for America, as the supposed stringent sanctions against Russia are backfiring in spectacular fashion following the creation of the BRICS initiative set to sideline the petrodollar. And one can't deny that China's diplomatic initiatives to bring about a peaceful resolution to several disputes--including the one between Ukraine/NATO and Russia--makes the United States look even more hawkish than usual.

Of course, as with any Western government, capitalism can’t be ignored. Capitalists must be served! The UK saw the Industrial Intelligence Bureau created in the early 1920s by British businesses to "acquire intelligence on industrial unrest arising from the activities of Communists, Anarchists, various secret societies in the UK and overseas, the Irish Republican Army and other 'subversive' organizations.'" Its founder, Sir George Makgill, was close friends with Desmond Morton, Head of the Special Intelligence Service.

Another revolving door between government and private industry existed between the Industrial Intelligence Bureau and MI5. Agents from one would work for a time in the other organization. No conflict of interest there! The British Fascist movement had its own followers and fellow-travelers inside the intelligence agencies of state and industry, a state of affairs that lasted well into World War II.

With America and, to some extent, the UK sliding ever closer toward fascism, I’ll end this article with some pertinent words from that granddaddy of all fascists:

Democracy is beautiful in theory; in practice it is a fallacy. You in America will see that some day.

Democratic regimes may be defined as those in which, every now and then, the people are given the illusion of being sovereign, while the true sovereignty in actual fact resides in other forces which are sometimes irresponsible and secret. ~ Benito Mussolini

BIO: Coast Watcher uses the power of history to see the patterns of what's happening in the present to predict the future. What could possibly go wrong with intelligence agencies dictating foreign policy and domestic surveillance? Nothing to see here... Move along now.

 

Articles of Interest:

Private Spies Hired by the FBI and Corporate Firms Infiltrate Discord, Reddit, WhatsApp https://www.leefang.com/p/private-spies-hired-by-the-fbi-and

Why the Release of Julian Assange Is Crucial for Our Future https://scheerpost.com/2023/05/05/fabian-scheidler-why-the-release-of-julian-assange-is-crucial-for-our-future/

$400 Million Embezzlement Revealed (and more)
https://www.youtube.com/live/NAbkfR3-pvo 

Calling for the Immediate Release of Julian Assange on World Press Freedom Day  https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/this-i-talk-i-gave-in-new-york-city

A Kingly Proposal: Letter From Julian Assange to King Charles III
https://scheerpost.com/2023/05/06/a-kingly-proposal-letter-from-julian-assange-to-king-charles-iii/

Bombshell Filing: 9/11 Hijackers Were CIA Recruits
https://scheerpost.com/2023/04/27/bombshell-filing-9-11-hijackers-were-cia-recruits/

Patrick Lawrence: Journalists-on-Journalists Crime
https://scheerpost.com/2023/05/06/patrick-lawrence-journalists-on-journalists-crime/

US makes up c 40% of global military spending, 10x Russia, 3x China  https://geopoliticaleconomy.substack.com/p/us-military-spending-russia-china

The Twenty-First Century of (Profitable) War https://scheerpost.com/2023/05/04/the-twenty-first-century-of-profitable-war/

Second and Third Largest US Banking Collapses in Past 2 Months https://youtu.be/1hyYlhk978I 

4 US Banks Crash in 2 Months https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2023/05/05/first-republic-bank-crisis-michael-hudson/

WHO Declares End of COVID Emergency, But Pandemic Inequality Is Still Rampant  https://truthout.org/articles/who-declares-end-of-covid-emergency-but-pandemic-inequality-is-still-rampant/

Who Helped Overturn the "Pentagon Papers Principle"? The Washington Post and New York Times https://www.racket.news/p/who-helped-overturn-the-pentagon

Multiple US Officials Confronted About US Assange Hypocrisy On World Press Freedom Day  https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/multiple-us-officials-confronted

Report on the Censorship-Industrial Complex
https://www.racket.news/p/report-on-the-censorship-industrial

The Debt Ceiling Debate Is a Manufactured Crisis. Tax the Wealthy What They Owe.  https://truthout.org/articles/the-debt-ceiling-debate-is-a-manufactured-crisis-tax-the-wealthy-what-they-owe/

Washington Is Obstructing the Path to a Political Settlement in Ukraine  https://truthout.org/articles/washington-is-obstructing-the-path-to-a-political-settlement-in-ukraine/

Workers Who Have Occupied An Italian Factory Are Close to Owning It https://popularresistance.org/workers-who-have-occupied-an-italian-factory-are-close-to-owning-it/

Statement on the Ninth Anniversary of the Odessa Massacre
https://popularresistance.org/statement-on-the-ninth-anniversary-of-the-odessa-massacre/

In another first for the blog, we had an article featured on the Indie Left Media podcast recently.  Check it out:

Weaponizing Free Speech | @HowDidWeMissTha
https://youtu.be/bmIxGjtYVxs

 

Coming soon, the first book from The Revolution Continues blog:  The Little Red Book of Revolution

How can you get your e-copy? The easiest way is to subscribe to The Revolution Continues on Substack as a paying subscriber. Chose what level you'd like to subscribe at via the buttons on any post online at https://therevolutioncontinues.substack.com

More details to come. Power to the people!

Who's Really In Charge?

Capitalism functions very efficiently without democracy. --Chris Hedges

You'll never stop depraved agendas as long as propagandists can manipulate a critical mass of people into consenting to those agendas. Propaganda is enemy #1. --Caitlin Johnstone

Who’s Really In Charge?

by C.A. Matthews

Americans worry about a lot of things that they have no control over. They also worry a lot about other people of whom they have no control over.

One recent example of this excessive worrying for naught can be seen in the numerous attempts to elect a Speaker of the House of Representatives. In the end, will it really matter to you personally who’s put into that position? Be honest with yourself. If the Speaker is either a Republican or a Democrat, then it won’t make much of a difference to you and yours, assuming you’re a member of the bottom 90% of Americans, a.k.a. the “working class.” Your life will continue along similar lines tomorrow as it did today no matter who is made Speaker.

Don’t believe me? Read our end of the year review The Year Nothing Fundamentally Changed—Again. The federal minimum wage hasn’t changed. COVID-19 is still spreading, and we still don’t have universal health care in the US. The migrant kids are still in cages. The hideous Title 42 and “Remain in Mexico” anti-asylum policies are still being enforced. Cops are still shooting people of color at an alarming rate and not reporting all of these shootings. There were only 12 days in 2022 where a police officer did not shoot someone in the US. Twelve whole days working class Americans didn’t receive a phone call telling them about the police killing one of our loved ones.

Looking at how things remained the same or worsened for the working class or bottom 90% of Americans, one could come to the conclusion that no real change occurs whenever a member of either faction of the corporate uniparty (a.k.a. “the duopoly”) sits in that top seat in the House of Representatives or the White House. Both “major parties” accept (some say they demand) corporate cash through various lobbying organizations and PACs or political action committees. PACs are a fantastically clever way to hide “dark money” or money that no one knows where it comes from. It could come from a foreigner, gangster, or banker—which could all be the same person. 

“Who cares where it comes from?” say American politicians. “Our bank accounts certainly don't!”

It has become apparent in recent times that politicians are essentially being hired to do the bidding of those who have given them the biggest checks. And they don’t seem to have any moral qualms about accepting money with strings attached, since they are often rewarded with big book deals and swanky board memberships with perks upon retiring from office.

So, who’s really in charge? It’s easy. Follow the money.

“It can’t be that simple!” some of you are screaming at this point. “Just because politicians accept huge sums of cash from PACs, corporations, and lobbying groups for corporations, it doesn’t mean they’re simply puppets for those who paid them that money.”

Are you certain about that? The infamous “Princeton Study” demonstrates that American politicians only listen to and do the bidding of those who give them the most money. That excludes those of us at the bottom. Unless you’ve been giving a politician regular sums—very large sums—of cash, the statistics prove what you as an ordinary American worker have to say to that politician is of no consequence whatsoever. They will do as their real bosses, the corporations, tell them to do anyway.

Face it—money is speech. Corporations are people. The US Supreme Court deemed it so in the oddly named Citizens United case. Since Citizens United became law in 2010, money has been firmly equated to speech in political realms. Until the law is repealed, corporations will continue to be the richest and most influential of all people in the United States of America.

Americans have really got to stop worrying about who won this or that election like it’s somehow going to be the end of the world if their preferred candidate doesn’t win. If the race is “won” by either a Republican or Democrat, we poor folks of the working class have essentially lost out to the fat cats of the corporations. We have no control to begin with since we don’t have the billions of dollars needed to buy that candidate’s allegiance, and now that the corporate-owned candidate is in office, the Princeton Study tells us that they'll completely stop listening to us.

Game over. The billionaire CEOs won the contest right out of the starting gate.

If you’re starting to feel anxious because you realize now that we little guys can never have the control over our destinies that we desire under this corrupt political-economic system, take a deep breath. Let’s repeat the Serenity Prayer together:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.

It’s time now to get wise and learn about the things we can change.

The real power on this planet is wielded not by so-called “elected officials,” but by those who run the massive corporations, most of them multinationals. (Yes, other countries are in the grips of Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Agriculture, Big Chemical, and the like, too. May Americans take some small comfort in the fact we aren’t the only humans on the planet being screwed over by billionaires.) 

But what are these corporations’ motives for co-opting our governments? Let’s follow one particular money trail to see what’s happening.

The US spent over $858 billion dollars in military spending this past year. Possibly it was closer to $1 trillion dollars (that’s trillion with a “t” not a “b”), but we may never know the exact amount since the Department of Defense has never passed any of its audits in the past five years since they first started doing them. Plus, most experts count money that is credited to other agencies like the Department of Energy as being part of the US military spending as well, because money that goes toward nuclear power includes the making of radioactive materials to construct nuclear warheads for bombs. The total sum going towards the manufacturing, perfecting, maintaining, storing, and then using of these weapons is probably unknowable in any given year. It’s mind-boggling how great a bookkeeper’s nightmare the US DoD accounting system is and how confusing the actual costs of hidden expenditures (such as nuclear bombs) are.

Is this done on purpose or by accident? You tell me. The CEOs of the military industrial complex that gladly accept US taxpayers’ money don’t discuss it with us—and why should they? It’s their money in their opinion, and it’s their puppets who are foisted upon the American voters every election via a really cool trick called propaganda.

I’m certain you’ve been a victim of propaganda before. The US is well known for its propaganda tactics. If you have ever been told that you had to vote for Blue Candidate because Red Candidate is the devil himself and Blue is marginally better because he doesn’t have a Twitter account, then you’ve probably been a victim of propaganda. Because when the truth is revealed, the voters will discover that both Blue and Red accepted large sums of cash from the very same corporations. The corporations tricked you into thinking somehow these two candidates were actually different when the only meaningful differences were superficial ones.

Taxpayers’ money keeps flowing into the coffers of the military industrial complex. Corporations such as Raytheon, Northrup Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and the like made record profits in 2022. And why is that? Could it be something to do with whatever particular Red or Blue person is in office? Or could it simply be because the US political-economic system is set up to allow our tax money to continually flow into the coffers of military industrial complex machine because corporations in reality own and run our government?

I go with the second conclusion. Why? US government policy toward private corporations hasn’t changed in any significant way since the last century (except to collude more closely with them), so whoever holds office is immaterial. But I’ve analyzed the proxy war propaganda over the past year and concluded that if ordinary Americans actually understood how the Minsk Agreements were violated by the US and NATO in order to start another endless war to generate even more business for the arms manufacturers, investment firms like BlackRock, and Big Oil/LNG, they would have never been supportive of throwing billions of dollars worth of weapons into the hands of a corrupt political puppet whose name appears in the Pandora Papers over and over again.

The U.S. power alliance could very easily have prevented this war with a few low-cost concessions like enshrining Ukrainian neutrality, rolling back its war machinery from Russia’s borders and sincerely pursuing detente with Moscow instead of shredding treaties and ramping up Cold War escalations.  --Caitlin Johnstone, Unprovoked!

Read Caitlin's entire article and click on the links. It's amazing how clear you see things when you blow the dust of propaganda away. Feel better? Let’s repeat the last line of the Serenity Prayer together:

And the wisdom to know the difference.

It’s time to wise up to how you’ve been played. The system is rigged against you if you’re a working class American, in the bottom 90%. The politicians/puppets use propaganda and lies to make you feel like you have some modicum of control when, in reality, you don’t. The corporations of the military industrial complex and Big Oil are pulling the strings and reaping the monetary benefits from sanctions and endless wars that starve, kill, and maim our fellow workers in far away places. The corporations don’t care how blood-stained the reputation of the US becomes as long as they continue to profit from it.

Now that you’re wiser, it’s time to start building up your courage to fight back against these inhuman injustices like the civil rights activists of the 1950s and 60s did. You're going to speak out boldly like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. did, even if does cost you dearly because you know our children deserve better.

You're going to fight like hell for the positive change you want to see. You have to in order to exert some control over what goes on in this world. Stand up so that ordinary, working class, little guys like yourself don’t keep getting lied to and hurt by sociopathic CEOs who will never have our best interests at heart. You realize now to sit on the sidelines and let the corporations win is to sign your own death sentence.

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Seen on Twitter:

The dark blue line after 1973 is theft. They stole that money from their workers. But nothing happened, because capitalism legalizes theft from the working class by the capitalist class. pic.twitter.com/U0t3vQkrST

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) January 5, 2023

The sad thing about this quote is how intelligence agencies convinced the American "Left" to goosestep on behalf of the Military Industrial Complex, the Deep State, Blackrock, The Bank of International Settlements, Big Pharma, World Bank, IMF, Big Tech, etc during the Covid War. pic.twitter.com/mM6jSuyLB3

— Information Retrieval (@ArchaicRevival4) January 5, 2023