Sunday, October 11, 2015

Republicans In Disarray? Not to Worry.

The Republicans seem to be having a family feud. Fortunately for the very rich, it will not matter. The Redemopublicrats have things well in hand.

We Americans have two simple lessons to learn.

Lesson 1: Money is not wealth.

Lesson 2: The class war is over.

That’s it. That’s the end of this blog entry. You can stop reading now. But if for some reason you need convincing, I’ve added a little more. Here is the rest of it:

Lesson 1: Money is not wealth; those who control money don’t control “wealth”; they control you.

Money is merely the symbol of wealth. It is meant to circulate among those who work for a living. Redemopublicrats want you to believe it is synonymous with wealth. They want you to respect those who remove money from circulation and hoard it.

Nowadays, most of the extravagantly rich don’t do hard work at all. Many have few talents and fewer skills. Many have next to none. When a rich man’s water heater goes out, he doesn’t normally grab a wrench and go to work on it, partly because he doesn’t have to, but mostly because he can’t. He may not even know how to use a wrench.

But rich people also don’t want you to grab a wrench and start fixing your own water heater. In fact, the rich man will remind you that, unless you’re a plumber, you really have no right to mess around with your own water heater. There are state and county and city codes and rules and regulations that require a licensed plumber to fix water heaters in most areas of the country. (The rich man has had a hand in creating these “rules.”) And when you defy his codes and rules and grab your wrench and successfully fix your own water heater, the rich man feels cheated.

He owns stock in financial firms that use his money to purchase indentured servitude from plumbers. Another way to put it: Rich people collect profits from loans issued to those plumbers, who earn their money through hard work.

The knowledge and hard work that gets things done is the real wealth of this nation. Money is merely a symbol of that work. You pay for such work, not with wealth, but with symbols of your wealth. Your wealth, your real wealth, is the knowledge and skills you have developed and use to produce materials and services for yourself and others.

Capitalism is a barter system, through which real wealth of all kinds is exchanged throughout society. Most Americans, be they mechanics, carpenters, electricians, doctors, lawyers, or plumbers, work very hard to obtain money to give to fellow mechanics, carpenters, electricians, doctors, lawyers, and plumbers.

That’s the way it’s supposed to be.

But those who control financial institutions don’t work very hard. They pay others to run those institutions; they collect interest on debts. They buy low and sell high, and in this way, they drain money from the system. They remove dollars, the symbols of wealth, and hoard them. Money collected as interest on what the plumber borrows from the rich man’s financial institutions is not necessarily essential to the rich man’s life. The filthy rich already have everything they need and almost everything they want. So these symbols of other people’s hard work are just stored away in Swiss bank accounts, or in less sinister, domestic tax-sheltered accounts.

Working people, all of us working people, including the aforementioned plumber (I have this overwhelming urge to call him “Joe.” Where did that come from?) are taken for fools in this country. I’m sorry to say it. Most of us feel a sense of freedom in this nation. Most of us feel we’re doing what we want to do, and we certainly don’t think we’re fools. And I’m sorry, but Redemopublicrats see us as fools.

Of course, the filthy rich want this redistribution of wealth to continue. They don’t need more money, but they want it anyway. That is why they resent you doing your own plumbing. When you fix your own water heater, you produce true wealth by utilizing your true wealth, the knowledge and skills you possess. The filthy rich believe they have rights to a piece of that action. They have purchased indentured servitude from Joe the Plumber and others (sorry – just had to do that) to have those tasks done, and they want more of the money that can be drained from the endeavors of those indentured servants. They believe it is one of their entitlements.

Redems believe strongly in entitlements, their entitlements, that is. They are even so bold as to say it out loud: “What wealth we have, we should be able to keep,” they are fond of saying.

But we must all remember Lesson 1: What they have is not real wealth; it is money, and it has not been obtained legitimately (lawfully, yes, but not legitimately). What they have are symbols of other people’s wealth, which they have drained from the system. They who have the money already, and the power and influence that go with it, have learned the art of taking more money from you, and they continue doing so. You also must remember that true wealth, which feeds and clothes us all, you already have. The symbols of your work, unfortunately, have largely been drained out of circulation.

The filthy rich don’t deserve our respect, but they want it anyway. That’s not the way it should be.

Now let’s take a closer look at Lesson 2.

Lesson 2: The class war is over. It has been fought and won.

Democrats, Republicans, and many others often spout off about how naughty it is for people like me to express these sentiments. They warn us all about the terrors of an impending class war.

I have nothing against Democrats who make such accusations against me. They don’t know what they’re saying. Democrats are not responsible for the current state of the country, and I do not hold them responsible.

Nevertheless, some want you to think that Democratic policies have limited the opportunities of the middle class over the past two generations by taxing them heavily and wasting the funds on lazy, poor, undeserving people. While condemning the “redistribution of wealth,” the true culprits (who have already been named) engage in the redistribution of wealth themselves by draining money (the symbol of wealth, remember) and hoarding it, removing it from circulation, thus stifling economic growth. They are also the very people responsible for easing legal restrictions on such practices. While accusing others of living off government entitlements, they claim the right to drain and hoard money as their “entitlement.” These people are not Democrats. Real Democrats would be ashamed of doing such things.

I have nothing against Republicans who accuse me of starting a class war. Republicans are not responsible for the current state of the country.

Some want you to think that Republican policies have trampled the middle class over the past two generations by chipping away at your health plans and pensions, wasting it on high risk investments, and reducing tax obligations of industry and business toward the common good, thus increasing profit margins of big business while stifling wage growth. Many politicians and people of influence have, in fact, been purposefully doing so over that time, but not Republicans.

True Republicans want everyone to prosper in a free economy. They want poor people to get less poor. They want the working poor to lift themselves into the middle class. They want members of the middle class to become rich, and even play golf with some of them. Real Republicans would be ashamed of purposefully draining dollars out of circulation.

But Redemopublicrats only smile at such nonsense. They scoff at the notion of middle income earners playing golf with them.

Redemopublicrats have already fought and won the class war. It’s over. They fought the class war for several generations. I’m not starting anything. I’m only informing you of something that has been going on for a long time. The class war has been fought. They’ve beaten us. We don’t have functional labor unions anymore. Our health and retirement benefits are just about gone. But still, they fight. They’re starting to chip away at Social Security and Medicare now.

Some Redems call themselves Democrats. They preach the party line, about raising taxes on the rich and helping the poor. But they don’t really believe what they’re saying. When “push comes to shove,” they will find ways to excuse themselves from supporting such nonsense.

Some Redems call themselves Republicans. They are fond of saying, “Better to give you a hand up than a hand out,” meaning, it is better to give people the opportunity to control their lives and keep their wealth than to put them on food stamps. But they know better. They know that real prosperity can only be enjoyed by an oligarchy. When “push comes to shove,” they will make certain that wages remain low, and only the rich are allowed to obtain real power to rise to the top.

You see, Redemopublicrats know that many members of the middle income and working poor enjoy being active and busy. As I’ve already stated, they take such people for fools, and Redems are happy to let fools feel happy while producing wealth for the oligarchy.

Well then, can you let the fools have large wages and take time off to spend with family and enjoy the comforts those wages might provide? No. Better to give them “more jobs,” jobs that pay minimum wages or less; then you can give them “opportunities” to take multiple part-time jobs, and they can be forced to work extensive hours without having to pay them time and half for anything over forty hours a week.

Redemopublicrats know that there’s a balancing trick to it all. You can’t deprive the working poor fools and middle class fools entirely; best to keep their wages just a little above stagnation. Best to let their lot in life improve in extremely small increments, preferably small enough that they all but disappear with inflation.

That’s the way it is. And don’t you think for a moment that the way it is comes to us by accident. A segment of society with power, influence, and dollars, are guiding and directing policies to maintain it.

Occasionally, one of the Redems might develop a guilty conscience over all the money being drained and hoarded from 90% of the population. She or he might want to relax the vacuuming of it away from the producers of wealth and allow more to remain in circulation among those who labor so hard for it. You could cut ridiculous interest charges, overdraft fees, ATM fees, or pay a half percent more in taxes while relaxing the tax burden on the rest of the country, if for no other reason than to ease the guilty conscience just a little. But most of those who hoard and hide their dollars (and call it “their wealth”) will insist that they keep a tight rein on the fools, and they will proclaim their “right” to do so.

Nowadays, the "class war" is usually just such a little skirmish among the Redems, brought on by some weird pity attack one or more of them is having, or by some idiots who want to make a big power grab. That’s what’s happening among the Republican leaders. What you're witnessing among them is all that remains of the so-called "class war."


But never fear. Cooler heads normally prevail. Republican disarray will eventually fade. And even if Republicans lose control of Congress and the Presidency, the Democrats will be in, and that will matter for nothing. The Redemopublicrats, who control all political matters, will prevail. There will be no class war. The ship of state will continue on its way, no major course corrections required. And friends reassuring one another over a round of golf and cocktails will soothe the shame of it.