Bezos is with the program! He wouldn't be aware that in this wealthy nation some 28.0% Americans are uninsured (US Census). For a huge corporate employer such as Amazon, for example, white Americans make up 55.7% of the work force in the US; yet even these white employers are sadly mistaken if they think advocates of capitalism care about their welfare. That such a system permits others to treat people with indifference is of no concern to those who hire teams of financial professionals to conceal taxable income.
Yet, when I look at the images from the January 6th Insurrection, I see angry white citizens, for the most part, citizens who could easily have surrounded Dr. Martin L. King, Jr., shouting, Go home, N-----! Historically, whites have been encouraged to look at black Americans as the visible culprits of America's downward spiral. Not someone such as Jeff Bezos.
Until George Floyd's murder at the hands of Officer Derek Chauvin, few Americans had bothered to look at the system that incarcerates and kills black Americans. Few still take the time to read a book by a black author; yet most have no problem demanding that books that might make white children feel "uncomfortable" be removed from K-12 libraries .
Americans resign themselves to the dependency between the politicians and the corporate world. Follow the flow of the wealth of this nation. Blacks received the trauma of exploitation and terror but never the wealth their labor garnered to benefit white America.
In December 2021, a CNBC report cited that Joe Manchin's political action committee saw "a surge in corporate contributions." Manchin's donors, according to the report, include, "Lockheed Martin, health insurance companies UnitedHealth Group and Blue Cross Blue Shield, and natural gas company CNX Resources." Verizon and Wells Fargo also donated to Manchin.
Watching one member of the Democrat Party after another talk about conducting a "good" meeting with Manchin, I have to ask, Why would Manchin commit to fundamental change in the way America treats people of color, for example? Here or abroad! Why would he vote to change the modus operandi of his donors? His donors wouldn't appreciate him or contribute to him ever again! What fools Manchin makes of fellow democrats feigning unawareness of his commitment to the corporate world. And why were those democrats willing to string the public along? Do they, too, see their own ambitions in Manchin's "success"? How much money you possess matters in the US!
Why such reverence for greed?
It certainly goes a long way into securing future wealth and controlling the masses of people of color, globally.
Americans are confident in American exceptionalism to secure the flow of oil and whatever minerals necessary and by whatever means in order to remain atop the global pecking order. The man honored on the 17th of January, Dr. Martin L. King, decried America's imperialist policies, but there's a deliberate effort to usurp and twist only those words about a colorblind America rather than an America that is a purveyor of violence. No dream of King's ever imagined that the US Senate, in the 21st century, would continue to grant the Pentagon a budget more than its head or the US Democratic president requested. Yet, there's a $768-billion-dollar goodies package from the senate to the Pentagon. But Manchin and Sinema have a problem with the Build Back Better bill that would greatly improve the lives of citizens who aren't billionaires.
What a windfall for the military industrial complex! The shipbuilding budget alone increases by $5 billion, and Boeing receives money to build fighter planes (NYT) because the US can never have enough fighter planes available for "protecting" allies. Oh, but don't ask that America protect the rights of its black citizens to vote! Don't ask that! Democracy is a jet fighter plane! A drone!
The not-Bernie-Sanders president operates the Trump-era sanctions at the US southern border because America combats invasions of Haitians and Mexicans daily! America is at war! But have no fear: Title 42, the former racist president's immigration policy, "allows U.S. border agents to quickly expel migrants to Mexico or their home country without screening them for asylum" while Haitians are deported back to Haiti by the thousands (CBS News).
But Americans really need to stay clear of socialism? Really?
"Justice for black people," Dr. King once stated, "will not flow into society merely from court decisions nor from fountains of political oratory. Nor will a few token changes quell all the tempestuous yearnings of millions of disadvantaged black people. White America must recognize that justice for black people cannot be achieved without radical changes in the structure of our society" (A Testament of Hope).
The voting-rights bills must pass the senate, but then Americans need to think. Change must come, and it must be radical and fundamental, as King recognized decades ago. Or fascism will take up permanent residency in America.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
3
3
2
