I do recognize that I (along with our readers) have a “soap box” that is Cypher Avenue, where you can say basically anything you want. Yet when it comes to politics, I still refrain. Well not today.
Due to the last two presidential election cycles, while at gay “get togethers” or functions, politics were apart of conversations.
For some reason it seemed specific criticism of President Obama was avoided or off limits. Why? I was told by someone at a party…
“Hey I thought your website was cool, but why did you have to bring up Obama? That turned me off right there. I was like man I can’t do your website anymore.”
No objections or rebuttal from me, why? Because I understand everything is not for everybody. There was no real necessity or a need to challenge the person. His computer, he can view what he wants.
I have a suspicion that many feel a public website like Cypher Avenue which caters to gay men of color, needs to just stick with a predetermined set of topics like, sex, dating, HIV/AIDS, down low nonsense, embracing femininity and showing approval for the word queer (sigh).
Well many visitors know we already buck most of the gay trends but many still feel they have to draw the line when it comes to talking about President Barack Obama. I am not going to get on the Pro or Anti Obama bandwagon because I understand the Presidency is really just a small (but yet important) piece of the puzzle. Yes I did vote for Obama because I felt I was voting the lesser of two evils….but I still feel like “why do I have to vote for evil?” No I don’t think of Obama as being evil in the sense he sits in a dark room killing puppies and eating babies, but I think you get my point.
However since I brought his name up let me begin with President Obama.
It reminds me of the character Bonita Bitrell from the 90’s sketch comedy show “In Living Color”, “Nobody better not say nothing bad about Ms. Jenkins”.
In this case it’s, “Nobody better not say nothing bad about My President Obama”.
Regardless of his success record concerning black issues, adult black unemployment is still over 13% and over 30% for black youths, which is the highest over any other group in the US.
The wealth gap between whites and blacks has tripled since Ronald Reagan.
A recent Brandeis University study states white households held a net worth of $265,000 by 2009, eight times more than the median black household’s net worth of just $28,500.
In 2010 the Census Bureau reported that the median white household held a net worth of $110,729, while the median black household held a net worth of just $4,995, a disparity even greater than that reported by the Brandeis University study. This was in part because the housing crisis hit minority homeowners hardest of all, with blacks and Latinos almost twice as likely to have been affected by foreclosure as whites.
I could also point out details concerning the disproportionate rising numbers of blacks in jails or prisons, blacks suffering from diseases and chronic illnesses, blacks being born out of wedlock and so on and so forth but I really don’t feel a need to do so.
To sum it up; from Ronald Reagan to George Bush Sr to Bill Clinton to George Bush Jr, and now under President Barack Obama; a large segment of the black experience have gotten worse. Not better. That is not to say minority groups have not made tremendous strides (hello we have a bi-racial president) but yet these numbers (and this economy) are still here.
But guess what? All of what you just read is still really just a distraction.
These statistical informational nuggets are just a few of the tools media use as diversions. They are used to keep you thinking on the surface by being presented in easily digestible segments. Just enough so you can be momentarily saddened or outraged until the next thing comes along to make you momentarily saddened or outraged.
Topics like racism, gay marriage, abortion, sexuality, religion, sexism, crime, wealth, and poverty are marginalized and used as wedge issues to persuade us to choose sides. If you are not for than you must be against. There is no gray area.
There always has to be a boogey man to be afraid of or an “other” to be against. We are constantly reminded how we have to ban together, be strong and vigilant to win against the others…and of course our side must always win.
We are in constant competitive modes that are driven by beliefs, passions, and emotions. These wedge issues become “moral grounds” politicians stand on when campaigning and ideals they promise to uphold. They become issues that the opposing sides use to cast their votes during elections.
Public relation think tanks instruct campaigns and media how to carefully craft words, phrases, slogans and sentence structures as a way to sway opinions and judgments through propaganda.
Occupiers and invaders become liberators and freedom fighters. Religious zealots and televangelist become spiritual advisors and spiritual leaders. Republicans became Conservatives, Neo Conservatives, and Fiscal Conservatives. Democrats not wanting to be labeled “liberal hippie tree huggers” are now Progressives. The Left says “gun control” while the Right says “second amendment advocate”. Ant- Abortionist becomes Right to Life Advocates and so on.
There are many who recognize and can see through these strategies or who are not distracted by boogey men, pop culture, reality TV and celebrity worship. When these individuals critically think or ask questions about the information they are being feed, they are labeled unpatriotic or Conspiracy Theorists.
The Conspiracy Theorist label is mentioned with a raised eyebrow when describing anyone that is against the mainstream narrative of “what you need to be paying attention to, because we say it’s important”. With a nod and a wink you are basically told that you should never take these individuals seriously because they are not on your intellectual informed level.
All the while, far bigger and nefarious entities sit back and enjoy the spoils of our delusion. At the same time we are distracted, the machine that has been created to keep the populaces misinformed, clashing and confused, has now become self-automated.
We are becoming individuals of nations with ever increasing personal debt while career politicians, lobbyist, corporations, bankers and executes become richer. Most of them are simply born into their fortunes while many of them gain and increase their wealth by theft, capitalist greed and simply being the owners of our debts.
Everyday citizens swim and drown in debt. Home loans, student loans, car loans, credit cards, etc. We have become accustomed to existing and living in debt. We are essentially slaves
In the United States, the Federal Reserve is the private institution that rules all. Despite its name, the Federal Reserve is not run by the Federal Government of the US. The Fed is privately owned and its shareholders are private Big Banks.
The Fed actually creates and lends money to our Federal Government. This means the US government is in debt to a private powerful organization run by powerful banking institutions that are run by powerful individuals. The US government is owned by the banks that are members of the Federal Reserve System. No one on the outside of Federal Reserve know how many shares each Big Bank holds or owns of the system.
This information has never been disclosed to the public and the Fed is free from government oversight and auditing.
This is because financial contributions through lobbyist and think tank research organizations have found their way into the hands of politicians who in turn do not pass any regulations to police the Federal Reserve.
Donor money exchanges hands to pay for campaign contributions and increases the personal wealth of our politicians. They are also given inside trade information from Big Bank and Wall Street executives that allow them to buy and sell stock and commodities which also increase their wealth.
On any given day, we tune into corporate owned news channels to listen to a bunch of millionaires debate other millionaires about what is best for the middle class. Why are the majority of politicians millionaires? Some of them are millionaire executives who leave billion dollar corporations to run for office to be “civil servants” to the middle class and poor.
Let me give you two quick examples of how the media plays a direct role in boosting profits for the politicians and the corporations they support.
We have been preached to by the media for years that the swine flu or bird flu is gonna get you. The only way to survive is to buy and use Tamiflu. The company that produced Tamiflu (Gilead Sciences) has stock that is held by the former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. President Bush said the epidemic could infect and kill millions. To prepare for the coming pandemic the US ordered 20 million doses for about $2 billion dollars. To date the bird flu has killed less than 10,000 people worldwide. A lot less than the 2 to 150 million people we were told who were going to die.
Another example. Remember the Christmas Underwear Bomber in 2009? Well after this foiled plot, former U.S. Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff went on a media blitz advising we need stronger security at airport screenings. He recommended new technology called “body scanners” at security check points. The US government was the first to purchase these body scanners from a company called Rapiscan. The TSA then went onto buy over 300 body scanners with over $118 million dollars in stimulus funds. What the media and Michael Chertoff failed to mention was that Chertoff’s consulting company “The Chertoff Group” represents Rapiscan.
Rapiscan has upped its lobbying expenditures in recent years, spending over $271,500 in 2010 compared to $80,000 five years previous. As a measure of the firm’s influence, one of the honored guests accompanying President Obama on a trip to India was Deepak Chopra, the president and CEO of OSI Systems, which owns Rapiscan. India installed the scanners at its airports in the wake of the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
Understand the average congressman makes about $165,000 a year with free tax payer sponsored (socialist) health care insurance. For their salary they work about 2-3 days per week for about 110 to 250 days per year (this number does fluctuate from year to year). A sweet deal if you ask me. Also understand that these 2-3 days per week are not even full 8 hour work days for these congressmen who also have no term limits.
Most of these career politicians time is spent campaigning and raising money to get elected (re-elected) to basically do nothing but prop up corporations, support Big Banks which in turn backs the Federal Reserve.
No wonder when they win the office they were running for they pass laws that end up benefiting corporations (many in the industry they worked for) and banks. When they leave office or lose an election they then in turn become lobbyist or work for special interest groups who funnel money to up and coming or seating politicians and guide them on presenting bills to congress. Many bills have actually been drafted and composed by the special interest groups that the lobbyist (many of whom are former corporate executives and politicians) represent.
So the politicians you passionately go to the polls to vote for every election cycle are in debt to the Federal Reserve, corporations, banks and special interest groups who have contributed to their campaigns and assisted with their personal financial growth. Many of these people become politicians not to make a difference to the state or country but to increase their personal wealth.
Through this process governments are controlled. The governing body that you elect essentially gets richer, while working shorter hours and half of the time than most Americans. A politician’s party affiliation (dem or repub), gender, sexual orientation, race or age is irrelevant to the Federal Reserve. They can care less of who wins.
Do you ever wonder why every time local and federal governments are facing a budget crisis the first thing they want to cut is education? These are the same governments that tell us our children are our most precious resource and we have to make sure we are on a competitive playing field with the rest of the industrialized world. The same industrialized world the US always falls behind when it comes to education.
With holding, censoring and altering information is a great way to control a populace. What better way to begin the acclamation process then to create environments where the learning is stunted and children dumbed down? Non critically thinking children become non critically thinking adults. An uninformed citizenry supports and continues to vote for this broken system.
Its thought-provoking how we have billions of dollars to give to other countries as “aide” but we are trillions of dollars in debt but yet education and other social programs are the first things that are cut.
Why is it we have yet to build high speed rails systems that can transport Americans from coast to coast like in other advanced industrialized countries across Europe and Asia? These rail systems could save money in transportation cost and lessen our carbon foot print and dependency on foreign oil but yet we continue to pay astronomical gas prices that are set by oil speculators and the Billionaires Boys club that is OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries).
How was it that Obama could start a war with Libya that cost the American taxpayers an estimated $896 million in 2011, but we don’t have enough money to bail out struggling home owners who are / were underwater or facing foreclosure.
Where does ALL this aide and war money come from?
Even though the financial crisis started under Bush Jr’s administration (The first bail out was in his last term) it continues under the Obama administration. I find it fascinating that still to this day, not one Big Bank or Wall Street Executive has faced prosecution for mismanaging and gambling with trillions or tax payer dollars that were lost. There has even been mishandling of many of the bank bail-out resources. In all, there are trillions of dollars that can’t be located.
Maybe no one from Wall Street has faced or will face prosecution because in 2008 and in 2012 Wall Street spent over $340,000,000 million dollars on campaign contributions…half going to the Obama campaign.
Obama talks about getting tough with Big Banks and having the SEC be the “watch dog”. So why is it that all of Obama’s appointments have links to Big Banks? The same big banks that are private share holders of The Federal Reserve… and none of them have “gotten tough” on Wall Street once they were appointed:
- Before Obama was sworn in for his first term, he nominated Tim Geithner and Larry Summers to the top economic posts … two of the men most responsible for causing the worst economic crisis this country has seen since the Great Depression.
- He appointed as head of the derivatives-regulating CFTC Gary Gensler … one of the guys most responsible for allowing derivatives to go unregulated and to crash the economy.
- Obama replaced Summers with Wall Street insider Gene Sperling, and appointed JP Morgan exec William Daley as his chief of staff.
- Obama replaced Geithner with his chief of staff … Wall Street insider Jack Lew
- He named as the head of the Department of Justice a former lawyer for the big banks, who brought in other lawyers for big banks to oversee Wall Street.
- In other words, Obama – like Bush – has let Wall Street get away with crime because he has appointed government officials who are in bed with Wall Street.
Obama may be black but he is still a politician.
Your countries and nations belong to you. Those who you elect are your servants and you employ them. Asking questions of your servants and offering criticism does not amount to blasphemy.
If you want to walk the path to gain the real truth, then follow the money.
But wait, can you handle the truth?
Wow…you really broke this down…how has this article gotten NO comments? I have never fallen for the Democrat vs. Republican stuff either. To be honest, I wasn’t enamored by Obama when he was elected either, like most blacks were.