This article talks about us -vs them. There is such a dynamic in our country, but it is not MAGA supporters -vs- liberals.
I am a liberal and my elderly neighbor and I are friends. When I noticed a Trump sign in her yard, she did not become my instant enemy. I told her we are liberals, it didn’t phase her. We are not adversaries.
Quick HistoryThe corporate / consumer dynamic
Let us talk about a dynamic that goes back to the 1800s. Companies with lots of money would buy up all of a sector and overcharge to make more profit. This was a “monopoly” and The Sherman Antitrust Act was passed in 1890, making it the first federal law in the United States to prohibit anti-competitive practices. This was a consumer protection law designed to assure we have a vibrant and competitive system.
Who are we protecting ourselves from? The monied interests that can and will take advantage of us if we do not protect ourselves. For example, they were treating employees like cattle, no safety rules, bad working conditions, long hours and even working children like adults. The people decided to unionize and they literally tried to killed us for doing so. It was common for the police to attack and even kill union strikers. We now protect our right to collectively bargain for real historical reasons. This is another law to protect us from monied interests that will take advantage of us if we let them.
In fact, almost all consumer protection laws are to protect the consumer from them. I do no need legal protection to keep my neighbor lady from attacking my pocketbook. I do need protection from monied interests that profit by using their power and money to extract maximum profit. They are them.
Are all corporations bad? Of course not. I worked for major corporations all my life. This is not an anti-corporate paper, it is a history lesson designed to show the true adversarial relationship between big money and the consumer. The consumer is every human person living in our United States of America.
That was then, this is nowWe have market forces, right?
Question: If we have market forces that will keep them in check, why do we need laws to protect us?
Our health insurance companies are profit making corporations with a primary goal is to maximize profit for the shareholders. The accountants told the board of directors that if they simply stopped covering the ones that are high risk they will make more profit. So they implemented a concept called preexisting conditions, this allowed them to simply not cover or charge such a high price for anyone high risk. So we personally couldn’t get insurance and hence we were at risk of bankruptcy if cancer came back again. Their policy was hurting me and many other consumers for one reason, to maximize profit.
Did “market forces” help in this case?
No, because we can’t just insure ourselves and every insurance company was doing it, similar to a monopoly.
Why are there no preexisting conditions now? Consumer protection. We passed the ACA, which is where we the people told the insurance companies that we are the boss in America. We told them, “no more preexisting conditions and profiteering off the backs of we the people. You will now spend 80% of your gross on patient care or refund the rest to the people”.
That is powerful – yes, we are really the boss!
That is a recent example of how corporations were simply following the accountants recommendation to maximize profit without any consideration for the consumer (us).
Credit card companies require constant regulatory changes because they find new loopholes to extract extra profit from we the people in unethical ways. They were making money on absorbent late fees and other fees as a money making ventures. These fees should be use to recover costs, not as a revenue generation too, we made them stop. They were jacking the due date around to unethically make money off late fees that way. These are just a few of many example of why we have and need consumer protection laws to protect us from “them”.
We have established that the consumer and the large monied interests are the adversarial relationship and not the Republican voter -vs- the Democratic voter.
If anyone is not there yet, I’d love to see what parts of this are incorrect or what is missing that would make this conclusion invalid, so I can adjust accordingly.
The Political DynamicRight and Left – who they support
This is not designed to “slam Republicans”, it is a true assessment of the policies and laws they have passed by taking an objective look. The Republicans in 1890 were the ones that passed the first bill to stop anti-monopoly rules, but things have changed, why?
Currently our political system has two parties that control policy, the Republicans and the Democrats. Based on history and regulations passed in the last 50 years, there is no question that the Republicans have assisted the monied interest. Every consumer protection passed in the last 50 years or more, designed to protect us from big money, was passed by elected Democrats. In fact, the Democrats had to control Congress and the Presidency to pass such protections due to the power and resistance by the Republicans in office.
Who stopped the insurance companies from using preexisting conditions? Who passes laws to keep our credit card companies from unethically extracting fees? Democrats with little to no Republican support.
It is hard to say that without it sounded one sided, so please verify for yourself if you question this.
The Rich Making PolicyWho are the helping?
Once we see the true dynamic of us -vs- them, it is easy to see that when we put “them” in charge of our government, they will strip our protections and slant the government in their favor. They have and will continue to try to reduce the size of government for good reason. Our government is their biggest adversary, the one that impose regulations on them and makes them pay taxes.
When we put big money interests in charge of our government, it is easy to see how they can and will take full advantage of that the same way they do every loophole to maximize profit, even at the expense of the consumer (us).
Here is a prime example, Tesla made almost 11B in profit and paid less than half of one percent in taxes.
Tesla saved half a billion in taxes last year using accelerated depreciation. Tax breaks for executive stock options shaved a quarter billion off the company’s tax bill. Unspecified “U.S. tax credits” were good for $300 million of tax savings.
The argument for this: The rich are job creators, look at all the jobs they created.
That argument is literally saying, look at all the money the working people paid, we can let the working people pay all the tax and the company that made 11 billion in profits from USA consumers alone, can pay zero tax.
I worked for major companies my entire life. The did not give me a job. I provided them decades of my life, worked hard, did things they could not do themselves and made them tons of money. They should be paying some taxes as well, right? No one “gives” us a job, how insulting is that?
How Does This Happen?Why do we vote against our own best interests?
We currently have a media system that is nearly 100% owned and sponsored by corporate power. Even MSNBC, our “liberal” channel is owned and operated by the same people we protect ourselves against. It may seem odd that little old Joe here is putting things into a perceptive you don’t see in the news and that is why. They are not going to tell you that they are too powerful and you need to do something about them. They won’t tell you that unlimited money is eroding our system because much of that unlimited money goes into their pockets for political advertising. That is why we need our own DIY free press and we MUST communicate this concept outside the corporate owned media system that we don’t control anyway.
What is NextReduce our ability to protect outselves
Naturally, even with all the advantages, once we get the right people into office and start passing consumer protection laws, they understand the true power in America is we the people.
The logical and obvious goal is to not only reduce the power of our government, but to instill the idea that the government is inept, wasteful and can not be trusted.
The Heritage Foundation is an organization run by right wing think tanks and is funded by large corporations and the riches in America. They are a powerful organization of “them”. They created a “Mandate for Leadership” and gave it to Reagan, who implemented 60% of their desires in the first year alone. This is when we deregulated the FCC, making way for the 100% corporate owned and sponsored media we have today. We also implemented the trickle down system, where we borrow money and give it to them. Obviously this was a big win for them and a very costly move, as we have 36 trillion in credit card bills to pass on to the kids.
NOTE: 8 trillion of our debt is directly related to Republican policy passed by Congress in Trumps first term. The idea that Democrats are the ones running up the bill is simply a lie. The only ones that have reduced the deficit since Reagan was in office has been the Democrats. Clinton has a surplus due to raising corporate taxes tying reductions to hiring in America and giving benefits, etc. It worked.
The Heritage Foundation now has the second edition of the “Mandate for Leadership”, the same exact name, so Project 2025 is the name of the second edition of this mandate. This one has been given to Trump to reduce the size and power of we the people, strip protections from workers and provide more tax cuts for the rich. But now the plan is to change our federal system so that we can fire long time federal employees and replace them with loyalist that can implement the policy they want, in mass, without all the red tape. So not only do they want all the power and money, now they want complete control of our government and for good reason.
What Can We Do?Is there any way out?
Yes, we are still the boss, but it will take everyone.
Liberals have no power. We have little media that isn’t controlled by “them”. We do not have left wing think tanks building a plan for us to take back our government. We don’t have the power or desire to override congressional law and instill our own people in government to mass change policy to be for the people.
MAGA is our only hope. If they want to save America, it is time to understand the enemy is not liberals, socialist and communists, but the very people that have been lying to you for years.
MAGA is the only one that can tell those they elected, if they continue to implement the Heritage Foundation plan, like Reagan did, you will start voting Democratic. (BLUFF IF YOU HAVE TO).
If MAGA does nothing – our country may never recover. Please help MAGA!