Gibson writes: "It isn't about Republican vs. Democrat anymore. It's about if somebody's end goals and policies are geared towards helping the top 0.1%, or everyone else."
(illustration: Columbia Records)
Plutocrats Deserve Public Scorn
26 April 12
Reader Supported News | Perspective
While sipping on an iced coffee and getting some work done in a Starbucks in the white, conservative, wealthy part of Connecticut, I kept hearing three old, white, conservative, wealthy Connecticut men carrying on about how the Senate doesn't work anymore because the Democrats haven't been able to pass a budget in three years. Unable to concentrate, I set my coffee down, turned to them, and said:
"The Senate doesn't work anymore because the Republicans will filibuster absolutely everything that isn't in lockstep with their plutocratic views."
The Starbucks got really quiet. One guy chided me about how "brainwashed" I was, and asked me how the Kool-Aid tasted. His friend, the more outspoken one, decided to engage.
"The Democrats control the Senate. And they haven't passed a budget in three years," he spat.
"Did you know the Republicans actually stopped the Buffett Rule from even coming to a vote? They wouldn't even allow debate on a bill that would make the top half of the top 1 percent pay the same tax rate as me and you," I said, feeling my blood start to run hot. "If you don't make a million dollars a year, the Republicans don't care about you. Unless you have a lobbyist. Do you have a lobbyist?"
The guy who chided me about drinking Kool-Aid stood up and walked back over to the counter and let his friend fend for himself.
"The Democrats still haven't passed a budget," he continued. "And any bill that comes out of the House just gets thrown to the side."
"That's because the House Republicans put in a clause to build the Keystone XL pipeline in every bill they pass, even if it's something like a resolution commending the kid who won the spelling bee," I retorted.
I felt the eyes of everyone in the Starbucks on me. So I went on the offensive.
"Why are you shilling for these guys, anyway? How many lobbyists do you have?" I asked.
"I don't have any lobbyists," he replied.
"You know GE hired one lobbyist for every three members of Congress in 2010? And that GE got a $3.2 billion tax refund that year instead of paying federal taxes? Think there's a connection there?"
"Corporations don't pay taxes," he said predictably. "If corporate taxes go up, they raise the prices on their goods. The customers pay the corporate taxes."
"No, they don't," I said, laughing. "I'm a small business owner. I have revenue and costs. If my revenue and my costs zero out, then I pay zero taxes. If my revenue exceeds my costs, I pay taxes on those profits. The cost of my service is in no way affected by the taxes I pay. It's like Puff and Biggie said - 'Mo Money, Mo Problems.'"
The hip-hop reference was lost on the guy. "We definitely need to reform the tax code. You know, 47% of Americans don't pay any taxes at all," he said nauseatingly. "We need to make sure everybody pays something."
"You know 83% of the top 100 corporations didn't pay taxes for at least one year over a 7-year period?" I asked him. "The dollar in my pocket is a dollar more than Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and GE all paid in federal taxes since 2008, combined."
The guy's friends all got quiet, watching me with their noses turned up. I continued:
"And that 47% already pays a third of their income in sales, property, payroll and excise taxes. Now you want to tax those people more instead of make millionaires and big corporations pay the same tax rate we already do?"
"You're obviously too brainwashed for me to save," he said. "So I'll close with this: Your generation is already going to pay tens of thousands of dollars because of Obama's debt. And he's going to make the debt hit $20 trillion by 2020. That means we'll have to make cuts of $800 billion a year. Everyone with common sense knows we need to balance the budget with spending cuts and tax increases."
I didn't let him go.
"I totally agree with you. As far as spending cuts go, we can start with ending the wars and the F-35 program. That's $1.5 trillion that hasn't done a thing. Even John McCain says it's wasteful. That's a few hundred billion a year right there. And as far as the tax code is concerned, all you need to do is five things."
"Five things?" he scoffed. "It'll take a lot more than that."
"No, it won't," I said. "First thing - new tax bracket for households making over a million a year."
"That won't make a dent," the guy said.
"Let me finish. That's about $100 billion a year, every year. Next, you put in a 3-cent financial transaction tax on derivatives and other speculative trading. That's $1.5 trillion in ten years. Then you close excessive corporate tax loopholes, and make those guys pay what small businesses pay. That's another $155 billion a year. Then you progressively tax estates worth $5 million on up. Not even $3 million, just five. All that equals $4 trillion in ten years. Know what number five is?"
"What?"
"Use all that new revenue we just gained to reverse all the budget cuts at the state level, and create a massive WPA-style jobs program to cut unemployment in half and fix all of our roads and bridges and schools and parks. And we'd still have a couple trillion left over to put towards the debt. But since most of that debt comes from tax cuts for billionaires and the wars, we won't even have a deficit."
The coffee shop was quiet. The guy's friend was still watching me from the counter.
"Look! I just fixed the economy and it only affected 0.1% of the population!"
The guy's friends left shortly after he did.
Maybe some folks might be critical of me for launching into a sensitive political conversation on a Saturday afternoon at a coffee shop. But the only way to get the GOP (Guardians Of Plutocracy) out of office is to vilify them in public and shame their supporters. It isn't about Republican vs. Democrat anymore. It's about if somebody's end goals and policies are geared towards helping the top 0.1%, or everyone else. We shouldn't be afraid to call people out when we hear them shill for Plutocrats.
And I guarantee you if those guys see me in public again, they'll shift the conversation toward sports.
Carl Gibson, 24, of Lexington, Kentucky, is a spokesman and organizer for US Uncut, a nonviolent, creative, direct-action movement to stop budget cuts by getting corporations to pay their fair share of taxes. He graduated from Morehead State University in 2009 with a B.A. in Journalism before starting the first US Uncut group in Jackson, Mississippi, in February of 2011. Since then, over 20,000 US Uncut activists have carried out more than 300 actions in over 100 cities nationwide. You may contact Carl at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
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Comments
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I wish that questions would all be taxed, because questions are all so taxing to me! lol
All I can suggest is that we gently point them to the real experts, especially the ones who thought they were providing the best of honest agent service in creating financial innovations, at least until they got so far out of hand that they had the opposite affect than originally intended. See http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/business-economy-financial-crisis/money-power-wall-street/introducing-the-frontline-interviews/ especially Terri Duhon (who came up with MBS concepts) and Cathy O'Neil (a Quant who finally realized they were not only ignoring sound risk management principles but actually trying to create more risk for higher returns). It is worth realizing that many of our best and brightest went into the finance industry, and perhaps a third of them have left the carelessly self interested (or outright unethical or even illegal) part of the industry and some are willing to shows us the nuts and bolts of how to reform it. Many others are doing well in different industries that actually produce things beneficial to society (and sleeping better).
Maybe we all need to have experts in "PLAY" help us to learn first how to play (in a kind of retroactive life "re-do") so that we can then bring playful spirit, and/or our (mostly) lost sense of humor to our work, if any of us are lucky enough to have work at all pretty soon, that is! As long as we have a sense of humor maybe we can all laugg about our demise! Bet that would irk the 1% lol
what ARE you talking about?
Thats what the GOP does best, gets poor people to vote against their own interests, by twisting things around and getting them to believe their lies...it truly amazes me!
The problem with rescuing America is too many lazy minds and no consciences -- AND, the sorriest media this side of 1930s Berlin. Nothing short of having the sheriff yank them out of their foreclosed homes, watching their possessions be plundered or go to the dump because they have no place to put them, seeing their kids cold and hungry on the sidewalk -- and hearing that this wouldn't have happened if they'd just been willing to get a job -- well, that might make a difference -- but they'd probably still just blame the "Socialist-Comm ie Libruls."
Your idea about getting Carl's comments on video and on YouTube are great!! Wouldn't it be nice if people were allowed to actually know the truth before voting?
Way to go. Got any other good ideas?
We need some 'Ben Franklin's with a printing press or mimeo machine.
Hey -- the religious right seems to think it works and they even have their comic book newsletter dispensers outside the Walmart.
One doesn't have to be real quick witted and remember all ther stats when on is handing out pamphlets (or putting up posters). Revolutionaries have always done this -- it's the 'conservative' and 'traditional' thing to do. -grin-
http://www.workerseducation.org/
The first duty of any labor organization is the education of the working class.
You can start by looking at Jim Crutchfield's I. W. W. pages.
There will be more at this site later.
----------
Lot's of good stuff at
http://www.workerseducation.org/crutch/
--------------
http://www.workerseducation.org/crutch/pamphlets/cdoffer.html
I. W. W. Pamphlets on CD-ROM
(These are only $12, but small groups can compose and/or make their own for much less, and hand them, or pamphlets, out to people (at demonstrations, teach-ins, or just just on the street).
"The first duty of any labor organization is the education of the working class." I LIKE that slogan!
People with computers may not have the internet, or if they do may not know which sites have the good stuff, or access them.
Electronic pamphlets, on CD or DVD:
Facts and statistics, including data from reliable official agencies such as Congressional Budget Office and Bureau of Labor Statistics
as well as documented data from acknowledged experts and research projects.
Explanations of what words like 'socialist' really mean, and how the economy really works.
Links to informational web sites for news and crash courses (like the ones on rdwolff.com), and some teaching videos, like from Zinn or Chomsky -- videos themselves can be on the disk if there is room.
Music video -- maybe get something from Springsteen like a promotional piece from his new album -- We Take Care of Our Own, perhaps -- see if he is agreeable, or something from a rapper artist.
Game -- simple and fun: shoot down the fascist space invaders or Klondike game with fascists and warmongers playing cards.
Various web sites (especially socialist ones) already have pamphlets and posters, and election fliers, ready to print out.
It annoys me a lot that republicans fire off their lies so fast in discussions on TV, while democrats too often let themselves be shot down, because they don't think fast enough.
Carl Gibson is most impressive. He should definitely give seminars, to democrats.
We don't have anybody like Frank Luntz, (not sure about the spelling of his name) Now he is an evil word twister, who can confuse people, by the way he can make white seem black with his propaganda
Carl Gibson has great ideas, that need to be broadcast.
I am going to print this out, so I have some ammunition when I get into a discussion
And he looks exactly like a younger pudgy version of the guy in the illustration above.
In Paul Ryan's Georgetown speech he released a new mantra -- "end welfare for those who don't need it. He's playing on Clinton's line about "ending welfare as we know it. The problem is that there no one receiving welfare who does not need it because Clinton ended it. But that does not matter. It is a phrase designed to invoke the right wing middle class hatred for the poor. They think poor people are taking all of their money. They simply cannot see the corporate hand in their wallets. Years and years of propaganda slogans have burned neural pathways in their brains so deep and hard that nothing else is processed in their minds. There's no use talking with them.
The sad part is that the Republican types with whom Carl debated are anything other than open-minded or free-thinking. That's the nature of their "conservatism." They cannot stray from their creed that "All Democrats are liberal" and "The liberals are ruining the country." Meanwhile, they are taken blindly down the path by the big-moneyed culprits they love to defend, big business.
So everybody - go for it.
The tax money would benefit EVERYONE with repaired roads and bridges, refurbished schools, renewable energy, for example.
When I hear Romney and Rubio reminisce about their parents working themselves up on their bootstraps, they leave out the inconvenient fact that the marginal tax rates were much higher in that era, and without a doubt were a benefit to the up and coming.
So why have we let these guys pay less than half the tax rates on investment income that not only didn’t do what it was advertised to do, but actually encouraged truly stupid “investment” where the riskier it was, the more money they made (while losing ours). If they were only playing with their own money (and their sucker investors’), I wouldn’t mind too much. They found new ways to risk all our money with near total immunity from failure or civil or legal consequences. We bailed them out, without correcting their idiotic and dangerous behavior, for reason I still fail to comprehend.
I am not against Wall Street at its best, I am against Wall Street gone wild. See http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/business-economy-financial-crisis/money-power-wall-street/introducing-the-frontline-interviews/ for the insiders who can tell us better than anyone else, where it went wrong.
We may need their word twisters on our side to get a better description than "wild." I'm not a fan of such propagandists but I do gaze in wonder at some of their "creativeness." The one that sticks in my mind was when they called the explosion of the Shuttle "Challenger" as an "energetic disassembly." Kind of like they try to soft sell and shift the blame for what their "deregulation" (turning a blind eye to) did to our economy.
I’m not convinced that the 5 things will work. First and foremost, if you take away the ability for those that have to afford their $5M estates, they will quickly quit investing in the rest of the things that provide work for those who don’t have $5M estates. It also assumes that those who don’t have $5M estates would be able to effectively manage any additional income that they are assumed to get. And, third, it assumes (ASS-U-ME) that the government is capable of managing a WPA program efficiently which if they could do that, we wouldn’t have racked up the $20T debt in the first place. Just look at the other programs the government has mismanaged. I think it is more fundamental than that. My list of 5 includes:
1. Teach responsibility in school – that includes the concept of accountability to a higher being. (there is nothing wrong with prayer)
2. Teach stewardship; don’t weight your scales, leave some grain in the fields, always keep a loaf of bread and some wine in the cupboard to share with guests, don’t overindulge but save some grain during years of plenty for the times of fathom and finally, don’t borrow for the borrower is always servant to the lender. - and we know where this nation stands on BORROWING.
3. Teach life skills; farming, agriculture and livestock management; service skills of carpentry and entrepreneurshi p; personal health care and survival tactics; hunting and fishing to include the stewardship of natural and abundant resources; avoid exploitation and alteration of those resources especially water. Laboratory derived fur and meat for example will have unintended consequences – chemical by-products and pollution. God’s manufacturing process is hard to beat and doesn’t pollute. Hard work, I’m talking sweat and exhaustion from labor have benefits of health, fellowship and fruit. Compare this nation of today to the past...how many know how to use tools? How many even change their oil? Change a tire?
4. Teach about the circle of life; we are only here for ~75-100 years; we have a responsibility to “pass it on” presumably in better or as good of shape as we received it – we don’t own anything, it was here when we got it and anything we have will be left behind when we die to include out offspring; cherish the gift of life in fatherhood and motherhood for our offspring will determine the quality of our golden years.
5. Teach respect and self-discipline – “Do unto others as you would have done unto you”; it all comes back in the end and you cannot EAT A COMPUTER OR A SMART PHONE
We should certainly have respect for all creations, and great respect for people working in fields and in food production. and we better protect our water sources, for they are dwindling
But what Carl Gibson mentioned are measures that are doable, and we should work to implement them, for the inequality.... in not just our country but in much of the world....is not sustainable, and could certainly result in revolution.
Didn't Mitch McConnell hint that it really stands for "Guillotine Obama's Presidency"?
Gibson is excellent!
Compared to Gibson's clarity, accuracy, fairness, and directness, Obama's rhetoric about economic justice is entirely wet noodle city -- almost "apologetic" to the 1%.
I'm disgusted with Obama not because he's failed to quickly de-fang America's plutocrats (something that can't be done overnight, admittedly), but because he hasn't even TRIED to organize public support to help him thwart these economic elitists, like FDR did after the Great Depression, with his PASSIONATE speeches and Fireside Chats to the public in the '30's.
Commentator Carl Gibson obviously isn't ready for, let alone interested in, seeking the US Presidency. But at least he has the honesty and moral passion to cut through the GOP's obscene arguments-for-p rivilege, and verbally show-up these crypto monarchists for the greed-demedted, society-ruining pigs that they are.
Obama, on the other hand, apparently considers any such clearly needed moral/rhetorica l challenge to America's pre-Enlightenme nt GOP ghouls to be politically 'impolite.'
Impolite???!!
God help us.....
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m87582&hd=&size=1&l=e
[Also at http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2012_04_01_archive.html and other sites]
A Nation of Morons
by Stephen Lendman
April 26, 2012
Jefferson called an educated citizenry "a vital requisite for our survival as a free people."
Madison warned that "A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy, or, perhaps both."
[...]
And yet it is mainly Republicans who are backing the passage of the "One Subject At A Time" rule (which I support) that would disallow bills that include extraneous provisions as a way to sneak toxic legislation through in omnibus or inappropriately titled bills.
http://www.last.fm/music/Outermost+Strings/_/WALL+ST.+MARCH
"Resist the great temptation
to take more than you need.
Join the Occupation
to end the rule of greed!"
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