Friday, February 24, 2017

Reshuffling The Beneficiary Chairs...

...On The Titanic.

That's what "tax reform" should be referred to, if people were being honest about things. That and the fact that it's not so much a plan, currently, as it is a "bait and switch" tactic.

Oh, they'll throw you a bone, you can be sure of that. The sad part here is not that you won't be getting a bone at all, but rather that the real thing being sold is not your tiny bone, as compared to their big one, but rather the fact that they'll be giving the keys to actually run things to the people who have always been getting the bigger bone.

The way this works is like this: They cut taxes. You get your small bone, they get their big one. And now that the government suddenly has even less revenue to run anything. Guess which things are likely to get cut first. Let's say between, farm subsidies (or any other corporate welfare for that matter), and all of the agencies that watch over what goes on when we have "business as usual?" If you said farm subsidies I wish I had your optimism.

Just the mere fact of parts of the government simply collecting information, and allowing access to it will go away. Let alone a regulatory agency with the power to make organizations comply. And this truly does matter if you value air you can breath, or water you can drink, or batteries you can use, or food you can eat, that won't make you sick, or kill you outright.

And then, certainly, are services that a modern society, worth its salt anyway, would provide to its citizens; like affordable health care; education that not only works, but doesn't put one into permanent wage servitude; a retirement one can count on despite economic uncertainties; or an attitude towards national lands that sees them as more than just unexploited resources; just to name a few off the top of my head.

It is no trivial matter trying to do all of these things: allow people to have a living wage no matter what work they do, meaningful protections for all reasonable aspects of living a healthy life, and allow unlimited profits (which often comes down to what they can make the markets bear, with sufficient control) for those who would risk their accumulated capital to attain same. It is, in fact, quite likely to be virtually impossible for such a mutually beneficial arrangement to occur in Capitalism. That is why, for the most part, it is indeed now a zero sum game. And the powerful have little incentive, as things stand, to want to allow anyone to change things.

Which is why we have to be as clever as we have ever been in finding an alternative we can agree on. An alternative to provide the basis for giving them an incentive they can't refuse. So if you really want to think about occupying something, other than a single prominent street for commerce, think about occupying your own country. And to do that you're going to have to start thinking about using the one tool they can't take away from you; not if enough of us participate. The tool where everybody, and I mean everybody, takes a week off of work. Say a week every other month until they start to listen. Or maybe even a week every month until they listen. Because the real bottom line here is that nothing they have means shit unless they have us, to keep giving little bones to, as we do their work for them.

Think about it. Ask questions. Become more informed. Make a choice and then take action. Peaceful action mind you, but do take action.

Is Trump’s Tax Plan Actually a Windfall for the Richest Americans?





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