It was with a raised eyebrow greeting that I heard of Barack's "Job Summit" along with the word, "bullshit." More stage show, so "they" can appear as if 1. They care, and 2. They're doing something pragmatic, let alone relevant.If anyone believes that something with teeth and traction emerges from this taxpayer funded way off Broadway show, I'm setting the over/unders at 2 years and let's be generous; let's say they employ 10% of the real number of (approximately) 20% under & unemployed,(~*~) including those who have fallen out of the system and those who've just given up. Now, I don't know what that number is, and maybe no one really does, but if we say there's 300 million here, then it's 60 million and 10% of that is 6 million jobs. Anyway, I have such faith in the ability of politicians and the American System's abilities to only really work for the elites, that I'll give 4 to 1 on the bet. If anyone's serious, closing's a week from now.
This should also illustrate something to the very vocal critics of the government and politicians, from the high, such as Peter Schiff, to the low, such as certain friends of mine who subscribe to the "government just mucks up everything" because they're idiots, incompetent, etc., etc. etc.
But this is yet again looking through the wrong end of the telescope; it's just a matter of perspective. I actually think government is too efficient. People need to step away from how events boil down to themselves and look at the effects in the world around them; hey, news flash, but EM08 didn't happen by accident, and that includes the bailouts without stipulations. Bailouts, lest we forget, that happened really, really fast and efficiently and that went against public consensus. Sounds pretty efficient to me - for elites.
For starters, there's my wheel house; conglomeration/concentration. Despite anti-compete/trust laws, elite money interests are conglomerated everywhere in America; oil, healthcare, mass media, autos, insurance, cell phones, retailing (with the largest conglomerate in the world), food production, electricity, water....
Then there's the American System's great facility at going after "the bad guys" - the real bad guys. Remember, I agree with Frank Luntz and marketers even before him who, in turn, was/were before Tom Friedman who is currently running around saying, "You name something, you own it." In this next example of the American System's efficiency, look at how it effectively eliminates or minimalizes counter views, again, from high to low. Look at the methods, appropriate again, from high to low. Eliot Spitzer, who had AIG (his heat was a huge factor in nailing Hank Greenberg) and investment banks in his sites, is taken out by the "sex scandal" bullet, while Dick Cheney prospered. Cheney, who has clear conflicts of interest and even treason following his sluglike slime trail in the form of the Plame Affair.
And right on time, on the "low" level, it's the 40th Anniversary of the assassination of Chi-town BPP Chairman Fred Hampton, as hard, revolutionary and charismatic as you wanna be. That cat was as electrifying as Malcolm, he was that bad. As is said by Caine about O-Dog in the Hughes Bros. Menace II Society, "He's America's worst nightmare; a nigga that don't give a fuck." (I of course wouldn't say worst; that's reserved for the devils, but, you know...) Hampton didn't give a fuck, but in this case it was what uncle scam thought. So of course, uncle scam couldn't have that, and basically bought off an informant - I won't mention the sucker by name cause he's not worth it - in order to get the layout of Hampton's apartment. At that point Hampton was just bum rushed in his own bed with his 8 month pregnant mother of his unborn son next to him (she survived) and assassinated him in cold blood! Of course, the spin afterwards was that it was instigated by Hampton, despite overwhelming forensics to the contrary, such as 90 shots going in and one that was fired by presumably Hampton's bodyguard straight up. By the way, among the rounds, some of it was machine gun fire.
Then of course post their cold blooded murder, uncle scam lied about everything, stating the "viciousness of the Black Panthers" and how the popo was basically reacting to Hampton's aggressiveness. Just remember that bullet ratio of 90 to 1.
Better than I is a word from my fellow American to put this "high and low" point in order; don't know his name, but I want to praise him. I was listening to some of NPR's take on the Job Summit, and the usual roundelay of experts from right and left. But then, the clouds parted and the sun broke through in the form of taking it to the streets with some "man on the street" takes.
The gem was what sounded like coming from an older black brother, and I paraphrase:
When the banks cried out that they needed help, they went ahead and gave them billions real fast. But now that there're millions of people out of work, they wanna talk about it.
This is the EM08 comment of the year, if you ask me.
=======================
(~*~) Let's also be honest - at least - and admit to ourselves that if the real under/unemployment numbers are near 20%, for black and brown peeps it's way higher.
In other words, a recession for all is a depression for people of color.
