Fighting the Oligarchies and the Scissors in their Hands
Let’s take a moment to revisit U.S. income inequality beginning in 1969 during the Vietnam War. In inflation-adjusted dollars referenced to 2020, the average family income then was $59,208. The median was $52,097. Fast forward to 2020, The median family income is now $68,400. This would seem like progress, although relatively modest. It represents an annual increase of about half of 1% compounded over 52 years.
But the average family income is now $97,974, meaning the average family income now approximates six figures. It represents an annual increase of almost 1 percent per year. But most families in our country bring home nowhere near six figures. This tells us something strange is
going on.
While U.S. income inequality exceeds that of all other developed nations, inequality in wealth is even more 43 gregious. The three wealthiest Americans, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett collectively hold more wealth than the bottom 50% of the population or some
160 million people.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/12/02/new-data-show-income-top-01-soared-345-while-bottom-90-stagnated-over-past-40-years.
Adam Smith’s invisible hand seems to be favoring the oligarchs and giving all the rest of us the finger.
Recall the median is the middle. If I make a dollar, my sister makes a dollar, and Warren Buffett makes $10, the middle or the median of our earnings is still one dollar. But the average of our incomes would be $4 dollars per person. ($10+$1+$1)/3) due to Warren Buffett’s disproportionate earnings. When the average is increasing at twice the rate of the median, rest
assured the rich are getting richer. But the rest of us are struggling. Prosperity isn’t trickling down. That rising tide is lifting yachts. The price of real estate is soaring. But our old rowboats and canoes seem to be taking on more water. This creates a problem that reporters aren’t acknowledging. Adam Smith’s invisible hand seems to be favoring the oligarchs and giving all
the rest of us the finger.
If you’re an oligarch, the solution is quite simple. You embrace identity politics and tell my sister I’m the problem. Between Warren Buffett and myself the average male salary is $5.50 per person (($10.00 + $1.00)/2). My sister only makes a dollar. Could be because she is a woman. For every dollar men earn, women make only eighteen cents ($1.00/$5.50 = $0.18). To make her happy, Warren cuts my salary to sixty cents. He splits the difference with my sister, he
keeps half, and she gets half. Warren now makes $10.20. My sister makes $1.20. Next month my sister points out correctly that for every dollar men make, women still don’t even earn a quarter ($1.20/$5.40 = $0.22).
Again, Warren cuts my salary, this time to twenty cents, raises my sister to $1.50. I get fed up, and I quit. My sister figures out she can’t do all of Warren’s work herself. But now between us, we’re only pulling down the $1.50 my sister makes which barely pays the rent on our apartment.
When oligarchs make the rules, they tend to look out for themselves. This is why we need to look out for each other.
I grew up on a street where there were four different religions. There were the skeptical World War 2 veterans, plus Protestants, Catholics, and Jews. Men who’d served in World War 2 had learned to look out for each other. This was something people also taught in Sunday school or Sabbath school. We pledged allegiance to one flag. We were one nation, indivisible. This was
drilled into us daily. This was taught to us in grade school. This was leveraged by brilliant men like Martin Luther King who asked us questions and dreamed dreams, trying to bring us all together.
In his most famous speech, Dr Martin Luther King Jr proclaimed:
“When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the
Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men — yes, black men as well as white men — would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
But then identity politics surfaced in the service of the oligarchs. If white Americans were struggling that was because whites were, well, racist. If other groups were struggling it was because of racist whites. As Amy Chua writes in Political Tribes,
https://www.amazon.com/Political-Tribes-Group-Instinct-Nations/dp/0399562850 “While
Black Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, Jewish Americans and many others
are allowed — indeed encouraged — to feel solidarity and take pride in their racial or ethnic
identity, white Americans have for the last several decades been told they must never, ever, do
so.” It served the oligarchies’ interests having whites treated like a cancer. Scissors People
volunteered to cut them down and send the message.
But this created another problem, the re-emergence of Scissors People on the right. When
everything is racist/rapist/homophobe, then nothing is. The left could not stop crying wolf, and
then a real wolf showed up. Nobody paid too much attention. The wolf cut other people down,
made fun of short people and people with small hands, ridiculed former POWs, called people
“losers,” mocked reporters with deformities, claimed that real men grabbed women by the pussy.
People laughed. The next November they elected the wolf president.
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The unpaid bills of the far left were soon cashed in by Donald Trump. Rocks who were
sick and tired of Scissors People in self-defense elected one as president. Donald Trump
childrenized opponents and refused to deal with those he didn’t like. Routinely, he cut other
people down, fought like a girl, the one thing Rock People were not allowed to do. He cut up
Paper People, tore up regulations, treaties, broke promises, tattered elitists, shredded anyone who
dared to disagree.
Rock People loved him … for a while, until he tore up his own party, fired his
lieutenants, then destroyed them, made fun of people afraid of COVID who wore masks and
called them “pussies,” sponsored rallies without masks where people died later from COVID
they’d contracted at the rally. Then Trump insisted he had just been reelected in a landslide. Fact
check: Map showing Trump landslide based on false report of seized election servers in
Germany (msn.com)
None of the courts saw things his way. Rumors flew in all directions. Those who
disagreed with Trump were now called pussies and not patriots. Men stormed the Capitol in
MAGA hats and chanted for the lynching of Vice President Mike Pence who was perceived to be
a traitor. It was evident that Trump had cancelled everyone he’d worked with. Mike Pence is
done with Trump’s ‘bulls — t’ (msn.com) Rumors flew again that Donald Trump had something
up his sleeve. The Proud Boys “stood down and stood by.” Qanon waited for their moment.
25,000 National Guard Troops were headed toward Washington, and thousands more were
headed toward state capitols with guns.
Nothing happened. Joe Biden was sworn in without a hiccup.
This was a crisis Rahm Immanuel would never dream of wasting. Pundits pondered
whether 74-million Trump voters were terrorists. https://www.independentsentinel.com/74-
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million-voters-painted-as-isis-and-domestic-terrorists/ Now with all the reins of power held by
the Democratic Party, the national media got busy childrenizing if not demonizing nearly half the
voters in America,
Most of these “terrorists” remained locked down in their houses thanks to COVID. Many
were wondering if the Democrats would ever let them out since now the Democrats were
traumatized. Nancy Pelosi was in tears. Nancy Pelosi Tears Up Over Capitol Riots, Shades AOC
on ’60 Minutes’ (tmz.com) Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez claimed Trump supporters were plotting
her assassination. FBI charges Capitol rioter for threat to kill Alexandria Ocasio-
Cortez(usatoday.com). It took Bill Maher, no friend of Trump, to talk some sense into the media
Bill Maher defends Trump supporters: Let’s not confuse ‘5,000’ Capitol rioters with ’74 million’
voters | Fox News Donald Trump had clearly sabotaged the party he was leading. Democrats
now mapped out War on Terror 2. https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-new-domestic-war-on-
terror-is.
So now “Rethuglicans” are terrorists. Witness an overflow of censorship from Silicon
Valley monopolies. Read calls for far more aggressive speech policing, a Washington, D.C.
resembling Baghdad with “Green Zone” complete with checkpoints and perimeters. Listen to
President Joe Biden call for unity while his allies fashion a bill to fight against 74 million
domestic terrorists. Savor the non-stop accusations of “sedition,” “treason,” and “terrorism”
against citizens and elected members of Congress. Note how the meaning of “incitement to
violence” now means any speech that someone finds offensive, buttressed by viral-on-social-
media pleas that we rat out our fellow citizens If You See Something, Say Something® |
Homeland Security (dhs.gov) and demands for a new system of domestic surveillance.
Cui bono? Goes the Latin phrase. To whom is there a benefit? Democrats believe that
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they are winning.
Unfortunately Democrats still don’t understand Scissors People.
Because in Portland, Rose City Antifa (which we’re assured is just a concept) wants
revenge, not against Donald Trump this time, but against Joe Biden.
They vandalized Democratic headquarters, set fire to Biden flags, not Trump flags.
Donald Trump is now a joke that most Americans are tired of. Scissors People now work
overtime to turn us into enemies, a goal with which the oligarchies overseas agree. They enjoy
tearing down our country. On the far left and the alt-right they have been getting into shape as
funds pour in from overseas. We are going to have to fight them. But we will need to work
together. To survive, Paper People and Rock People must be allies.
___________________
DJ Phinney is novelist who writes what he calls Red Car Noir, suspense novels steeped in history we
would often rather forget. Phinney is also a civil and mechanical engineer, a Vietnam-era Air Force
veteran, a Catholic by faith, and an historian in his free time. Politically he is a centrist who subscribes to
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neither party, although he likes Ike, and he really-really likes Harry Truman. www.dennisphinney.com
