The Bought and Paid For Black Misleadership Class and the Neutraization of Black Politics

Glen Ford, creator of Black Agenda Report, who so often writes about the "Obama delusional state", where Black politics has been essentially neutralized, presented “The Black Misleadership Class Versus the Movement and its Legacy," to friends of Black Agenda Report gathered at New York City’s historic Riverside Church to celebrate the publication’s 7th anniversary on Friday, October 18.

The "Black Mis-Leadership Class", according to Glen Ford, "sees its own personal financial and social interests as being synonymous with the progress of black people as a whole. This class does not seek transformation of society, it seeks only their own elevation within the existing structures. The rest of Black Amereica,, as far as they're concerned, is supposed to applaud their individual success no matter what is actually happening to the masses of black people at the bottom. It is the politics of putting black faces in high places and to hell with those of us stuck at the bottom, or those of us who are below the bottom in the U.S. prison gulag."

Ford used the examples of rising political star, Cory Booker and already established political star President Barack Obama, who, in reality, are both front men for capital, front men for "the man" and front men for the empire, to illustrate the inherent danger of the black establishment to the American black population. What danger? The disastrous consequences that will result if these self-serving politicians succeed--and it appears as if they most certainly are-- at eliminating the mass movement of African Americans who traditionally acted as a "countervailing force to the power of capital," becoming even more influential internally in Black America, leaving "little hope of effective progressive resistance to the rule of Wall Street, its servants in government, and for peace."

“Has the fake-progressive, fake-liberal and in fact deeply conservative FTBP not been granted far too much of a pass on the power-friendly and authoritarian content of his character by those who have been bamboozled into thinking there was something inherently and magically progressive, egalitarian, and democratic about the initially and outwardly startling fact of a black family entering the White House in the land of chattel slavery? As some of us on the Left said from the beginning of Obama’s celebrity, the real story behind the Obama phenomenon has been the ruling class playing the race card in a different way than in King’s time, flipping it, so to speak – a winning strategy for the Democrats at the national level in the post-Civil Rights era, when changing demographics and the more superficial victories of the Civil Rights Movement have made victory possible for nonwhite candidates in national elections. -- Paul Street

Martin Luther King, Jr. is, undoubtedly, rolling in his grave, ironically,  at the election of the first "Black" President, who has managed to crush MLK's dream of:

“...forcing America to face all its interrelated flaws – racism, poverty, militarism, and materialism. It is exposing evils that are rooted deeply in the whole structure of out society. It reveals systemic rather than superficial flaws and suggests that radical reconstruction society of society itself is the real issue to be faced.”

Going "Beyond Obama" requires successfully passing through and politically defeating that ancient black American political current that holds that achieving the maximum number of black faces in high places is thee root to black progress, to black upward mobility, to black nirvana."



Links:

Black is Back Coalition

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Most of Unemployed No Longer Receiving Benefits Yet Can’t Get Employed Unless Already Employed

Currently, America's unemployed are no longer receiving unemployment benefits.  Moreover, nearly two million out-of-work Americans will be cut off from federal unemployment insurance in January alone unless Congress renews the programs before they expire on December 31st, according to a recent report from the National Employment Law Project (NELP), and more than six million could face premature cut-off over the course of 2012.

Early last year, 75 percent were receiving checks. The figure is now 48 percent - a shift that points to a growing crisis of long-term unemployment. Nearly one-third of America's 14 million unemployed have had no job for a year or more.

Congress is expected to decide by year's end whether to continue providing emergency unemployment benefits for up to 99 weeks in the hardest-hit states. If the emergency benefits expire, the proportion of the unemployed receiving aid would fall further.

The ranks of the poor would also rise. The Census Bureau says unemployment benefits kept 3.2 million people from slipping into poverty last year. It defines poverty as annual income below $22,314 for a family of four.

Here's the kicker: Some businesses and recruitment firms are telling would-be job seekers that they can’t get a job unless they already have a job.

Links:


Legislation to renew federal unemployment insurance for 2012 has been introduced in U.S. House and Senate

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Despite Record Level Poverty, Soaring Food Prices, Food Stamps on the Chopping Block.

Despite soaring food prices (double the core inflation rate), due mostly to excessive speculation because of a deregulated agricultural commodity derivatives markets; rapidly rising poverty rates, and steady unemployment numbers, Congress is calling for dramatic cuts to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the food stamp program, regardless of the fact that for every $1 spent on food stamps, $1.79 is made.

According to US Department of Agriculture, since December 2008, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has set records, every month, except one. August, 2011, the last month reported, was no exception, as it has set another record for the number of Americans - 45.8 million - receiving food stamps, a figure  1.1% higher than the previous month and 8.1% more than a year earlier, with Texas and California leading the pack.

Household participation in SNAP is climbing so steadily that it has far surpassed, even the peak reached after the fallout of hurricane Katrina.

"The slow economic strangulation of millions of middle-class Americans started long before the Great Recession, which merely exacerbated the “personal recession” that ordinary Americans had been suffering for years." -- Edward Luce in a Financial Times article.

Meanwhile, the incomes of the top 1 per cent have more than tripled.
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Sacrificing Real People to Boost an Illusion.

Despite Warren Buffet's huge $5 billion vote of "confidence" in Bank of America, the "too big to fail" institution is slashing 30,000 jobs - after it's already cut 6,000 jobs - in an effort to reverse a crisis of confidence in its investors. It's the single largest job reduction by a US company this year, since the post office cut 30,000 jobs, last year, since General Motors cut 47,000 jobs in 2009. The cuts which effect Bank of America's consumer businesses represent 10% of South Carolina's work force.  This year, when the real unemployment rate is over 20%.

Not to mention the poverty rate in America is rapidly increasing, especially for children under 18. And middle class wealth is falling. 

The government draws the line of poverety at an income of $22,314 a year for a family of four and $11,139 for an individual.  Oh, and Merck is also cutting 13,000 jobs. So, boosting investor confidence? In what? The only thing I can think of is that the uber rich' will continue to get uber uber rich. Because that's the only segment of the population that is benefitting.

Of course, this is nothing new. Banks and corporations often slash jobs in order to boost confidence, boost their bottom line, and whether we want to face it or not, boost the profits in order to line the already lined pockets of the powers behind these institutions. The results - the rich getting richer by the day - prove that this is true.

But isn't there something inherently wrong with a system that sacrifices its people, real people, for an illusion? For excessive profit? To maintain institutions that are too big to fail? Because, after all, confidence is not real. Confidence is often misleading and not congruent with reality, and that often leads to delusion and deception. In fact, over-confidence inflated the housing bubbles that burst in 2008, bringing our economy to its knees. And don't kid yourself, there are a few more bubbles yet to burst. Still, we're willing to sacrifice real people in order to create the illusion that everything is just fine...when, everyday, it seems, it gets worse and worse.

Then, there is the problem that if Bank of America collapses, there may not be enough money in the FDIC to cover the losses that will occur. That's right. Bank of America just might collapse the FDIC. In August, the FDIC rejected Bank of America's mortgage accord because it doesn't have enough money information to evaluate the settlement.

And I thought this was interesting. Adulos Huxley, from zerohedge posted a Goldman Sachs Case Study that may or may not predict

Buffett branding is just a first line of defense in the rescue plan.

9/15/2008 | GS=$131 | Lehman Bros files for Ch. 11

9/16/2008 | GS=$129 | AIG bailed out

9/23/2008 | GS=$121 | Buffett buys $5B of GS @ $115/share (under market)

10/3/2008 | GS=$124 | TARP made into law

10/28/2008 | GS=$91 | US Treasury buys $10B of GS @ $122.9/share (over market)

11/21/2008 | GS=$47.41 | low

11/24/2008 | GS=$65 | QE 1 begins; Fed buys MBS

For Banksters of America, we can expect same order of bailouts about a month apart with BAC falling 20-30% each interval:

8/25/2011 Buffett (private deal)

9/23/2011 US Treasury (federal)

10/28/2011 QE 3 (international overlord)

It does make one wonder why such a savvy investor like Buffet would invest $5 billion into what appears to be a powderkeg of debt.

Links:

Bankrate.com
Poverty Call to Conscience Tour

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We the Servants of the Fed's Multi-Trillion Bailout.

Very recently, it was revealed that the Federal Reserve not only paid out trillions of dollars to Wall Street and the American elite, but they included the international elite as well. 

"The financial crisis stretched even farther across the economy than many had realized, as new disclosures show the Federal Reserve rushed trillions of dollars in emergency aid not just to Wall Street but also to motorcycle makers, telecom firms and foreign-owned banks in 2008 and 2009."

Meanwhile,  in the rest of the United States, where we the people reside, the prices of basic necessities - food, energy, and healthcare - continues to rise, as about 2 million Americans are set to lose their unemployment in December (despite proof that unemployment insurance pays off in more ways the one) and millions more will start the new year with less income due to cut-backs in state and federal government spending, underemployment, frozen wages, and frozen Social Security cost of living adjustments (COLA) which have not kept up with inflation for years as it is.

So, the transfer of wealth continues, just as,  unemployment rates, which have remained stubbornly high, since the economy crashed in 2008, continue. It's fairly safe to say that unemployment is a chronic and deep-rooted problem. Yet,  we seldom hear about the detrimental impact that unemployment can have on the economy due to insufficient income going to those who would surely spend it - we the people -  thus returning earnings back to the stream of purchasing power necessary to the circular flow of production and income.

In other words, who is going to buy back the output of the economy if most of the "income" is in the hands of the wealthy?  The rich have the option of saving and/or investing their income, and not necessarily in the United States, therefore increasing their wealth at the expense of people who have no choice but to spend their income short-circuits economic flow.

Nevertheless, despite a $13 trillion national debt, the push to give tax breaks to billionaires goes on. Republicans are demanding a two-year extension of all Bush tax cuts.

This means that the historically long duration of unemployment will more than likely have a snowball effect on the employment and earnings recovery of too many Americans, even as the economy appears to be recovering in general.

And, as always, the poor get hit the hardest:

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, median household income in the United States fell from $51726 in 2008 to $50221 in 2009.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 29 states reported lower median incomes than the U.S. median, while 20 states and the District of Columbia reported higher median incomes than the overall median.

The government’s formula for poverty is only based on the states with the lowest cost of living, therefore, double the federal poverty level is normally required throughout most of the US, to provide a family with basic necessities such as food and housing, according to the National Center for Children in Poverty.

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What does Labor Want?

As the nation pays tribute to the American worker, the American worker is finding it harder and harder to keep, find or create work enough to support a family. It's not that there is no work to be done.  Quite the contrary. The amount of work to be done is endless.  No, the problem is priorities.

Rather than focusing on what's best for society, we've channeled most of our productive effort into the making and accumulation of money at the expense of pretty much everything else.

"What does labor want? We want more schoolhouses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures." ~ Samuel Gompers

US Department of Labor.

The Stimulus Package (HR1) and Low-Income Families - "A third of all families with children, 13.4 million families with children, are low-income, defined as families with incomes less than twice the federal poverty line. Nearly three-quarters of these families have at least one employed adult, though not all are working full-time. Over 60% of the working adults have a high school education or less. How we address these labor-market problems will help determine the inequality in our country and the prospects for future generations." 

Low-Income Working Families: Updated Facts and Figures

• Low-income parents work a lot. Even though low-income families worked substantially less than higher-income families in 2006, nearly half (48.6%) fell in the high-intensity category—meaning at least one parent worked full time, all year. Another 17.8% worked a moderate amount, 5.6% worked a low amount, and 8.2% worked for themselves.

• Low wages explain why these families have low incomes. The vast majority of low-income families’ income comes from earnings—89% in the case of low-income families with at least one full-time, full-year worker in 2006. These high-work families made roughly $25,000 during 2006 (only 22% above the poverty level for a family of four). Those in the medium– and low–work intensity categories had even lower incomes, roughly $13,860 and $6,300, respectively.

• Single-parent families are in even worse economic situations. Single-parent families are almost twice as likely to have low incomes compared to all families with children, and almost three times as likely to have low incomes compared to married-couple families with children. 70% of single parents are in the workforce, but only about 40% work full time—perhaps because of child care challenges and other family responsibilities. When they are able to work, low-income single parents work for lower wages; in 2006, single parents earned about $10 an hour while married parents earned about $11 an hour. The median wage rates for each group are about $1 lower.

• Low-income families have low rates of health insurance coverage. The share of non-elderly adults in low-income households who lacked health insurance increased from 39 to 43% from 2000 to 2005; for children, nearly 15% remained uninsured at the end of this period. The rate of uninsurance for low-income children actually declined relative to the beginning of the decade, but only due to an increase in public insurance programs that focus on children, such as the State Children’s Health Insurance Program,. During this period, the percentage of low-income families with employer-sponsored insurance dropped significantly. For families with poverty-level incomes (below 100% of poverty), the percentage with coverage dropped nearly 7 percentage points, from 37 to 30%. For those with incomes between 100 and 200% of the FPL, private coverage dropped a similar amount, from 59 to 52%. For comparison, coverage rates for the highest-income families (with incomes above 400% of the FPL) dropped as well, but only 0.7%, for a 2005 coverage rate of 92%.

• Health problems are more prevalent among low-income families, and these families are more likely to be uninsured. Almost 21% of families with income below 150% of the federal poverty level have at least one member in fair or poor health, compared with only 16.7% of higher-income families. Lower-income families are also much more likely to have at least one member without health insurance.

• Finding decent affordable housing is a huge problem for low-income families. The hourly wages needed to afford housing at fair-market prices are well above the wages low-income workers receive. Average rents nationwide have been growing faster than inflation, while the median renter’s monthly income dropped 7.3% between 2000 and 2008. As a result, average gross rents (monthly rent plus the estimated average cost of utilities) as a share of renter income increased from 26.5 to 30.3% over the period

• While the heads of low-income working families are likely to be less educated than those of middle-income families, the large majority have at least a high school diploma. Of the heads of low-income working families, 73% have at least a high school education; 35% have education beyond high school.

• Compared with high- and middle-income families, low-income working families are disproportionately nonwhite and immigrant, although most are headed by white, native-born, non-Hispanic adults. Forty-two% of low-income working families are headed by white adults, while 70% of middle- and high-income families are headed by white adults. Seventy-three% of low-income working families are headed by native-born adults, compared with 85% of middle- and high-income families.

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Why Does Our Government Overwhelm the Overwhelmed?

Jefferson Parish president, Aaron Broussard, openly wept during a television interview in which he declared, "Bureaucracy has committed murder here in the greater New Orleans area, and bureaucracy has to stand trial," after the Katrina debacle, when more red tape was added for the victims of this terrible disaster.

Hurricane Katrina illuminated the issue of how often unnecessary procedures and red tape keep most of the poor or "almost poor" in America permanent members of the underclass. Government programs impose more hurdles on people, most of whom can barely keep their heads above water as it is. Instead of throwing the drowning person a life preserver or rope, he is handed a complicated instruction manual on how to save himself.

It seems as if the Bush Administration's mission is to not only ensure the permanency of this country's underclass but to increase its membership exponentially.

A few years ago, when the Bush Administration was pushing for somewhere between a half trillion and three quarters of a trillion dollars in new tax cuts for wealthy Americans, they were also planning to get tougher with the working poor by forcing EITC (Earned Income Tax Credits) recipients to go through a precertification process because the EITC was actually helping the working poor. The [EITC] credit is already confusing for taxpayers considering the instruction manual alone is 54 pages. Yet, the Bush Administration wanted to make it a little bit tougher for this group of Americans, some of whom work two and three jobs just to make ends meet.

Many people complain that these social programs designed to help the poor will foster dependence on the government and instead of a safety net, will become a way of life. The problem with that argument is that many of the working poor are working around the clock and still can't pay their bills; can't take their children to the doctors; and can't help their children with homework when children need help more than ever to keep up with "No Child Left Behind".

"If you give a person a fish, he eats for a day; teach him to fish, and he will eat for a lifetime," is a favorite quote of those opposed to welfare yet the way our system is set up it does the exact opposite. People in need do not get a chance to "learn to fish for a lifetime" because either they are working too many hours to find the time to locate these programs and climb through all the hoops necessary to gain entrance, or they fail to qualify because they're working.

Government bureaucracies are structured to obstruct those less fortunate from working their way out of the underclass because the people at the top want to stay on top. In order for those at the top to stay in control a certain percentage of the population must be kept busy struggling to survive. This will prevent a large number of the "underclass" from discovering what's really going on which may unite them to become a force to be reckoned.

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