While we’re “debating” whether or not the United States is, fundamentally, a racist nation (spoiler alert: it is), failed human being Marjorie Taylor Greene wants to make sure everyone KNOWS the United States is a racist nation. She’s launching a new Congressional caucus to “protect Anglo-Saxon political traditions” and press for infrastructure that “befits the progeny of European architecture.” Helping with the new caucus is racist Rep. Paul Gosar (R, of course – Arizona). Also on board, so far, you’ll find racist Republicans (of course) Louis Gohmert from Texas and Barry Moore from Alabama.

After formalizing rather standard white supremacist rhetoric into their shiny new platform, Gohmert told CBS News the caucus isn’t “supposed to be about race at all.” Somehow, I think is supposed to be ALL about race. Just about the only racist trope NOT represented in their literature (so far) is “Jews will not replace us.” I suspect they’re trying to shoehorn that bit in – as surreptitiously as possible…

I STILL say the best evidence against “white supremacy” is white supremacists. They’re just an embarrassment to the species…

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I’m sorry to report the unionization effort in the Amazon warehouse in Alabama failed. There is much talk of how America lost all of it’s good jobs to overseas locations. The truth is, American corporations off-shored UNION jobs. That’s what MADE them “the good jobs.” We can have good jobs in THIS once-great nation again, too, but it’s going to take unions. Sadly, the corporations have gotten very good at disrupting unionization efforts.

The first thing to consider is the desperation of the population in the location you put your plant/warehouse. The more desperate the better. On the one hand, you get all kinds of tax considerations when you show up AND you get to put a little lipstick on the pig by making a big announcement that your company is bringing jobs to…wherever. In addition, you get a workforce scared to risk those jobs for fear of going back to even more desperate times. The corporation gets those perks whether or not anyone tries to bring in a union. But if they DO try, there is a tried-and-true playbook of how corporations bust unionization efforts.

First, the corporation finds the turncoat employees. These are the employees who are too scared or stupid or ideologically opposed (a redundancy for “stupid”) to trying to improve their own lives. The turncoats support the company no matter what it may cost them personally. These backstabbers are useful to the corporation for the second phase of the operation, spreading rumors. They start telling anyone who will listen the union will generate mass layoffs or maybe even cause the closing of the plant/warehouse. It’s important these stories travel through the rumor mill. It gives the corporation “plausible deniability.” Meanwhile, management implements the third phase – promising the moon. “Oh, we were JUST about to make life bearable for the workers. We were just about to let you use the bathroom almost whenever you wanted and we were just about to double everyone’s salaries and we were just about to offer profit sharing and 401k’s and sick leave. Heck, we were even planning on putting some new vending machines in the break room. Of course, we can’t do any of that if you unionize. The union creates an adversarial relationship and they won’t let us do any of those things so – vote down the union and we’ll take care of you like we never have before (but, secretly, always wanted to).

Mostly, the rumors are the what gets the job done for the corporations. Fear of losing even a crappy job to no job is just too much for the desperate masses. The union gets voted down and life returns to “normal.” Of course, none of the things the corporation promised happen. “Oh, we were sure going to but discovered…whatever…” In the end, the employees WILL get new vending machines. After all, the company profits from those…

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By now, any thinking person has come to understand that the so-called “free market” has done serious damage to a vast swath of the American people. The poorer you are, the harsher the damage. Part of the problem is that, along with the fraudulent notion of a “free market,” the cons sold the false idea that taxing rich people is a bad idea. This phenomenon has had two results. One, governments have responsibilities they can’t simply ignore so they increase taxes, charges, and fees on everyone else. Two, finding themselves STILL facing shortfalls (the actual goal of tax cuts for the rich) governments are forced to cut services.

It’s weird in the various ways the failures reveal themselves. As one example, where I live, the government used to take on responsibility for pest control, mostly rats and mosquitos. Budget shortfalls have caused them to do less work on rat control and the resulting boom in the rat population is…disturbing. Recently, I realized that the so-called free market has even destroyed driver education! (I know!) There was a time when Californians learned to drive in school. Public or private, schools used an agreed-upon curriculum to teach everyone to drive – so we all drove, basically, the same way. We all took the classroom portion of the training and even the in-car portion during our regular school day. It didn’t cost us a dime. It was nice. It worked well. EVERYONE, rich and (OMG!) even “the poors” received the training…

Then came privatization, driven (if you will) by falling revenues due to tax cuts for the rich. It’s important to note that privatization NEVER results in better quality at a lower cost. Never. Driver training is no different. It didn’t take long before schools had to leave that part of a common education out of the day. For better or worse, driver training would have to take place in private companies – and it’s been for the worse. Now? Driver training is expensive. (“Whatever the market can bear…”)

This means many poor and struggling families – and the number of those is increasing every day – simply opt out. They don’t have a choice. They drive without licenses and without even the proper training because they’ve got to get to work. Worse, those that DO go through the classes might very well be given slightly different information. So now, California’s roadways are a hodge-podge of drivers all doing the best they can but not quite on the same page.

The evidence is in. This whole “comfort the comfortable” concept is an absolute failure for the largest number of Americans. I think it’s time to end this experiment in “greed is good” and go back to doing the things that created the strongest middle class in the history of the world, high taxes on the rich and a strong social safety net for everyone…