Tuesday, July 19, 2011

A Few Random Thoughts on Why Rich People Don't Want to Pay Taxes

The latest manufactured crisis/phony/fake melodrama concocted for our distraction is the 'debate' over the debt limit. This phony crisis also has invoked the wrath of the religious right, (i.e. those people who worship manna/money), who chant with the zeal of religious extremists that the wealthiest people in our country should not pay taxes.
This has me thinking, why? When I learned civics in school we were told that taxes are what civilized societies pay to be, well, civilized. Taxes pay for schools, roads, bridges, waste treatment plants, libraries, parks and for our communal defense. Individually, we can't afford these things. Communally, through paying taxes, we can. So why are rich people opposed to paying taxes?
Some reasons may be:
#1 Rich people, through most of history, have never paid taxes.
True. Think of the Dark Ages with the lord sitting in his castle and peasants working the fields. Who paid taxes? Yes, it was the peasants. The lord of the manor owned everything of value, including any woman about to be married (I'm not making this up, in England, the lord could sleep with a bride on her wedding night before the groom could).
In ancient societies, where 98 percent of the people were slaves, did the rich pay taxes? No. Rich people don't think they should EVER have to pay taxes.
#2 Rich people are not human.
I have seen little evidence that rich people are anything other than cold-blooded, ruthless predators that lack compassion and remorse. We are said to have a brain that is part mammal, part reptile. The reptile part is older. Rich people, in my view, are descendants of an earlier humanoid race that is mostly, if not totally, reptilian.
#3 Rich people do not believe in God.
The greatest evidence that God does not exist is that rich people throughout history have behaved as if there is no God.
#4 Rich people think they are gods.
The reason for number #3. Most of the writing of what Protestants call the Old Testament is about rich people who have deluded themselves into believing they are gods. Monotheism is an idea promulgated by a pharaoh in Egypt to consolidate his power and reduce the power of the priesthood that was opposed to him. The Christian version of monotheism (later modified by Islam) was initiated by a Roman emperor who wanted to consolidate his power by merging many religions that existed in the Roman Empire into one.
The gist of this is that rich people, whether they are monarchs or Murdochs, believe that they are gods that are entitled to all the wealth and benefits they receive.
#5 Rich people think most of us are bloody peasants.
Monty Python spoofs this concept savagely in their film 'The Holy Grail,' where King Arthur acts like a horse's ass throughout the film, especially toward people that don't recognize his authority.
#6 The prosperous American middle class of the 1950's and 60's was an anomaly.
This is the most difficult part to understand for those of us born in that period. The America we grew up in did not exist before the 1940s and hasn't existed since 1980 with the election of Ronald Reagan. It ain't coming back either. We are going back to feudal times where the vast majority of us live like serfs. A prosperous middle class threatens those on the top of the pyramid. The middle class throughout history has been firmly under the control of the wealthy.
An independent, literate, educated middle class is the greatest threat to the rich. Since 1980, government policies have sought to eliminate whatever the middle class had going for it. To this regard, the rich have been very successful.
#7 Taxes benefit the poorest and most vulnerable members of society.
Rich people don't give a crap about other people. Remember when Enron executives were caught on tape laughing about how many old women would die because they would be unable to afford higher energy costs? They thought it was funny. I'm not making this stuff up!
#8 Rich people have better things to spend their money on than paying taxes.
If rich people paid more in taxes they couldn't afford that 8th Hummer, 5th mansion or all those trips to Thailand to have sex with children.
#9 Rich people are so inbred they no longer have the intellectual abilities to understand their actions are becoming increasingly mutually destructive.
It's a just a matter of time before this planet is no longer able to sustain a high level of life for most humans. Most rich people aren't intelligent enough to care about the environment. If we understand them as reptiles then it becomes apparent that a high quality of life for predominantly mammalian species is not a priority.
#10 It's only going to get worse.
This is the most depressing part. Remember Spartacus? Remember Jesus? What happened to them? Rich people crucified them. The same rich people whose descendants are running our country today. Enough said. Time to check out whether Jennifer Lopez is having an affair and Will and Kate's wedding gifts. No strike that, think I'll reread the Sermon on the Mount. Thank you, Jesus.

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Think Globally, Act Locally - Take Care of Business in Your Hometown

Former Secaucus Mayor Dennis Elwell Convicted of Bribery
I went to a Protestant seminary that is considered liberal. That means that liberals AND conservatives could go there. If it was a conservative seminary, then it would mean ONLY conservatives could go there. My understanding/experience of religious conservatives is that they are intolerant of ideas and concepts they do not agree with.
Religious liberals maintain they are tolerant of ideas and concepts they do not agree with, but they make it clear that they believe their ideas are superior to yours if you disagree with them.
Since my main interest is in the exchange of ideas it matters not to me if people agree with me, but whether they are capable of having an open and intelligent dialogue. I don't have everything figured out, and I strongly distrust anyone who claims they have ANYTHING figured out.
In this spirit, when some of my liberals friends in class one day got all vexed over Third World Debt, I pointed out that being manipulated to spend time, emotion, energy caring about something thousands of miles away benefited the systems that allowed the conditions they were upset about to exist in the first place.
The biggest impact a person can make is locally, in their own hometown. I am more concerned about the former mayor where I live being convicted of bribery (see photo above) than I am Casey Anthony.
I would suggest that if a banker lives in your hometown has contributed to the environment that has created massive debt in the third world, that you picket his house. If the local politicians that go to your church are found to be corrupt, make them stand before the congregation and explain their behavior.
Better yet, vote them and their cronies out of office. That's what happened here in Secaucus. All of the former mayor's cronies on council have been defeated. The various town officials that have embezzled town funds are being indicted and removed from their positions.
In a reaction to the way the high school principal and school supt. treated a high school student who questioned school policies, the town voted down the school budget by a wide margin. Secaucus is one of the few localities in the state that had regularly voted for its school budget, even if it meant tax increases.
Corruption in New Jersey is rampant, but in a movement that transcends partisan politics, voters are working to clear out the miscreants. If they are successful, it will be because they have spent time and energy working on the local level rather than worrying about the latest distractions on FOX News, CNN and other national media outlets.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

No One Can Sing the Blues Like Blind Willie McTell - A Nearly Perfect Bob Dylan Song


By 1983 Bob Dylan was emerging from his Born-Again period and returning to his prophetic roots. Dylan's work had always been biblical, but from 1979 to 1981 it narrowed to the 'end-of-times' evangelical born-again variant. He toured the country for three years encouraging his audience to repent of their sins.
The critics reaction to this was scathing. Audiences booed (not for the first time in Dylan's career).
Because my background is Pentecostal, I understood it thoroughly and was painfully familiar with it. My hope was that Dylan was intelligent enough to work his way through it. We all have to crawl through shit sometimes to get to freedom (see 'Shawshank Redemption').
Dylan worked his way through it, and musically, what he created was stunning and breath taking. The album 'Jokerman" was greeted with relief by critics who thought Dylan had renounced his Pentecostalism. They didn't understand what had happened.
Dylan did not abandon it, he incorporated it within his being and became stronger, wiser and more connected than before to the Divine Force that flows through the universe. The songs he wrote in 1983 that weren't included on Jokerman were stunning, powerful and spiritual. Many of these were included in the Bootleg Series released in 1991.
One of those songs was 'Blind Willie McTell.'  Dylan on piano and Mark Knopfler on acoustic guitar are the only musicians. The song evokes the ghosts of slavery while lamenting there is no one left to sing the blues to confront those ghosts.
Dylan surveys the landscape amidst these ghosts of past oppression and sees only greed and corruption today. The only appropriate response is to sing the blues and nobody could sing the blues like Blind Willie McTell. The images Dylan invokes are haunting and disturbing. Plantations are burning, whips are cracking, rebels are yelling, tribes are moaning and the undertaker's bell is tolling.
 Filled with despair as the blues singers who reminded us of our spiritual bankruptcy are now all departed, Dylan struggles to take their place. In doing so, he does not abandon his born-again Pentecostalism. He takes from it what is true and prophetic and incorporates it into the biblical vision he always had (see 'Hard Rain's Gonna Fall' and 'I'm All Right, Ma'). What emerged was something powerful and profound. Dylan didn't think the songs belonged on the album released in 1983. The only reason Dylan has given that he didn't include 'Blind Willie McTell' on Jokerman was that he didn't get it quite right.
We never get things perfectly, we never do. But sometimes we get close. This song gets very, very close.




Friday, July 1, 2011

Dylan's 'Foot of Pride,' A Prophetic Call For Judgement 'That We'll Never See'

When the first Bootleg Series came out (vol 1-3) I was struck by how many incredible Dylan songs never made it to record. 'Foot of Pride' is one of them. The lyrics are so stunning I print them in full.

Foot Of Pride

Like the lion tears the flesh off of a man
So can a woman who passes herself off as a male
They sang “Danny Boy” at his funeral and the Lord’s Prayer
Preacher talking ’bout Christ betrayed
It’s like the earth just opened and swallowed him up
He reached too high, was thrown back to the ground
You know what they say about bein’ nice to the right people on the way up
Sooner or later you gonna meet them comin’ down

Well, there ain’t no goin’ back
When your foot of pride come down
Ain’t no goin’ back

Hear ya got a brother named James, don’t forget faces or names
Sunken cheeks and his blood is mixed
He looked straight into the sun and said revenge is mine
But he drinks, and drinks can be fixed
Sing me one more song, about ya love me to the moon and the stranger
And your fall-by-the sword love affair with Errol Flynn
In these times of compassion when conformity’s in fashion
Say one more stupid thing to me before the final nail is driven in.

Well, there ain’t no goin’ back
When your foot of pride come down
Ain’t no goin’ back

There’s a retired businessman named Red
Cast down from heaven and he’s out of his head
He feeds off of everyone that he can touch
He said he only deals in cash or sells tickets to a plane crash
He’s not somebody that you play around with much
Miss Delilah is his, a Phillistine is what she is
She’ll do wondrous works with your fate, feed you coconut bread,
spice buns in your bed
If you don’t mind sleepin’ with your head face down in a grave

Well, there ain’t no goin’ back
When your foot of pride come down
Ain’t no goin’ back

Well, they’ll choose a man for you to meet tonight
You’ll play the fool and learn how to walk through doors
How to enter into the gates of paradise
No, how to carry a burden too heavy to be yours
Yeah, from the stage they’ll be tryin’ to get water outa rocks
A whore will pass the hat, collect a hundred grand and say thanks
They like to take all this money from sin, build big universities to study in
Sing “Amazing Grace” all the way to the Swiss banks

Well, there ain’t no goin’ back
When your foot of pride come down
Ain’t no goin’ back

They got some beautiful people out there, man
They can be a terror to your mind and show you how to hold your tongue
They got mystery written all over their forehead
They kill babies in the crib and say only the good die young
They don’t believe in mercy
Judgement on them is something that you’ll never see
They can exalt you up or bring you down main route
Turn you into anything that they want you to be

Well, there ain’t no goin’ back
When your foot of pride come down
Ain’t no goin’ back

Yes, I guess I loved him too

I can still see him in my mind climbin’ that hill
Did he make it to the top, well he probably did and dropped
Struck down by the strength of the will
Ain’t nothin’ left here partner, just the dust of a plague
that has left this whole town afraid
From now on, this’ll be where you’re from
Let the dead bury the dead. Your time will come
Let hot iron blow as he raised the shade

Well, there ain’t no goin’ back
When your foot of pride come down
Ain’t no goin’ back

Copyright © 1983 by Special Rider Music