Anyone remember the late ‘ Not so great’ Donald Rumsfeld explaining about killing innocent civilians in our phony wars as ‘ Collateral Damage’? Then fast forward to today’s election cycle and digest the rhetoric being vomited from the mouths of right wing politicians like Trump and his new lackey Vance. These guys, for all you out there who plan on voting for them, don’t just spin the truth… They make it up!
Trump loves to pile on with his BS about Venezuela ( latest enemy of our empire) clearing out their prisons and mental hospitals and sending the inmates across our border. Funny how when my wife and I just had new windows installed throughout our townhome, it was a crew of workers from Venezuela who did the job. These folks completed the job within a few hours, not even needing an outside lift to do the second floor. One of their crew just climbed up and did the thing with precision. They all deserved the nice cash tip we gave them. No raping of my wife, no Fentanyl sales and no theft of any of our belongings. One wonders if Trump uses any Venezuelans in his hotels to clean the toilets, vacuum the rooms and change the sheets. He has a history of employing those damn illegals in many of his properties and construction sites. Now he wants to deport the whole shitload of them. Why not, when these illegals do the Black Jobs and we got plenty of blacks here, right?
Meanwhile, back at the campaign trail good ole JD loves to put his foot in his mouth. Moving on from his statements declaring that only women with children should work with children ( not those ‘ Cat ladies’) JD now is putting his Kabash on daycare. He thinks that mothers who work ( like his wife?) should use the grandparents to watch the little ones. Funny how many working mothers who live near their parents have always done that when feasible. Yet, some moms, especially single moms who do not have that luxury, need to have a daycare watch the little ones. The truth of it all JD is that most daycare situations are run by women who earn very little profit in this endeavor. Throughout this nation, especially in low and low middle income areas, it is low income women who watch over the little children of their peers. My wife was a single mom with no grandparents around and she relied on such a situation for years, until her daughter began going to elementary school. Sometimes, her salary minus paying the daycare lady’s fee was barely enough for her and her daughter to live comfortably. This was the rule, not the exception. If the federal and state government could only subsidize daycare, imagine how better it would be for all concerned JD.
When Reagan, that other great statesman, ran for President he used the ‘ Welfare Queens’ argument to help get votes, especially from white citizens. You see, what America, white America wants to believe is that black and brown skinned citizens don’t really work. They are all on Uncle Sam’s teat. Too bad Trump and JD never read the 1996 bestseller ‘ Take the Rich off of Welfare’ by Zepezauer and Naiman. Enclosed a synopsis:
Although the popular media has been largely mum about it, most of the welfare payments go to large corporations in the form of tax write-offs, subsidies, and plain old handouts. This frightening and enlightening book traces the flow of money into such worthy projects as subsidizing nuclear power plants (the last one was finished in 1973, but that doesn’t stop the U.S. government from spending $7.1 billion a year on this vapor industry), tax breaks for the tobacco industry ($41 million last year), and corporate expense account write-offs ($5.5 billion last year). Read it and weep.
Did any of you realize that Trump copied Reagan’s MAGA ( Make America Great Again) 1980 campaign slogan? Instead of the ‘ Welfare Queens’ tag he always loves to go after the undocumented. You know, the guys who hammer on the rooftops in excessive summer heat ( especially where we live, Captain Ron country) , pick all the fruits and veggies in the hot and humid fields, wash dishes in those fiery hot kitchens, change the beds and clean the toilets in the hotels and motels we stay in , do the landscaping and mow the grass, and of course, for the wealthier whites, be their nannies. Yet, all the MAGA crowd can visualize is the monkeys ( as one of my neighbors called them) who are as subhuman as the Jews of Europe during the Nazi occupations.
This writer, for those who have been reading my columns, has no love for the Democratic Party, and never has. Yet, this upcoming election is critical. Trump and his lapdog Vance, along with their Heritage Foundation funded and schooled colleagues, are attempting to convert our republic into a feudal domain. It’s not just fascism. It’s Orwell’s Oceana with Trump and his minions as Big Brother.
Philip A Farruggio is a free lance columnist, host of a radio interview show and lifelong Anti War Activist. He is son and grandson of Brooklyn, NYC longshoremen and a graduate of Brooklyn College, Class of ’74. He has a blog on the itstheempirestupid.com website produced by Chuck Gregory. You can find Philip’s work on many sites such as Countercurrents, Dissident Voice, Nation of Change and Muck Rack. Philip can be reached at [email protected]
