joverdose: 2009

Our defective system
Slavery wasn’t abolished in 1865, we still live in a slave based society, and it’s just transformed into economic slavery. Here’s the way our system works, living at the bottom of the chain are immigrants, ex-cons, and people living under the poverty line. These people are our obvious slaves; they work for minimum to dirt wages. Above them we have the “middle class” these are the actual slaves that work the plantation. Then we have the ones who think their rich (upper middle class), who manage the plantations…. Then we have the 1% the real rich people who are our plantation owners and 9% of their friends.

The broke (obvious slaves)
These people live under the control of the broke-ness monster. The obstacles they face make it difficult to advance into a higher class. If their lucky, meaning; no accidents, in good health, able to save, or if their children make it through school without being too sick, hurt, killed or drugged out, they’ll be able to achieve a middle class status.

Usually this isn’t the case because most people living in poverty experience a dirty vicious cycle of shit. The school systems in their districts are shit, they don’t have the resources for them to grow and nurture into strong competent adults. There are always outliers, some do make it, and some do achieve high and even jump from poverty to upper class. These are usually fantasized stories that are out of the ordinary. That’s why it’s so inspiring to see a person achieving despite the odds, but it’s not the norm, it’s uncommon. These fantasy stories of high achievement are celebrated in film, art and books because of its rarity. If it was that simple for a poor person to become financially stable, then it would be expected and not fantasized.

The cycle of shit starts from childhood, “children burdened by an accumulation of risk factors most need a safe, stable neighborhood; but neighborhood safety and stability have declined most in the areas they live. They most need the special opportunities that a small school offers; but they are in large schools. They have the least capacity to resist the drug culture; but they are surrounded by drugs and the life of the drug economy. They have the most need for easy access to the economy through unskilled labor that can generate income enough to meet basic needs, but they have a hard time finding jobs at all—and the jobs they do find generally lave them in poverty.” (Garbarino, 1999)

People who were never exposed to a lifestyle other than the safe middle class sub-urban wont understand and may not sympathize or maybe even scrutinize the people in unfortunate situations. I am a survivor of the LAUSD (Los Angeles unified school district), I went to a high school that had riots, lock downs, police pepper spraying kids to stop fights, drugs openly being sold and used on campus, taking home books were a privilege for good students, others had to return the books back on the class shelf, if we were lucky enough the books weren’t all torn up with graffiti on them, bathrooms were always flooded with graffiti covering every corner of the walls, going to class was an option, many kids stood around and did as they pleased during school hours, it was under funded, under control but it was home. I didn’t see a world outside of that until I moved to the San Gabriel Valley and experienced what a middle class school district was like. Sure there were still gangs, fights and the usual drug shit, but teachers actually gave a fuck. The students were active, everyone was in class when the bell rang, there were programs to teach kids how to apply for college, and the environment was different.

At the previous high school, kids were lucky enough if they graduated, the new high school I transferred to had kids considering the option of college, that was a big eye opener for me and I think it goes to show a little perspective on the two different realities. Most of the poor kids didn’t consider college as an option, although there are plenty of programs out there for financial aid, it still wasn’t promoted at school. Here’s the sad part, we need them to stay poor. Without cheap labor and exploitation, our system wouldn’t work, if everyone was a middle class citizen, then all the fruit pickers would unionize and drive up the prices of produce, the food industries would take a huge hit along with companies that rely heavily on cheap labor like wal-mart. This would hurt the current middle class because the cost of living would skyrocket and there would be no way anyone could afford a decent living….. right?....

Actually, theres a shitload of money out there! Enough for all of us… it’s just not in our hands because we’re left to fight for the scraps. The richest people of America possess about 69.8% of our nation’s wealth. On top of that, 1% of the richest hold 33% which is almost half of 69.8%. That means the upper middle class, middle class, and poor are all left with the other 30% to fight for. That doesn’t make any sense does it? The top 1% of people hold 33% wealth, 9% of people holds 36.8%wealth while 90% of people hold 30%?!?!? You don’t have to be a mathematician to see the huge gap, how are they able to do this and how does this work?

The middle class (secret slaves)
So you had a decent upbringing, lived in a nice neighborhood, parents taught you good morals/values and told you good work ethics would lead to great rewards. Armed with a good education, a college degree, and a career with great benefits, this description makes up most of the “average” American middle class. This class believes in the system of hard work + education = financial stability. In reality though, this group gets the shit end of the stick, ok, not as bad as the broke folks, but they are right in the middle. They can easily drop down to lower middle class/poverty, it’s all by chance, but it’s hard as hell for them to become rich. Here’s why, if the majority of citizens are taking the traditional school route and everyone’s competing for the same jobs using the same methods, its highly unlikely that they’ll make millions doing what other people are qualified to do. Maybe they are satisfied with what they have and can live within their means, but what if little Johnny gets cancer, sure there’s insurance, but what if grandma broke her leg while the dog bit the neighbor who hit you with the fattest lawsuit and with this recession, it wouldn’t be unlikely if you were laid off a week ago. Let’s face it, shit happens, and then what, there goes your retirement fund, and what happened to the company that you were so loyal to? Did they really give a shit about your well being? They’ll commend you on working 40+ hours a week and give you a good pat on the head for missing lil johnnys birthdays, anniversaries with the wife, and other important family gatherings, but when it comes down to really taking care of you for all your years of hard work, they wont hesitate to tell you fuck off.

“but that’s just the way it is joe”… that’s the words of a conformist, someone who is brainwashed into thinking that’s the way it has to be. Does our reality have to be this way? Do we have to work for them? We think it’s a choice, but no it’s not a choice, we HAVE TO work, if we don’t work we don’t eat, we don’t survive, this land isn’t ours, and we can’t just pitch a tent and survive off anywhere we choose. Slavery is defined as an involuntary subjection to another or others. Our situation is economic slavery, we have to work in this system or we don’t survive. There’s no way out of it, we have to do something we don’t really want to do and spend most of our lives doing it to survive. Is this complaining? Fuck yea, I think there’s something wrong here, if I am going to contribute something to this society, I wouldn’t want to dedicate most of my time on producing a nonsense product and waste most of my time contributing to a company that wouldn’t sacrifice an even amount of contribution back into its employees. Think about it, fulltime employee works 40 hours a week, that’s 8 hours, 5 days a week, usually after work, we have to handle our errands, make/eat dinner, not much time for any activities besides TV, during the weekend if we’re lucky all of our errands are handled and we’ll have a free night or two. Why do we dedicate so much time in making someone else rich? How about your own lives? Do you want to spend the majority of your 40+ years working for someone else and looking back at regret for not experiencing or following your desired passions because of financial fear? How about spending time with family, sitting around and talking, enjoying the company of friends, are we supposed to feel guilty if we do this “too much”? This society looks down upon the non producers. We call them lazy, dirty crazy hippies and weirdoes.

I know there are self sufficient communities out there like the Amish but the rest of us look at them like WTF is wrong with your pilgrim ass? Although they churn butter all week and look like little house on the prairie type folks, they are FREE people, TAX EXEMPT! Cash isn’t king in their world; they don’t identify themselves with material possessions and share the same type of desires as we do. There’s no way in hell ima turn Amish here but I just want to point out there are other alternative realities and we don’t have to live like this. I know it feels like we’re stuck with this ultimatum here; it’s either, come work at our plantation or die off like the rest. Now France has a crazy middle class, those assholes have long hours for lunch, short work hours and have plenty of time to appreciate the arts, relationships and family. Those lazy bastards even live longer than the average American and they have the nerve to smoke more, drink more and eat more than us. Go ahead and see for yourself where America stands in longevity rankings, we’re pretty damn low at 29th place considering that we’re the richest country. I hear the hardcore “patriots” now saying “if you don’t like it then why don’t you move your ass to France then?” Well, im not the type of person who moves out of a house because it’s getting old and crusted. I fix it, clean it, and make it work again.

If the whiney lazy middle class system works out in France… why isn’t it happening here? Oh yea I forgot, they don’t have as many rich people as we do, not that many billionaires or millionaires, the wealth is more evenly distributed…. They live under a unitary semi-presidential republic with strong democratic traditions. Two parties, socialist and UMP (union for popular movement), its closer to a social/democratic government. We live in a federal constitutional republic… by the way, for those of you who think we live in a true democracy with everyone having equal chances, its wrong. We live under a representative democracy, people are “voted in” to represent “us”, who run for our “best interest” or whoever pays them the most. So is this it? Work, buy, eat, shit, fuck, die? 10% of the nation is unemployed, 13% live in poverty, the middle class is dwindling away, and where is the money going to? China? Nope…. Our aristocrats

The upper middle class/”rich” (the house niggas)
The upper classes of our society are in an illusion. They have many possessions and assets but they don’t hold any true power of executive decision. They’ll do whatever they can to stay where they are at but they are not protected from the true powers. They are still subject to the will of their 1% masters who can afford lobbyists/politicians to bend/shift laws in their favor so the other “rich” can pay the taxes for them. For example, Obama’s new tax law on those making over 200k. Since most people in this bracket are either still taxed as an employee or self contracting employee, they are in the same tax bracket as us, roughly 40%. Now that must hurt, imagine making a mill this year and you have to give 400k of that away no questions asked. Wouldn’t you want to know where it’s going to? I mean what is that money being used for and who is making the decision on where it goes? I mean shit they say social programs but has anyone ever seen any competent efficient social program? The ones I’ve came across consists of over worked cranky employees with shit for resources. These rich people never stopped paying taxes but for some reason we’re cutting funding for education and all these other social programs. Where did all the money go? These upper class/rich people spend a shit load in tax but somehow we’re losing more and more money? The bail outs are what happened. Now what I been wondering is, we live in a free economy, why is the government getting involved in bailing out these companies? We should’ve let the natural selection take its place, these companies were destined to fail, the weak would’ve been weeded out and new companies would take their place. Any person with a basic knowledge in economics would agree that it was an unnecessary move, the forces of “business nature” would take its place and the demand would create a new supply. The domestic car companies were already getting fucked on both ends with low sales and union gangsters demanding 90$ an hour for screwing on a door. We all knew that there was no hope in saving the companies because their system wasn’t working. Throwing money at the situation is like trying to put out a burning building with gasoline. The guys took the money and ran like a buncha gangstas, and they laughed at the rest of us while doing it. Now we the citizens are paying for it with our tax dollars. Our money is going away for these CEO fag fuck thieves who ran off with the bail out money to buy Thai ladyboys. The upper middle class and the “rich” might think they aren’t affected by this system of exploitation but that’s not the case. Sure they can afford high quality goods, rare luxury items and have a high standard of living. Their resources may seem endless to the rest of the working classes, but at what cost are they sacrificing in order to maintain that lifestyle? Lawyers, roughly 100k income but 60+ hour work week and no time for a personal life, if a single male, after taxes 60k take home, but at least you got your bmw and loft right? BALLIN! No not really, you’re not in as one of the true rich American Aristocrats, you only think you are. The almost rich people of this society are what I call house niggas… don’t know what a house nigga is?

Malcom X describes it well…

There were two kinds of slaves, the house Negro and the field Negro. The house Negroes — they lived in the house with master, they dressed pretty good, they ate good because they ate his food — what he left. They lived in the attic or the basement, but still they lived near the master; and they loved the master more than the master loved himself. They would give their life to save the master's house — quicker than the master would. If the master said, "We got a good house here," the house Negro would say, "Yeah, we got a good house here." Whenever the master said "we," he said "we." That's how you can tell a house Negro.
If the master's house caught on fire, the house Negro would fight harder to put the blaze out than the master would. If the master got sick, the house Negro would say, "What's the matter, boss, we sick?" We sick! He identified himself with his master, more than his master identified with himself. And if you came to the house Negro and said, "Let's run away, let's escape, let's separate," the house Negro would look at you and say, "Man, you crazy. What you mean, separate? Where is there a better house than this? Where can I wear better clothes than this? Where can I eat better food than this?" That was that house Negro. In those days he was called a "house nigger."

And that's what we call them today, because we've still got some house niggers running around here. This modern house Negro loves his master. He wants to live near him. He'll pay three times as much as the house is worth just to live near his master, and then brag about "I'm the only Negro out here." "I'm the only one on my job." "I'm the only one in this school." You're nothing but a house Negro. And if someone comes to you right now and says, "Let's separate," you say the same thing that the house Negro said on the plantation. "What you mean, separate? From America, this good white man? Where you going to get a better job than you get here?" I mean, this is what you say. "I ain't left nothing in Africa," that's what you say. Why, you left your mind in Africa.
On that same plantation, there was the field Negro. The field Negroes — those were the masses. There were always more Negroes in the field than there were Negroes in the house. The Negro in the field caught hell. He ate leftovers. In the house they ate high up on the hog. The Negro in the field didn't get anything but what was left of the insides of the hog.

Yep…. YALL HOUSE NIGGAS….

The Real Rich (Plantation Owners)
1% of Americans own 33% of our wealth…. How did this happen? Most of it is old money, passed down from generation to generation. They keep it in the blood and within the community. American Aristocrats, they control the media, use politicians as chess pieces and get away with starting wars. I mean think about it, how did the former president George Bush Jr. ever become president? Was he a true representative of the people? Was he a politician with a humble background which made his way into the presidency through hard honest work and traditional campaigning? No, he came from a very powerful family of oil tycoons and he used his family’s power to suck his way to the top. Well, even at “the top” he was still a puppet to the rest of the true ballers of the USA.

So what can we do? How can we change? In theory, systems, ideas and concepts are all good… socialism, capitalism, whatever structure can work, but with all beautiful ideas, exploitation, corruption and greed come into play which calls for a new idea to replace the old… It’s a constant cycle of change in rules, when the old system is exploited, there needs to be a change in structure to balance that. If no change occurs, then the unequal balance would create uprisings and unrest within the people. This system is bound to fail, I don’t know how long it is going to last but the more people wake up to the robbery, change will take place. Unless of course, they aren’t educated, then they’ll just keep like sheep.

I think most of us are satisfied with having our basic needs met and can go on with living. Happiness to me is; good health, family/friends, a good woman by my side, the arts, food, free info and expression.

Keep yourselves simple, value relationships and human connection over monetary gain. In this recession, we gotta get back to our humble roots and figure out a way for self sufficiency. Don’t let money rule you, that’s how they keep you chained by the neck. It’s a game we play, this concept is just an idea, and you can say no and find alternatives or play the game and succeed. The shitty part is, people who started ahead of you went ahead and changed the rules so you won’t be able to get in their place.

JOE AKA UNCO CHIN

References…. Fuck this aint school, I donno the rest aiite

Domhoff, G. William (December 2006). "Table 4: Percentage of Wealth Held by the Top 10% of the Adult Population in Various Western Countries". Power in America. University of California at Santa Cruz, Sociology Dept.. http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html.%20Retrieved%202006-08-21.

Garbarino, James. (1999). Raising Children in a socially toxic environment. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass

Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements (1965) edited by George Breitman