Whom Shall You Fear?

So everyone who knows me knows that I tend to follow politics. I'm no political strategist that's for sure, but I do keep up with the goings on in the world. And if there's one thing I've learned over the past couple of years that I think all people everywhere should know and accept, it's that this world is run by two primary forces: economic leverage and political power. The two go hand in hand, and trust me, where there's money at stake, you can bet your bottom dollar that power is right there with it.

This is why education is so paramount, particularly among minority communities. Education is the root of all economic opportunity, which then leads to political power. I mean think about it: this country spent over a trillion dollars rescuing the financial industry in almost a moment's notice; yet, when it comes to making sure kids in the inner-city have books from which to learn, it seems there's never enough money. What it really boils down to is choices. Choices about money and ultimately, power. Choices about the exchange of money for power, and let's face it -- when you see it this black and white, it's pretty clear why our education system is the way it is.

But here's my larger point: fear. Why is it that all this money and power seem to be concentrated in such limited segments of society (Wall Street and Washington, DC)? Well, because those who control the money and power also control the messaging. They tell you what to fear because they treat us like cattle that need to herded.

I mean think about it. Think about the messages that have been flooding our airways lately: Dick Cheney says President Obama is making America "less safe" with his policies; there's a entire subset of people who actually think the president wasn't born in America -- he's really African, ya know; and then the health care debate: death panels and health care rationing. I mean what thinking person actually believes the idea of a death panel would ever pass smell test one before the courts? And I hate to break it to you but health care rationing is alive and well, only it's the insurance companies controlling it. It's all fear. And projection. Be afraid, be very afraid.

Some people like to say it's veiled racism. I think that's too easy. Of course there are racial undertones. We all know that. But I think it's quite simply distraction. The ole "look the other way" tactic. Remember back in the 80's when this nation declared a "war on drugs" and young black men in the inner city began being locked up in droves because the sentences for the sell and distribution of crack cocaine were much longer than those for powder cocaine. Nice messaging, right? "We're gonna get these drug dealers off the streets and protect our neighborhoods." Except the only problem is that no one bothered to think about the fact that black people weren't paying for the drugs to come into this country in the first place. Why try to stop the sale once the product has hit the streets? Why not stop the manufacturer from even producing the product and gaining access to the market? I mean, that's where the real "war" was being waged. But that's also where the money and power lied, which meant we needed to focus on a byproduct of the problem and not the problem itself.

Then there's the "war on terror." I could on and on about all the fear-baiting that went into that messaging campaign. And all the time while we're "looking the other way" at terrorists, CEOs and government agents were laying the groundwork to destroy the nation's financial infrastructure by ginning up these toxic assets and false profits. There are people who lost their entire life savings in this whole financial debacle. Grandparents who saved to send their grandkids to college, couples who invested to retire comfortably, and employees who bought the lie their bosses told about the health of their companies only to see their instutions fail, one after another. And so far, the only person who's gone to jail is Bernie Madoff.

Could you imagine if this whole fiasco was an inner-city scheme instead of Wall Street organized crime? How many people would already be hauled off to jail? They certainly wouldn't be receiving any government bailout -- that's for sure!

So the question is this: what if the real threats to society and your economic stability aren't the gang bangers and drug addicts after all? If this economic crisis has taught us anything, it's that the real threat it isn't the drug dealer on the corner slangin' crack; it's the unscrupulous CEO in the board room slangin' dough.