Double Whammy

The "double whammy" is a situation when two unpleasant things happen at the same time or in short succession. It might surprise some of you that we're living the double whammy. We're screwed, not once, but twice over.

"Last Saturday the New York Yankees faced the double whammy of multiple injuries and a surprisingly strong opponent." That's an example of the use of this term. Two unfortunate things coinciding to make life miserable for a while. The double whammy that's the subject of this post however is a permanent one, and one that's here to stay for the foreseeable future. That is at least until we dismantle capitalism, the socioeconomic system in which all fortunes flow in one direction, and it's never in your direction. Everything in our world is rigged in favor of capitalists. "The best slave is the one who thinks he's free." I can think of no better description of the 99 percent than slaves who think they're free, as capitalism constitutes a genuine class-dictatorship in which the capitalist class extracts nearly all the wealth created with the labor of workers from the natural resources on the planet.

Looking at it this way, we're actually living a double double whammy; first our labor is exploited, the labor that creates products, then those products are sold back to us at a price that's a lot higher than what we were paid for that labor, and then we pay taxes that's for the most part gifted to our exploiters. We pay for our products not once, not twice, but three times at the very least. Billionaires will say that they're against government subsidies, but we all know that's a lie. As an example I'll mention Elon Musk again, who earned that right by being a chief liar among liars, who speaks out against government subsidies, but whose companies have received billions of dollars in government subsidies: Elon Musk is speaking out against government subsidies. Here's a list of the billions of dollars his businesses have received.

I could have mentioned your average tech company, oil company or agricultural business; they're all funded by the government, with public money coming from our taxes. And that's after we've already paid them with our time and labor. If you still believe that you're paid a wage, that your boss is your benefactor, I'd ask you to wake up. If you're paid $10 an hour, you made the boss $20 an hour; he robbedyou of $10 an hour every hour you've sacrificed to make him money. And on top of that your tax dollars go into his pockets as well, through subsidies, bailouts and other gifts with fancy sounding names. That is if you're working for one of the large companies, like Elon Musk's. And while they've got this sweet deal going on, they'll oppose higher taxes for the rich, and say the government shouldn't control "capital." Because that would be bad. The world would fall apart if the rich were asked to pay their fair share, of course.

As if this isn't enough, let's remind ourselves that capital doesn't like to take risks. They won't invest unless there's a good chance for a quick return on that investment, and a profit after that. That means that most of the modern technologies used to make our lifes more comfortable have been developed through research paid for by public money. Almost nothing in your Iphone was invented by Apple. Almost nothing in your Tesla automobile was invented by Musk or Tesla; almost everything, from GPS to Wifi and from the internet to DNA sequencing has been developed with public money, mostly in universities. All funded by our tax dollars. Here's an especially aggravating snippet from the above linked article:

Like many other wealthy Americans, Musk has spoken out against a proposed "billionaires' tax" from Sen. Ron Wyden, writing on Twitter in October that "eventually, they run out of other people's money, and then they come for you."
_{source: Business Insider}

That should make your blood boil if you have even the slightest understanding of how our world functions. A few months ago someone on Twitter suggested to Elon Musk that he should buy Twitter. Musk responded with a short and casual "How much is it?" If someone can say that, and then go on to buy a platform that's vital for public communication, that someone clearly has way too much power. It's as if someone suggested to him he should buy the democracy... Anyhow, watch the below linked video that was the direct inspiration for this short rant if you want to know more about the double whammy caused by Musk and his billionaire peers.

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