A formula for success (of some) and failure (for the rest of us).

“I wish to become rich, so that I can instruct the people and glorify honest poverty a little, like those kind hearted, fat, benevolent people do.”—Mark Twain

Don’t we all; harbor some hypocrisy? Mr. Twain’s tongue-in-cheek aspirations more than likely fit a number of us, particularly those who have enjoyed the privilege of possibility. Those who abide in “honest poverty” will undoubtedly take umbrage in this aloof attitude of benevolence, fat though we be. But for the moment let me perpetuate the pretense, just for the sake of satire. 

Suppose you had the opportunity of making obscene sums of money but needed to craft a plan to insure sustained results. What sort of plan would succeed? Let’s see if we can put on our thinking caps and develop a really good plan. What would the ingredients be?

The first matter of importance would be to set up a system that would insure continuing prosperity, regardless of unforeseen turns of events. And once established go further and recruit broad support to aid our cause among the very people who would be most vulnerable and necessary for our efficiency. Does that arrangement sound familiar? It should, because those ingredients constitute our American culture, at least in present form. An alternate label would be called “greed.”

OK, I can sense the hackles rising already. Nobody, me included, wants to tear down a system that results in their own betterment. UNLESS of course, it doesn’t (result in their own betterment). Like an iceberg, what appears above the surface necessarily depends on what lies beneath. We can see that part but it is what lies beneath that matters. If the bottom is about to melt, for sure the top will follow. So having now considered the metaphor, let’s get real.

Our culture is sitting on an about-to-explode powder keg, with a very long fuse that was lit 155 years ago in South Carolina and has been smoldering ever since. And the significance of that time frame? On April 12, 1861 the American Civil War began and ended four years later in the spring of 1865. When the War ended 620,000 American soldiers lay dead; more Americans than died in WWI, WWII, Vietnam and Korea combined. And why was the war fought? Allegedly to free the nation of the scourge of slavery. According to Pulitzer Prize-winning author James McPherson “The Civil War started because of uncompromising differences between the free and slave states over the power of the national government to prohibit slavery in the territories that had not yet become states. When Abraham Lincoln won election in 1860 as the first Republican president on a platform pledging to keep slavery out of the territories, seven slave states in the deep South seceded and formed a new nation, the Confederate States of America. The incoming Lincoln administration and most of the Northern people refused to recognize the legitimacy of secession. They feared that it would discredit democracy and create a fatal precedent that would eventually fragment the no-longer United States into several small, squabbling countries.”

And guess what? If you haven’t noticed, the magnitude of our discontent is now off the chart, with more than several squabbling parts. Might you notice some correspondence between what is now happening and the unresolved roots driving the tension? If not then this post will more than likely go right over your head. On the other hand, for those who wish to avoid further meltdown, consider the following.

At the beginning of the Civil War there were roughly 4 million slaves “used” primarily by 400,000 southern land holders to maximize their economic advantage. When the war ended, and congress ratified the 13th Constitutional Amendment, slavery appeared to end (at least the part above the water line). So what’s the problem? Slavery didn’t end, it just followed a different path that became legitimized due to a six word clause in the amendment, “…except as a punishment for crime.” The entire amendment reads, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

Since that time no effort has been spared to criminalize and incarcerate black people who have then been used, just as the slave holders did before the War, as indentured servants: free labor to advance the wealth of the few by the many. While 4 million slaves at the beginning of the War sounds overwhelming, it pales by comparison to the number who have been unjustly incarcerated spanning the years since. According to The United States Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), today there are nearly 1 million black people out of the total 2.3 million incarcerated population (43%); incarcerated at a rate of nearly six times the incarceration rate of whites. And as might be expected, the criminal “justice” system pays handsomely. Just as war benefits war profiteers, criminality, legally structured, benefits criminal profiteers. As a nation, we now spend more tax derived revenue incarcerating and using people for making obscene wealth than we do educating our youth. If there was ever a system programmed to self-destruct, it is hard to imagine one better than this.

This post is a mere store-sample designed to whet the appetite of those who wish to see our nation continue beyond the current crisis. After the trial period of 155 years it is time to pay the piper and try a better way that will keep the iceberg floating a bit longer. To gain the most thorough grasp of this vast criminal web you need to watch 13th: The documentary. There you’ll see who, how, when and why the key players have been complicit, and it really is about the money. Once you get the full grasp, you’ll know what to do (or not). And by doing nothing the end is in sight.