No race or ethnicity is exempt from poverty! Embrace the power of your vote!

(D)ude: Man! Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chelsea Clinton are distorting the facts about Bernie Sanders and his progressive stances on healthcare and gun control to the point where I’m convinced that the Clinton Campaign is plagued with Bush-league organizers who are deliberately derailing the presidential contender with bad advice.      

(M)an: Dude! Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chelsea Clinton are widening lies about Bernie Sanders’ perspectives. Bernie Sanders is not going to be transferring the matter of universal healthcare to the states and he is not with the gun lobby either. Remember TOFU?    

D: Man! Texas Occidental Franchise University out in middle of Nowhere, Texas and Somewhere, Texas?

M: Dude! Yeah! Remember the rural location of the public university and the local Wal-Mart that was equipped to sell guns and rifles? Well, the argument that Hillary Rodham Clinton makes against Bernie Sanders is misleading. Bernie Sanders actually differentiates between two entities in the gun control debate that need to be differentiated, the two entities being gun shop owners and gun manufacturers. Of course, in many instances the two may overlap, but differentiating between them is critical to winning gun control legislation and saving lives.

D: Man! Well, in that case, we need to hurry up in Texas because, beginning on August 1, 2016, all state 4-year colleges and universities will be subjected to a new law permitting folks with a concealed handgun license to carry loaded, concealed weapons in college and university buildings. And that same law will be enforced on upon all state 2-year and junior colleges starting August 1, 2017.    

M: Dude! Remember how terribly the African-American students at TOFU were treated? Yes, they had their sideline sororities and fraternities, but when they opened up a chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) on the TOFU campus, it did not survive one semester! There was interest and membership among the African-American student body, who had endured a lot of racial animosity at TOFU: Remember the accounts of Halloween parties hosted by the White-American sororities and fraternities where members wore horrific black face and dressed up as crude, perverse Aunt Jemima and Uncle Tom caricatures?

D: Man! The Klu Klutz Klan marched in front of the TOFU campus regularly, the campus being the epicenter between Nowhere, Texas  and Somewhere, Texas! And imagine the police force that would patrol the area when the Klu Klutz Klan descended upon the college town with their ghastly garb! I remain sympathetic to the police officers, who were monitoring the alarming pageantry of mayhem so it did not spill onto the community. I swear the last time I drove by TOFU, I saw a burning cross in the thicket and have not returned since. Everybody asks me about the deer and the coyotes on the country roads at night, but I’ve got to admit that the burning cross was far more frightening.

M: Dude! The Koch Klutz Klan is just as frightening as the Klu Klutz Klan, the two are intimately interwoven by, essentially, those bookends of the 20^th century, fascism and trickle down economics. There’s an entire library of literature between them that has to be reevaluated for the new millennium. But, sadly, today’s cultural movers and shakers are chained to the financial sector of the United States of America brutally. I say brutally because the Republican Party GOP and the Teabag Democrats have highjacked the 2016 election cycle from the hands of the American electorate to the prescripted nonsense provided by the financial sector since 2010’s Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States. The derailment of regulations in campaign financing, coupled with the 2008 bank bailout, the financial sector hammered the nails into democracy’s coffin by buying the power players in 2010 of both the RNC and the DNC, and the American Press Corps. They are sellouts, all the Republican presidential contenders and Democratic presidential contender Hillary Rodham Clinton!   

D: Man! The financial sector made bets with the investments of the middle and working classes and low income folks like us who were encouraged to spend, which led to the recession, and now the representatives we’ve got in government since 2010 are all chained to the brutalities of that very same financial sector that robbed US blind in their speculative practices with our money?

M: Dude! U.S. Representative John Lewis and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel are not sellouts to that financial sector! But both men are aware of this phenomenon of cultural icons being bought by the financial sector, and both men hurt for the American people. It’s obvious if you're willing to see their pain and the entrenchment of so many of their colleagues inside the warp of the financial sector.    

D: Man! What are we to do?

M: Dude! Feel the Bern! And don’t just follow Bernie Sanders! There are great intellectuals backing Bernie who deserve to be heard! Great minds like Michael Render, aka Killer Mike, the hip-hop artist.

D: Man! Is the hip-hop artist’s cursing the final scream for social justice?

M: Dude! More like the last cry for integrity that’s been long overdue. I watched two Showtime channel documentaries—one about Nasir Jones and the other about Marlon Brando—and was catapulted into the world behind Nasir’s 1994 album release Nas: Time is Illmatic, and to the Civil Rights March of 1963 attended by Brando, a lifetime champion for racial and ethnic equality, and personal friend to Martin Luther King, Jr.

D: Man! What is “Illmatic”?

M: Dude! It is a tribute to a childhood friend named William who encouraged and collaborated with Nasir in creating cassette tracks of their childhood jam sessions. When Nasir became Nas, William took on the persona Ill. Tragically William was shot as a teenager outside the public housing development, the largest of its kind in the United States, that they had called home since Nasir’s parents divorced very early on in his and his baby brother’s life. An overwhelming majority of the boys and men from Queensbridge in Queens, New York pictured in the album’s overlay—personal friends and acquaintances to Nas and his younger brother—have either died due to gun violence, or have served or are serving time in prison.

D: Man! How did Nasir manage to breakthrough into the hip-hop industry?

M: Dude! He was not only encouraged, but given a deadline by another hip-hop musician raised in Queensbridge. Roxanne Shante heard Nas and Ill in the hallway during a visit with friends to the housing development and insisted they prepare an opening number for an upcoming concert of hers. Nasir electrified the audience the night of Shante’s concert and he continued to rise up in the industry with his genius as a first rate writer whose words stood the test of time, performance after performance.

D: Man! Absolute prodigy! He’s in his early forties, hence, he was in the beginning of his teen years back when he began in the eighties!

M: Dude! His father did not abandon his brother or him, being in the military and musically inclined as well himself, and leaving behind a library for Nas and his kid brother in their new arrangement with their primary breadwinner mother in Queensbridge.

D: Man! Did Nas or his brother share some of the literature in their library in the documentary?

M: Dude! Yes, of course! Nasir’s parents encouraged them to read a diverse and essential blend of literature that included Malcolm X’s autobiography and Aesop’s fables alongside the King James Bible and James Baldwin’s masterpieces.

D: Man! James Baldwin never wrote anything less than a revolutionary masterpiece!

M: Dude! Yes, of course! Not only are none of James Baldwin’s writings formulaic and predictable, but none of them is alike.

D: Man! However, there’s a likeness in all the folks who sellout to the financial sector in the United States of America!

M: Dude! Once you sell your soul to the financial sector, there is no going back into an enlightened mindset.

D: Man! There is no race or ethnicity exempt from poverty, yet the financial sector has creatively financed the Black Lives Matter movement in an attempt to turn the country upside down on race and ethnic relations and blame the resulting animosities and unrest on the most transparent White House since Jimmy Carter’s days as Commander in Chief.  

M: Dude! Arrogance runs rampant within the financial sector and the candidates that it endorses. Look at the Republican Party and the Teabag Democrats who haven’t even been open to the public protests for a definite set of candidates on the RNC side and adding more debates to the schedule on the DNC side.     

D: Man! Hillary Rodham Clinton’s arrogance shown when she claimed the Sanders campaign had targeted her specifically in that political ad where Sanders states his intent to hold Wall Street and the financial sector responsible for contributing to a skewed system that favors the corporations getting bigger over everyday families getting stronger. It’s a sad reality only American voters can change by registering to vote and then showing up at the polls in support of Bernie Sanders during the next two months of primaries, which I think will conclude sometime around March 1, 2016. We’ve got to find out when the primaries begin and end!

M: Dude! There’s no time to waste! Election Day, Tuesday, November 8, 2016 is a heartbeat away from today if you consider the time it takes to register and then cast a ballot. The financial sector is busy buying official spokespeople who will be willing to misrepresent the truth with an inflammatory remark or quip, as the American Press Corps does, all for a very cheap price, considering the generations of Asians, Hispanics, Blacks, Whites, et al that will be disenfranchised as a result of the treachery from within their own communities. Have you noticed the hype surrounding the Muslim endorsements that the financial sector has carefully allocated to New Jersey’s governor Chris Christie? Plus, listen to the way Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is endorsing Jeb Bush nowadays. Clearly, the financial sector’s buying Senator Lindsey Graham only means that Senator John McCain of Arizona will follow suit.

D: Man! The financial sector has bought the legislative branch of government as well as the judicial branch. What can be done to reverse the effects of this trend?

M: Dude! Vote for Bernie Sanders and the progressive agenda! Going back to the Black Lives Matter movement, the American financial sector generates poverty and then selects a few of the disenfranchised in a population to become the leaders and/or members of such organizations. On the other hand, MLKIII had financial skirmishes in court with his siblings over the estates of MLK, Jr. and Coretta Scott King, and the financial sector took the opportunity to buy MLKIII. The Koch brothers and the Trump brothers have had similar skirmishes in court, haven’t they? Hence, they’re sellouts in the financial sector as well!

D: Man! What about the the Middle East and terrorism generally? The 2016 Presidential Election is a heartbeat away, thus so is trouble! The financial sector and it's hustlers—like Jeb Bush and Hillary Rodham Clinton—are prepared to take our country into successive danger zones! Look at the way they both contend that they will enforce a no-fly zone over Syria! And the previous Bush and Clinton Administrations utilized bribery and threats in foreign policy, the Bushes being neocons and William Jefferson Clinton being blackmailed by the neocons.

M: Dude! Bribing and threatening world powers only results in our beloved sons and daughters in uniform being killed recklessly, while the children and descendants of the Bushes and Clintons and all the corrupt political machines are insured against fighting wars actively for eternity and the rest of the 98% of US are open to our children and descendants being subjected to conscription somewhere down the road we’re on right now, if we elect Jeb Bush and Hillary Rodham Clinton that is.

D: Man! What about the havoc the corrupt politicians have in mind for US during the 2016 Presidential Election season?

M: Dude! The Shia Muslims and Sunni Muslims in both Iran and Saudi Arabia must realize that their fights are being financed by the neoconservatives and their financial institutions. Both the neocons and Wall Street gain fortunes from the countries that the United States of America invades. The simple question to be asked of Iran and Saudi Arabia is whether they’re aware of the American Republican Party GOP and the financial institutions invading any body without an oil infrastructure? Plus, do Iran and Saudi Arabia really want to trust the Republican neoconservative operatives abroad like Marco Rubio, the Floridian Senator who either did not know there were Shia Muslims in Saudi Arabia, or was favoring the House of Saud when he stated his position with the Sunni Muslims in Saudi Arabia?

D: Man! Ignorance is ballistic with the American Republican Party GOP! American voters need to understand that their votes for Bernie Sanders are critical to world stability and peace!

M: Dude! If Hillary Rodham Clinton can use Chelsea, her own flesh and blood, the mother of her precious granddaughter, to relay untruths about Bernie Sanders’ campaign, what make US trust Hillary Rodham Clinton with the lives of our own sons and daughters, especially those in uniform?

D: Man! Our sons and daughters in uniform deserve to be handed a GI Bill that allows them to thrive in the American workforce once they’re done with their tours of duty. But the financial sector in American politics is entrenched in oil and gas and jumpy billionaires. Seriously, if our soldiers were to return home with limitless opportunities to recover and become resilient, the United States of America would be dealing in the trillions of dollars, and the next generations will be taught what comes after a trillion not as a long shot, but for our national security and that of the world’s! The financial sector is being monopolistic to the detriment of all world affairs, the Kochs and Adelsons and the neocon donor class know that their business models are weak and that competition from chief executives who had been in the United States Military would challenge their positions of power, their strongholds!

M: Dude! The United States Military is selfless and brilliant! Our sons and daughters in uniform are our pride and joy!

Waking up with a cup of Joe for the Bern

(M)an: Dude! A husband and wife pairing doesn’t make the husband and wife the same person. Yes, they can and do live parallel lives if the wife has had the educational and job opportunities that Hillary Rodham Clinton has had. But notice the way the Republican Party presidential contenders have placed blame on Democratic presidential contender Hillary Rodham Clinton for the sins of her spouse, former President Bill Clinton.  

(D)ude: Man! The American Republican Party is perverse. Bill Clinton is perverse because the two entities, the GOP and President Clinton, reached the agreement in 1996 to instate harsh welfare reform by implementing the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, which essentially enforced the two “can’t dos” in democracy and diplomacy, blaming the victims and the attempt at differentiating so-termed ‘deserving poor’ from so-termed ‘undeserving poor’.

M: Dude! I don’t favor Hillary Rodham Clinton anymore, because she has clearly stated something that I consider to be a strong indication of her covert political alliance with the American Republican Party and overt agreement with President Clinton’s political actions while in office. She stated the following to Rachel Maddow on Thursday, October 23, 2015, “Well, I want to say a word about the issues you mentioned, because my take on it is slightly different. On Defense of Marriage, I think what my husband believed – and there was certainly evidence to support it – is that there was enough political momentum to amend the Constitution of the United States of America, and that there had to be some way to stop that. And there wasn’t any rational argument – because I was in on some of those discussions, on both ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ and on DOMA, where both the president, his advisers and occasionally I would – you know, chime in and talk about, ‘you can’t be serious. You can’t be serious.’ But they were.  And so, in a lot of ways, DOMA was a line that was drawn that was to prevent going further.”

D: Man! Rachel Maddow went on to categorize President Bill Clinton’s response as “a defensive action” and Hillary Rodham Clinton agreed, didn’t she?

M: Dude! Yes, Hillary agreed and said that, “It was a defensive action. The culture rapidly changed so that now what was totally anathema to political forces – they have ceded. They no longer are fighting, except on a local level and a rear-guard action. And with the U.S. Supreme Court decision, it’s settled. ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ is something that – you know, Bill promised during the ‘92 campaign to let gays serve openly in the military.  And it’s what he intended to do.”

D: Man! And Rachel Maddow continued by calling the whole mess a “firestorm. Terrible firestorm.” Right? How exactly did Hillary Rodham Clinton respond?

M: Dude! Hillary agreed again and stated a while later that, “My take on this, now, is we’re going to have an election that is truly going to be, at bottom, about fundamental rights.  A woman’s right to choose, defending Planned Parenthood, marriage equality, taking on the continuing discrimination against the LGBT community.  You can get married on Saturday, you can get fired on Monday.  Voting rights – the most profound citizenship rights that we have being blocked and undermined at every turn. We are going to have a very vigorous debate in this election, because the Republicans are all on record as trying to reverse and rip away the progress that has occurred. A lot of it, because of decisions that the court has finally made – both for good and for bad.  I mean, the marriage equality decision for good, the terrible gutting of the Voting Rights Act for bad.  And the local activity in states against a woman’s right to choose and defunding Planned Parenthood.”

D: Man! Will President Hillary Rodham Clinton be held hostage by the United States Congress for her husband’s indiscretions and infidelities as well? Will Paul Ryan become the far-right grinch as Newt Gingrich was during the reign of the GOP’s “Contract with America” that then-Speaker of the House Gingrich espoused and through which the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 became the grim, grave reality of the disenfranchised and destitute, like mothers and their children, particularly minority and immigrant populations?

M: Dude! The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 was signed into law by President Clinton! And you’re right about the disenfranchised and destitute populations being targeted in order to balance the national budget of the United States and creating the Clinton Surplus, but look what happened in the following Walker Bush Administration, the disenfranchised and destitute were retargeted for the purposes of reducing the national deficit of the United States of America!

D: Man! What do we do right now to stop the scourge of the privileged political class placing all the responsibility of balancing budgets and creating surpluses on the backs of the poor and working classes; only to demand in a following presidential administration to reducing the deficit on the backs of the poor and working classes?

M: Dude! Vote for Bernie Sanders for President of the United States and Joe Biden as Vice President, because the two have remained outsiders for the entire length of their careers, instead of joining the privileged political class of Washington, DC! The Clinton Administration and the Walker Bush Administration were led by Presidents of the United States that believed heavily in mathematically accounting the soul out of the poor and working classes. That spread the scourge of the poor and working classes turning against one another for resources intentionally limited by President Clinton and President George Walker Bush, both men being friends to the sad extent of George Walker Bush degradingly referring to Hillary Clinton as a sister-in-law in subsequent interviews with the American Press Corps. You do know that in the Middle East and Eurasia, referencing a woman as a sister-in-law is considered disrespectfully disregarding her as a vassal?

D: Man! Yikes! That’s definitely not a move forward for the United States or the World!  

M: Dude! ISIS and ISIL are GOP vehicles to shred the dignity of Muslim women that was put into place by the Prophet Mohammed and solidified with the Prophet Mohammed’s Koranic breakthrough teachings, which emphasized the care of and a compassionate route to handling war widows and orphans. The nomadic lifestyle compounded with the enslavement of war widows and orphans was abolished by the Prophet Mohammed although the trend to enslave was pervasive across the globe then. And keep in mind that the Prophet Mohammed was born in 570 CE in Mecca and passed away at the age of sixty-two in Medina.  

D: Man! That is an important distinction made by the Prophet Mohammed, not to enslave war widows and orphans. I was reading Pat Shipman’s Femme Fatale: Love, Lies, and the Unknown Life of Mata Hari and came across a fact about how the Kingdom of the Netherlands fought the Sultanate of Aceh in what became Indonesia. Mata Hari’s first husband was a Dutch soldier in the war and Shipman reveals how there were native indigenous women who serviced the soldiers from the Netherlands as their sexual partners and homemakers on the front lines of battlefields. It reminded me of the Vietnam war and the women and children abandoned there as well. Of course, very few of the Dutch soldiers actually continued to provide financially or embrace their offspring as their legitimate heirs in some way or fashion, which was for the most part rare.

M: Dude! The American Republican Party or GOP saw, through both Iraq Wars, that Muslim women overwhelmingly were cherished and bequeath rights and rites like Hijab for their integrity and safety in society. Therefore, the American Republican Party or GOP funded the careful construction of ISIS and ISIL that deliberately dishonored and disenfranchised Muslim women in that region of the world where Mohammed, the Prophet of Islam, had solidified a code of moral conduct towards women and orphans through his teachings that became the Koran.

D: Man! Really?

M: Dude! Bush 41 and Bush 43 particularly placed priority on dishonoring Muslim women in both Iraq Wars. Honoring girls and women and cherishing them as legitimate family members and contributors to preserving the family system and greater society at large, was a characteristic of Muslim civilizations since the Prophet Mohammed’s teachings that is still unique and a historic game changer that hasn’t taken place anywhere else in modern civilizations, that is, the sacrament of the female condition.

D: Man! What about the argument of arranging marriages in the Middle East?

M: Dude! There is a television serial that has united the Pakistani and the Indian film communities, entitled Mera Naam Yousuf Hai, which brings to light that, according to the Prophet Mohammed, marriage is a consensual affair for both the groom and the bride, via the “nikah” or matrimonial service where the bride too signs the marriage contract, hence signifying her consent. But many times, as portrayed in the television serial that translates to “My name is Yousuf”, the parents sign their daughters’ contracts themselves, forging the bride’s signature and claiming it as legit, which is a major issue in female autonomy in Muslim culture.

D: Man! Is Hillary Rodham Clinton autonomous? Her campaign surrogate’s her husband!

M: Dude! I’ve got to get back to my minimum wage commitment! Let’s begin again tomorrow!

"... let woman be given responsibilities and she is able to assume them." Simone de Beauvoir (9 January 1908 - 14 April 1986)

Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, translated and edited by H. M. Parshley (1957).

(page 717):

But in doing this she is only defending herself; it was neither a changeless essence or nor a mistaken choice that doomed her to immanence, to inferiority. They were imposed upon her. All oppression creates a state of war. And this is no exception. The existent who is regarded as inessential cannot fail to demand the re-establishment of her sovereignty.

Today the combat takes a different shape; instead of wishing to put man in a prison, woman endeavors to escape from one; she no longer seeks to drag him into the realm of immanence but to emerge, herself, into the light of transcendence. Now the attitude of the males creates a new conflict; it is with a bad grace that the man lets her go. He is very well pleased to remain the sovereign subject, the absolute superior, the essential being; he refuses to accept his companion as an equal in any concrete way.

(page 719):

We have seen why men enslaved women in the first place; the devaluation of femininity has been a necessary step in human evolution, but it might have led to collaboration between the two sexes; oppression is to be explained by the tendency of the existent to flee from himself by means of identification with the other, whom he oppresses to that end. In each individual man that tendency exists today; and the vast majority yield to it.

(page 720):

Balzac illustrates this maneuver very well in counseling man to treat her as a slave while persuading her that she is queen.

(page 721):

Free from troublesome burdens and cares, she obviously has “the better part.” But it is disturbing that with an obstinate perversity—connected no doubt with original sin—down through the centuries and in all countries, the people who have the better part are always crying to their benefactors: “It is too much! I will be satisfied with yours!” But the magnificent capitalists, the generous colonists, the  superb males, stick to their guns: “Keep the better part, hold on to it!”

(page 725 - page 726):

She must shed her old skin and cut her own new clothes. This she could do only through a social evolution. No single educator could fashion a female human being today who would be the exact homologue of the male human being; if she is raised like a boy, the young girl feels she is an oddity and thereby she is given a new kind of sex specification. Stendhal understood this when he said: “The forest must be planted all at once.” But if we imagine, on the contrary, a society in which the equality of the sexes would be concretely realized, this equality would find new expression in each individual.

(page 727):

Woman is the victim of no mysterious fatality; the peculiarities that identify her as specifically a woman get their importance from the significance placed upon them. They can be surmounted, in the future, when they are regarded in new perspectives.

(page 728 - page 729):

I shall be told that all this is Utopian fancy, because woman cannot be “made over” unless society has first made her really the equal of man. Conservatives have never failed in such circumstances to refer to that vicious circle; history, however, does not revolve. If a caste is kept in a state of inferiority, no doubt it remains inferior; but liberty can break the circle. Let the Negroes vote and they become worthy of having the vote; let woman be given responsibilities and she is able to assume them. 

The fact is that oppressors cannot be expected to make a move of gratuitous generosity; but at one time the revolt of the oppressed, at another time even the very evolution of the privileged caste itself, creates new situations; thus men have been led, in their own interest, to give partial emancipation to women: it remains only for women to continue their ascent, and the successes they are obtaining are an encouragement for them to do so. It seems almost certain that sooner or later they will arrive at complete economic and social equality, which will bring about an inner metamorphosis.

The Bern's in all of US!

Bernie Sanders in his own verse...

“A politics of struggle is rooted in values and vision, and above all trust. It involves a compact a candidate makes with the people who share the values, who embrace the vision. It doesn’t say, ‘Vote for me and I’ll fix everything.’ It says, ‘If I get elected, I will not just work for you, I will work with you.’ The work may mean implementing a program at the local level or sponsoring legislation at the federal level, but what matters most is the connection that is made between people and their elected representatives—the connection that says there is someone on the inside who is going to fight for the citizens outside the halls of power. When citizens recognize that this fight is being waged, they are energized. They make bigger demands. They build stronger movements. They forge a politics that is more than winning an election; they forge a politics that is about transforming a city, a state, a nation, and maybe the world."

How do we even begin? Join the Bern!

(D)ude: Man! The Ronald Reagan and Herbert Walker Bush and George Walker Bush and William Jefferson Clinton presidencies laid out the foundation for free market economics that led to the financial crises we have been enduring since trickle down became an anthem in the 1980s. According to the Nobel laureate economist Joseph E. Stiglitz,

“Inequality weakens aggregate demand and the economy. America’s growing inequality was moving money from the bottom of the pyramid to the top, and since those at the top spent less of their money than those at the bottom, this weakened overall demand. During the 90s we masked the deficiency by creating the tech bubble—a boom in investment. But with the breaking of the tech bubble, the economy fell into recession. Bush [#43] responded with a tax cut aimed at the rich. With consumers worried about their future, the hoped-for stimulus to the economy from Bush’s tax cuts was weak. Piling on a further capital-gains tax cut—on top of one that had been given a few years before by President Clinton—only encouraged more speculation. Since its benefits went overwhelmingly to the very top, this tax cut was particularly ineffective and also strongly increased inequality.”   

(M)an: Dude! That passage is from an introductory chapter out of  Stiglitz’s 2015 book entitled The Great Divide: Unequal Societies and What We Can Do About Them?

D: Man! Yes! I'm reading from page 4! It is a colloquial masterpiece, don’t you think? I mean, it’s groundbreaking scholarship for sure, but very simple to understand. I feel compelled to vote in the upcoming presidential primaries for Bernie Sanders because of the striking similarity in

messaging he shares with Stiglitz—that, since Reagan, the top tenth of the 1% manufacture policies and politics that favor the financial sector over societal fairness. As Stiglitz continues writing on page 5,

“Inadequate fiscal policies put undue burden on monetary policies, which are the responsibility of the Federal Reserve. The Fed can (sometimes) stimulate the economy by lowering interest rates and making regulations more lax. But these monetary policies are dangerous. Their prescriptions should come with a big label:  Use only with caution, and under close supervision of adults who understand the full risks. Unfortunately, those in charge of monetary policy had not read any such label; and they were naïve market fundamentalists—believing that markets are always efficient and stable. While they underestimated the risks that their policies posed to the economy—and even to the government’s budget—they didn’t seem to care about the inequality that was growing day by day.The result is now well known:they unleashed a bubble,and their policies led to an unprecedented growth in inequality.

The Fed kept the economy churning with a policy of low interest rates and lax regulations. But it worked only by creating a housing bubble. It should have been apparent to all that the housing bubble and the consumption boom to which it led could only be a temporary palliative. Bubbles always break. Our consumption binge meant that the bottom 80 percent of Americans were on average spending 110 percent of their income. By 2005 as a country we were borrowing more than $2 billion a day from abroad. It was not sustainable.”        

M: Dude! The Humans of New York guy, Brandon Stanton, was a Power Player of the Week on  Chris Wallace’s Fox News Sunday show last year, August 30, 2015, and did not share the latest news about his philanthropic undertaking alongside Syeda Ghulam Fatima, the Lahore-based female human rights activist fighting on behalf of bonded laborers in Pakistan. The resulting fundraiser that generated $2 million dollars in donations for Fatima’s organization, The Bonded Labour Liberation Front’s relief efforts, was never followed up on by the United States Press Corps. There is no accountability in charity work is there? What became of the approximate two hundred million rupees raised for Fatima’s cause?      

D: Man! We already lack campaign finance reform in the United States and now you want charities held accountable for the promises that they make on behalf of the people they represent? How do we even begin?    

M: Dude! Vote for Bernie Sanders!

Something like that. Yeah?

(M)an: Dude! The stampede that claimed the lives of over one thousand pilgrims at Hajj this past September, was the result of the lack of gender segregation within the crowds that collided and crushed together.

(D)ude: Man! Gender segregation is not being implemented during Hajj? Why?

M: Dude! Family members are allowed to complete the pilgrimage together, hence, there is a long-standing tradition of having all the females precede the males in family units.  

D: Man! The women in a family are allotted the front of the line, while the men provide a shield from behind?

M: Dude! Yes! And therein lie troubles and tragedies. The family unit cannot guarantee complete protection for female members from being physically harassed by perpetrators in such masses, which leads to utter chaos and the inevitable collapsing of the crowd onto itself.   

D: Man! The solution is obvious, to implement a separation of the genders during Hajj. And I’m speaking of what they’ve done in Austin, Texas malls. Remember the bathrooms in that outdoor shopping complex, the ones labeled male, female, and family?

M: Dude! Yes! That was an intelligent way of handling the transgender rights debate that sprang up in Houston, Texas and onto the ballot there this past spring. What was it? Neoconservatives arguing the specifics of gender reassignment versus identity at the time of birth, and the use of public facilities, specifically bathrooms?      

D: Man! Something like that. Yeah?

M: Dude! Why then cannot girls and women be divided from the boys and men during Hajj and Umrah?

D: Man! Why not? And what’s Umrah?

M: Dude! Hajj is the annual pilgrimage to Mecca made by Muslims at least once in their lives if they can afford to make the journey without putting financial strain upon themselves, which falls on the last month of the lunar Islamic Calendar, specifically the eighth to the twelfth/sometimes thirteen of Dhu al-Hijjah, or “the Month of the Pilgrimage”…The Gregorian Calendar that we’re accustomed to is not lunar, therefore there is a difference of eleven days between the Islamic and Gregorian calendars.      

D: Man! Lunar and non-lunar? Islamic and Gregorian?

M: Dude! The Gregorian Calendar is eleven days longer than the Islamic Calendar. And going back to what Umrah is, it is literally the “lesser pilgrimage” to Mecca and can be made at other times of the year, whereas the Hajj is time sensitive. Speaking of time sensitivity, Saudi Arabia clerics need to reevaluate the timing of Hajj in 2016.

D: Man! How come?

M: Dude! Hajj in 2016 will fall on September the eleventh, exactly fifteen years after the horrific 9/11/01 attacks in New York City. Again, Muslim clerics need to be vigilant of all havoc-generating activities and actors during Hajj 2016.   

D: Man! You want to know my take on the Tel Aviv, Israel attack and why the United States Congress is creating havoc with allegations about President Obama’s administration spying on Netanyahu? That’s because the only real threat facing Netanyahu and the world right now are the neoconservative Republicans and Teabag Democrats like Howard Dean and Debbie Wasserman Schultz. The neoconservatives in the United States Congress as led by Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan are elevating toxicity across the country by remaining unresponsive to long-term climate disaster relief while municipal neocon politicians pocket funds originally allocated for infrastructure and welfare.

M: Dude! Did you see the port-a-potty fallen on its side on Westridge Avenue, near the Ridglea Country Club? Fort Worth, Texas is in shambles. George Prescott Bush prides in telling people he’s a resident of Fort Worth, and he is the Texas Land Commissioner, but where does he live? The roads and bridges available to those of us who do not have the finances to utilize the toll roads, are torn up. The Chisholm Trail toll road, however, is decorated with these huge Vince Lombardi Trophy-like sculptures and grass that is maintained, while all the other roads—leading the rest of us to destinations in twice or thrice the time—are rigged with potholes and dangerously uneven tread and allergy-laden spruces coming out of the overgrown greens.    

D: Man! Howard Dean’s 50 State Strategy is being utilized by the Republican Party for 2016 and Debbie Wasserman Schultz is underhandedly giving away confidential campaign strategies to the Republican Party through carefully timed breaches. And, get this, the campaign strategies being disclosed were carefully designed and implemented by the grassroots-led Organizing for America, the true Democratic revolutionaries, not the members of the Democratic National Committee! Howard Dean confessed—to the Morning Joe panel on MSNBC on Tuesday, December 28, 2015—to being the mastermind behind the 6-debate schedule for the Democratic presidential contenders.  

M: Dude! It’s much worse! Jeb Bush and Hillary Rodham Clinton are making Donald J. Trump a recruitment tool for terrorist organizations themselves. Jeb Bush and Hillary Rodham Clinton have a lot to gain fiscally in a Bush 45 presidency, both being in the top 2% of the population that will see even more tax breaks and relief under another pseudo-presidential puppet controlled by Dick Cheney et al.

D: Man! America needs Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley to speak up and against such savageries of the top two-percent. And Hillary Rodham Clinton’s breaking point politically begins where she doesn’t agree with having all young adults qualify for tuition-free education at state colleges and universities. Rodham Clinton presumes that all young adults from the top two percent of households in the United States have access to their guardians’ checkbooks, a presumption that could not be farther from the truth. Not all children of the top two percent are as nestled as Chelsea Clinton. Some are outright manipulated and harangued by their parents and/or guardians.

M: Dude! Did you hear that Marshall Bruce Mathers’—or better known as the rapper Eminem— daughter got a full scholarship to Michigan State University?

D: Man! Eminem’s daughter carried out a deliberate rebellion. It’s time for American voters to make the deliberate decision to elect their officials, not fall prey to the far-right coming into power as a direct consequence of their disillusionment and disengagement.