I am not angry at our government, unlike what most people might say. I am not angry at the concept of America, or Freedom, or Apple Pie. I am sad that our government, and governments, federal and local, are no longer fulfilling their duties to their people. I am angry at capitalists, throwing money into politics and buying votes. I am angry at the people who forget why they sit in their seats, paid by the people, expected to work for the people, doing nothing more than pushing their own agendas and never really considering what is best for anything besides profit margins. I am upset with big business; Walmart, who’s mistreatment as an employee I have felt firsthand, and which can be seen on many of the faces of the soul-sucked employees at the registers. Kohl’s, who I was hired by and helped to open a new location and worked there loyally for almost a year, was promised a job when I came back, and was unceremoniously terminated when they revealed my return position was temporary, without any warning other than my schedules no longer being printed. Why was my loyalty rewarded so unjustly, when they strew new clothes over mannequins and displays I built with my own two hands? Profits. I was let go because they ‘could not afford me’. I was let go because I was not one of the core few. The manager, who defended his employees above all else, but didn’t see that label extend past the job status the individual carried. The beauty department, the jewelry department, the underpaid, overworked shipping and receiving teams.

I am angry at the Donald Trumps of the world. The ones with more money than brains, the ones who can’t see past their own wallets and egos, and somehow are still successful. Yes, successful. With so many of his projects failing[1], Donald Trump sits in the White House because the only man who could have stopped him was snubbed[2a][2b][2c] by a War Hawk[3a][3b][3c] who rigged the Democratic Primaries and ruined another chance at progress. There are so many ‘Donald Trumps’ with so much money that they play their games with pieces the rest of us simply don’t have.

Our government has been rotting away for a long time. Corporations grow stronger, and the moral fiber of our once representatives all too often bends freely before the concepts of profit. While there are a few shining beacons of hope, they are few and far between. Every step forward is met with resistance on all sides[4], but still we trudge, taking what victories we can get, always just enough to calm the fires in the hearts of most Americans.

Americans are not capitalists. In my eyes, the definition of America isn’t what America is. It is the definition of what America would have, could have and should have been. It is what America pretends to flaunt itself as. The land of the Free, not of the Wage Slaves. Not of the Racists and those they persecute. Not of ‘Whites’, ‘Blacks’, ‘Muslims’, and ‘Illegals’. Of the People, united, and singular. A nation of brothers and sisters, leading the world forward, instead of all too often sending them back into tyranny, installing Fascist puppets, embroiling the Middle East and South America in war. We should bring peace, not chaos and turmoil. So much good has been tainted, so many of us have been deceived and misled, Capitalist propaganda enslaving us to the core, until every thought we have is tainted by it, colored by it, fueled by it, until it is the only way of life many of us can ever consider. ‘Will my family eat tonight’ is not a question that should be asked in one of the richest countries in the world. If we were truly Created Equal, where is our share? Where is the $57,000[5a][5b] dollars that could go to US every year? The $57,000 dollars each, which could be used to improve our lives, or the lives of others less fortunate in the areas of the world we’ve exploited and ruined?

America was birthed by greed. We were founded to rape another continent out of its resources by Great Britain. Our land was bought and sold in gold and blood, between France, Spain, and Britain, with not a thought given to those who were here before us. ‘Indians’, ‘Native Americans’, not even given the proper identities they held. How many tribes can you or I personally really name? How many died because of the greed that swallowed the Americas? It’s not hundreds, its not thousands. It isn’t even hundreds of thousands. In what is now Mexico alone, between 22 and 25 MILLION died to diseases spread intentionally or not, to foreign led revolution by Spanish ‘Conquistadors’, to the turmoil and hunt for gold and riches.[6a][6b]

By our very roots we are tainted, by games of kings and queens that no longer exist in title, but in wealth. We, the People, Americans, struggle against this in our very souls, even if many of us do not realize it. Our frustration and rage is twisted and turned. We are told if we do not earn, we are not good enough to earn. Socialized Healthcare and Basic Living Wages[7], or better yet, Basic Guaranteed Income[8a], are all critiqued and criticized. ‘No one will work!’ ‘Why should *I* pay for someone else to sit on their ass all day?’ ‘We can’t afford it.’[8b]

So where then is that Fifty Seven Thousand Dollars per Year? If our government, who claims to be by, for and of the People, cannot pay, cannot SUPPORT its population, by what right do they govern us? By what right do they tell us who can and cannot marry, a fight that was only so recently won? By what right do they tell us those who can’t pay for healthcare must suffer and die if they can’t afford it?

Eight Hundred Billion and Fourteen BILLION dollars. No, that’s not the American debt; that’s the combined sum of the 20 richest ‘Americans’ alone.[9a] Gates, Bezos, Zuckerberg. The Koch brothers, the Waltons, the Mars family. Treating dollars like points in some pathetic pissing contest to see who can get the high score, sucking more and more into their gaping, forever-hungry maws. How much money does one individual need? How much does one really *need* to leave their children?

With arguments against Basic Income, why then is it allowed to leave billions to someone because of their birth. ‘They won’t work!’ ‘Why should *WE* pay for someone to do nothing?’ ‘We can’t afford it.’

So, all we need to do is look and see if the argument holds true. Are they lazy? Those rich few, who ‘earned’ or inherited their status, do they work like the rest of us? A brief look at the Wikipedia pages of John Franklyn Mars, Jacqueline Mars, and the Waltons? The Mars siblings ‘Careers’[9b][9c] don’t expand between being born rich, other than John buying a pet care company. The Waltons[9d][9e][9f] at least have record of their work; Alice, working as an Equity Analyst and Money Manager for First Commerce Corporation and the head of Arvest Bank Group’s investment activities, and broker for E.F.Hutton.[10]

They certainly wouldn’t have us thinking they are. And it is true, they have to work hard, or at least pay people to, to stay that rich. They have to pump money into the political machine, into the ad campaigns that border on propaganda, into their workers who often can’t afford to shop anywhere but where they work.

Lets say that they are equal to us, and not inherently better because their parents conceived them on sheets with a higher thread count. $57k a year. With ONLY the top 20 richest included, the numbers might seem reasonably out of our reach. Even with the Forbes 400, the number is daunting. In fact, any way you crunch the numbers, basic income doesn’t seem achievable, even by stripping away the money of every US corporation with a revenue of at least $100 BILLION dollars[11] and the entire Forbes 400 combined.

But that’s not surprising. Isn’t that exactly what the people with the money want us to think? We can’t stop working, because we need to eat. We can’t have Basic Guaranteed Universal Income, because we can’t afford it. So work, little ants, and keep us comfortable while some of you go hungry, or go without power, or heat, or healthcare. They don’t need the individual, they need the economy. They don’t need America, they need our life blood.

We no longer live in the dark ages where kings played chess with so many pawns. We are educated, and charged for it. We are given only the information we need for more skilled labor to make the rich richer, and keep us in debt along the way.

I offer no solutions, or anything more than a few facts combined with a good deal of opinion and likely conjecture. I don’t ask you to take my word, but to think about what it is we ‘deserve’. To think about what the value of the individual truly is; are we what is in our bank account, or the cars we drive? Or are we measured intellectually, constantly warring online for upvotes and validation? Or is it by who we love and who loves us back, or our moral integrity, or athletic aptitude, or is it something wholly intangible and fleeting? You can’t put a TL;DR on your own thoughts, so simply think. Because while I have no solutions, maybe you do. Maybe *we* do. I may be no more than more more voice crying out into the void, but perhaps my voice will reach others who can make the change I cannot see.