60 million dollars! That is how much Barack and Michelle Obama are reportedly getting paid to produce shows and movies for Netflix. 6,000,000,000 pennies—now this is change we can finally believe in. After spending eight years acting and reading scripts from teleprompters, Obama hit pay dirt and will now be manufacturing fiction instead of bamboozling us with his charm. This is what happens when a politician gives away the store to Wall Street and sells out Main Street to feed the greed of plutocrats, they inevitability get rewarded for their servility to their corporate masters.
The Netflix deal the Obamas inked is actually old news, it was announced almost two months ago and received mostly gushing reviews from a mainstream media that sees nothing wrong with leeches cashing in once they sold out their constituents and their souls. I’m only returning to this topic due to a fit of pique I felt two days ago when I read an article on Truthdig that detailed how former Obama officials are living high on the hog under the Trump administration.
Before you go thinking that this is a one sided analysis and a pro-Trump screed, let me assure you that I’m nothing like the typical establishment punditry who love to present outrage through political tinted glasses. Here is what I know to be true after spending years shilling for Democrats, both parties are in on the hustle and don’t give a damn about us. Donald Trump and Barack Obama only differ on the margins and in their rhetoric, at the core both are corporate hacks who are part of a wider pyramid scheme to transfer wealth from the vast majority of society straight into the coffers of the 1%. But slick talking Obama would have you believe that the broken affairs of our nation and the economic disparity between the haves and the have nots are urgent issues we must address after he spent eight years pouring gasoline on the fires of income inequality.
"There has been an explosion in economic inequality. A few dozen individuals control the same amount of wealth as the poorest half of humanity. That's not an exaggeration, that's a statistic. Think about that." @BarackObama at the #MandelaLecture #Obama pic.twitter.com/OXr90xjLiI
— Andrew Kimmel (@andrewkimmel) July 17, 2018
Sadly, too many of us are blinded by politics and manufactured dissensions to realize that our politicians are puppets of oligarchs and globalists. America has been turned into a caste system where the wealthy live a life of sheer opulence while the rest are beset by financial anxieties and economic uncertainties. This paradigm is exacerbated each election cycle because our system of governance encourages self-service and party fidelity as it excludes people who are loyal to fairness and equality.
How is this possible you ask? Simple. When two parties monopolize ballot boxes throughout America and block non-members from having any shot to win outside of their private clubs, they become the de facto godfathers of our “democracy”. The only way people have a chance to become a Congressman, Senator or President is if they kiss the ring of party insiders. The rabbit hole gets deeper. Both political parties are utterly dependent and addicted to corporations and moneyed interests in order to remain a going concern; consequently, the two godfather parties are actually capos of the Wall Street and multi-corporation mafias.
If pols play nice, their reward is a fat kiss from plutocrats by way of kickbacks and lump sums like the ones the Obamas received from Netflix. As the Truthdig article detailed, it’s not only the Michelle and Barack who made out like bandits since January 20th, 2017. Timothy Geithner, who was Obama’s Treasury Secretary, became the president of a private equity firm called Warburg Pincus that owns Mariner Financial. Mariner Financial’s specialty is preying on the poor and economically disadvantaged by offering them high rate loans at terms that bleed their debtors to the bone.
But wait, there’s more! Jeh Johnson, who was Obama’s DHS Secretary, was brought on board by Lockheed Martin faster than you can say drone and is currently making a tidy sum advancing the interests of one of the world’s largest arms dealers. Melody Barnes, who was Obama’s Domestic Policy Council director, followed in Jeh’s shoes and is currently working at Booz Allen Hamilton where she sits on the company’s Board of Directors and gives advice on ways to best harvest the government and make billions from our tax dollars. Although too many are fixated on the lunacy of the infant in the White House, the truth is that Trump, Obama and presidents before them have always looked out for themselves and their donors while feeding us empty rhetoric. Click To Tweet
I’m always bemused and miffed when Obama or one of his former staffers take to social media to condemn Donald Trump. 99% of the time, they are quietly making millions for themselves, but once in a while they put on a face of concern and make a show of excoriating the charlatan-in-chief. In a rare show of bipartisan bullshittery, Michelle Obama and Laura Bush joined forces to condemn Donald Trump’s child separation polices. Never mind that both of their husbands made it their core mission to deport immigrants and separate life from limb in their countless wars of aggression. Donald Trump has become the convenient strawman, as long as we are focused on him, we can overlook politicians as they bilk the government for their own gains and pay off their corporate enablers.
Our government has become both a cash cow and a security guard for robber barons and tycoons. The notion of politicians being public servants is laughable on its face. They are more like the public’s serpents who flick their tongues to whisper lies about change and then trade in their position for fortunes during and after their tenure has ended. We are not a republic, we are a nation that is governed by kleptocrats and ransomed by their corporate patrons. Donald Trump is no different, he appointed Jerome Powell, a former CEO of Bankers Trust, as head of the Federal Reserve. Powell’s tenure as CEO included shady derivatives trading that led to large losses for their customers. Remember derivatives trading? That is what imploded our economy in 2008—make America broke again!
First black president, first Latina millennial congresswoman, first gay albino governor, first left-handed woman CEO, they'll just keep rolling out tokens to represent progress and people will keep falling for the hoodwink as we get walloped by regressive economic policies.
— Teodrose Fikre ✒ (@TeodroseFikre) July 13, 2018
One of the most astounding pronouncements that Barack Obama made while he was still in office happened during his last attendance of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. During that event, he noted that if the jokes don’t do well, he will reuse them at Goldman Sachs and make some serious Harriet Tubmans. Jokes are only funny because they are true. Obama came in promising hope and change only deliver hope to his corporate masters and turn change into a fortune for himself. Class and grace? A hustle worth watching on Netflix. #CrassAndFarce
“Money is not the only answer, but it makes a difference.” ~ Barack Obama
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Lij Teodrose Fikremariam
Originally from Ethiopia with roots to Atse Tewodros II, Lij Teodrose is a former community organizer whose writing was incorporated into Barack Obama's South Carolina primary victory speech in 2008. He pivoted away from politics and decided to stand for collective justice after experiencing the reality of the forgotten masses. His writing defies conventional wisdom and challenges readers to look outside the constraints of labels and ideologies that serve to splinter the people. Lij Teodrose uses his pen to give a voice to the voiceless and to speak truth to power.
Latest posts by Lij Teodrose Fikremariam (see all)
- Ethiopia’s Choice: Poverty through Grievance or Prosperity through Unity - September 9, 2019
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- A Matter of Life or Death: We Cannot Afford to Ignore Mental Illnesses Any Longer - August 17, 2019
