From The Ramparts

The New Form of Slavery

The New Form of Slavery

“Debt slavery is where your debt load dictates your life. You would like your wife to be able to stay at home with the kid(s), but your monthly expenses are too high to allow that. You find yourself restricting the number of children you have, blaming it on your economic situation. In short, Debt Slavery is paying more than 5% of your income for interest on debts. Being poor is one thing. But being poor because some banker is getting all your money is another thing altogether! Being debt free brings a wonderful peace, a lack of worry that those who owe their lives away to the bank never get to experience.

Debt Slavery is NOT the same as being poor. A poor, retired couple might be able to live well on $700 a month Social Security, because they have no debts. Meanwhile a young couple with much debt might not seem to be poor, but they are in Debt Slavery nonetheless because they give away hundreds or thousands of dollars a month in interest. They might live well, but they should be able to live even better. It is more desirable to "live with less" than to pretend to a higher standard of living than you can actually afford, and consequently become shackled with debt.” How to Avoid Debt Slavery http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/OriginalArticles/debtslavery.html

As Africans in AmeriKKKa we often are suffer from what I call “the canary in mine syndrome”. In the mining communities during the 19th and 20^th centuries the coal miners would carry canaries into the shafts with them to detect the odorless but noxious gas levels in the mine. If the canaries died they knew the levels were too high. We are like social canaries for Euro-AmeriKKKans. The ruling elites test out their nefarious plans and schemes on us (and in the case of the man made AIDS epidemic, white homosexuals, who the ruling elites viewed as a throw away populous) they watch to see the results, tweak them and then unleash them on the larger white community.
The plutocratic shot callers have long known the effects of music on the human psyche. They saw how the Black Consciousness and Black power movements influenced art and artists like Larry Neal, Gil Scott Heron, The Last Poets, Curtis Mayfield and James Brown inspired and galvanized a whole generation of Africans in AmeriKKKa to “fight the powers that be”. As part of COINTELPRO the reactionary police state and the corporate arm of the ruling elites moved simultaneously to quash/co-opt the Black Arts, Black Power and Black Revolutionary movements by undermining independent black record companies, co-opting political R&B and later suppressing the conscious and hardcore political creativity the youngsters called Hip Hop, by promoting apolitical, watered down commercial versions and ultimately spawning and promoting the genre of music called Gangsta Rap. The police state went into action with COINTELPRO by framing, slandering co-opting and killing off members of radical and some not so radical organizations.
“What has happened with L.A. gang culture, after the FBI and LAPD’s concerted effort to annihilate any form of empowered political articulation from the community, is a reversal of the previous transition from gangster to revolutionary. Instead we have seen the one time revolutionaries accept the violent tropes of political resistance without the informed ideology that separates gangsters from freedom fighters. In a similar fashion, the move from the politicized domain of East Coast rap championed by Public Enemy to the celebrity nihilism of West Coast rap demonstrates the current death of acknowledged political activism in contemporary culture. This political decline is also consistent with the position advocated by Dr Dre. In an interview with Brian Cross when discussing his entrance into gansta rap as a producer, Dre says, ‘I wanted to go all the way left, everybody trying to do this black power and shit, I was like, let’s give ‘em an alternative.’ It is interesting that the alternative comes in the form of celebrating the antithesis of politics through gangsta rap.” Todd Boyd Am I Black Enough For You? page 78-79 Seeing the success they had with this pathological genre the elites then pumped it along with crack cocaine into the African community with disastrous affect. As the African community canaries self-destructed from the lethal combination of crack cocaine and psyche destroying gangsta rap the elites soon replicated it in poor white communities using rap, heavy metal and methamphetamines in the place of crack cocaine.
In addition to the music and drugs the elites also pumped and promoted crass materialism, reckless consumer spending and conspicuous consumption. By promoting television programs like Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, My Crib, How You Living? and similar programs on regular and cable television; the banks were setting working class and middle calls folks up for the kill using “easy credit”. Working class and poor blacks have long suffered from usury and exploitation. Part of the ubiquitous “Black Tax” is we pay more for everything we purchase. Remember the line in the television show Good Times theme song, “… easy credit rip offs, good times, ain’t we lucky we got um, good times?” Well the easy credit scam and trap was sold to the whole country. Every class and strata of AmeriKKKan society bought it hook line and sinker. “Americans are notoriously deep in debt—and not just for their home and car. The average adult carries a balance of thousands of dollars on any number of retail and bank credit cards. Personal loans—including home equity, debt consolidation, and student loans—also contribute to this debt load. What is important about this, is that all of these sources of debt contribute to the draining of a family's budget. A monthly budget is a snapshot of how a family is doing. If the income is greater than the expenses, the family is doing well financially because they have money left over—which can be saved for future needs. This is called a net surplus. But if the monthly expenses are greater than the monthly income, the family is doing poorly, because it is sinking deeper into debt with every passing month. This is called running a deficit. If there were one single law of ‘how to not be a debt slave’ it would be: avoid debt at all costs. Even going into debt for necessary things (house, car) can be done wisely. Choose a house that you can live in for a while, but do not buy as much house as the realtor says you can afford. The realtor is paid a 3 to 6% commission on the house you buy. Take a calculator and see which house will bring a greater commission: an $80,000 house, a $150,000 house, or a $200,000 house. This should put you on your guard as to what the realtor is going to be pushing for. (Hint: the more expensive house, always.) Tell him how much you are comfortable spending, and he will be forced to oblige you. If you do not intend to go over your head, the realtor cannot force you.” http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/OriginalArticles/debtslavery.html
The key to being truly free is thinking for yourself. Think freedom! We are targets of sophisticated psychological warfare and manipulation by the media, the corporations and the government. We need to turn off the TV especially during commercials and be more critical in our thinking about the world around us. Don’t go for the okey-doke and hype!! Begin to use your imagination and visualize yourself worry and debt free. See yourself in your mind’s eye as healthy and prosperous and begin to handle your existing finances is ways that are consistent with this image. You cannot visualize prosperity and behave in ways that put or keep yourself in debt!
Debt liberation will not be easy. All of us have been conditioned to respond like Pavlovian dogs to recklessly spend and consume (the word consume means to waste, use up or destroy) so we must begin to reprogram ourselves to act in ways that are beneficial to us rather than the banks. We must initiate actions that promote financial health and prosperity. Stop being outer directed and begin being more mindful using our own full minds (conscious and subconscious); rather than allowing ourselves to be manipulated. We must become more consistent in our efforts to free ourselves and avoid debt servitude. “The key is to pay as little interest as possible, because that takes away from your net worth. Paying interest is a form of slavery. Any other use of your money can be justified (home improvements, giving to charity, new car, food, utilities, etc.) because you are doing something good with it. But interest is a complete theft of your hard-earned money. No one likes paying an occasional $100 traffic ticket—why should they happily give up $1000 or more in interest every month?” http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/OriginalArticles/debtslavery.html We must also learn to use compound interest in our favor through savings earnings and sound investments. The ore we get out of debt the more disposable income we will have to save, invest and tithe (not in the religious sense but in doing charitable and philanthropic works). But it all begins with our thinking. Think freedom. Think prosperity and act accordingly. Free your mind the rest will follow.

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posted by Junious Ricardo Stanton @ 3:46 PM