Thread by @PnictogenHorses

one of the most curious stories that came out during the 2016 campaign, during which the inept candidacy of @HillaryClinton succumbed to the neo-fascıst movement and @mtaibbi's best friend @realDonaldTrump, was this act of petty corporate theft.

archive.is/Sk7zB

(1/x)

Trump, or rather his tax-shelter @TrumpFoundation (every rich #entrepreneur-criminal has a "foundation" of some sort, useful both for tax purposes and as a place to furnish sinecure jobs to cousins and loyal toadies and so on), was accused of fiddling money from a charity.

(2/x)

@realDonaldTrump's @GOP defenders (*not* including @mtaibbi, whose fandom for Trump and the GOP was predictably late in developing) tried to pretend that Trump or his people couldn't have possibly done such a thing: after all, Trump's already rich! on paper, anyway.

(3/x)

why would a rich person—@realDonaldTrump or @elonmusk or even @mtaibbi, who is rich compared to most human beings—*steal*? they don't _need_ the money.

and therein lies the logical fallacy: most theft is done by people who already have money. very few poor people steal.

(4/x)

when you're poor, you're afraid of losing what little you have, and thanks to the fascıst administration of @GOP figurehead @RonaldReagan (with lots of help from @TheDemocrats and @JoeBiden), even stealing a pint of milk can get you jailed for decades or murdered by a cop.

(5/x)

as it happens the Pnictogen Wing has experience of how expensive jail and court proceedings can be, even for a trivial crime. we were lucky to get away as lightly as we did.

AND we were protected by 'whıte' privilege; a non-whıte American would likely still be in jail.

(6/x)

hence, no matter what decades of right-wing propaganda and @RonaldReagan-era nonsense have taught Americans to believe about #poverty and #crime, most poor people are in fact ethical and moral, and do not commit crimes even when they're facing eviction and homelessness.

(7/x)

a more likely candidate for #crime is the relatively wealthy person who has become accustomed to living in wealth but who now faces debts. to be "rich" in Western civilization, to be @elonmusk or @realDonaldTrump or @saylor or whoever, is to be constantly borrowing money.

(8/x)

rich people, even people who are only *slightly* rich—e.g. leisure-class pundits of the @bendreyfuss / @mtaibbi sort—have the luxury of simply ignoring their debts. having more financial resources means having more ways of playing with debts, moving them around, etc.

(9/x)

and Western culture—with the full and enthusiastic participation of corrupt #journalism of the @mtaibbi / @jonathanchait sort—has fully bought into right-wing, @RonaldReagan-era propaganda about #debt, which America has been taught to blame on the plebs, on the *people*.

(10/x)

the unwashed masses are too profligate to stop drinking mochas and eating avocado toast, and that's why "the government" is massively indebted—that really and truly is gospel truth for #conservative dullards like @mtracey, and "centrist" dullards like @mtaibbi.

(11/x)

the truth about the national #debt is that the @GOP has run up the great bulk of it—@RonaldReagan's presidency marked a massive orgy of government spending and looting of the public treasury. George W. Bush and @realDonaldTrump were similarly wasteful with public funds.

(12/x)

more importantly, #capitalism and corporate #management sees "the government" as the eventual dumping-ground for all its indebtedness. through various shady and disreputable means, corporations can shift their debts onto the backs of those people who can least afford it.

(13/x)

the people are admonished to be "personally responsible", a la @RonaldReagan, and stop drinking so much coffee; meanwhile, capitalists simply walk away from losing money, and usually get handsomely rewarded for crashing their companies (e.g. @CarlyFiorina, once of @HP.)

(14/x)

there's *no incentive* for rich people to be careful with money...there's also no incentive for @realDonaldTrump, @elonmusk, &c. not to steal.

even when they're caught, they rarely suffer much for it. the rich have their own "civil" legal system that treats them gently.

(15/x)

and *why* are they rich? usually it's because they started out that way, through inheritance or some other means—but not always, and the fact that the occasional rich person genuinely *does* rise up from the ranks gives #capitalism its central myth: Anyone Can Make It.

(16/x)

#capitalism functions much the same way as any pyramid scheme, i.e. sucking up money from the masses at the base of the pyramid and shoving all the *costs* downward as well, so that all the money gets funnelled upwards and skimmed off the top. there MUST be losers.

(17/x)

the culture of hustlers and grifters who dedicate themselves to #money—people like @Teslaconomics and @BillyM2k and @JoePompliano, who do nothing else with their time other than scam money and follow around richer scam artists—try not to think about that inevitable ruin.

(18/x)

the pyramidal structures of #capitalism *need* losers to feed off—remember, capitalism has figured out ways to monetize Death itself. capitalism makes huge amounts of money off *corpses*. that's the ultimate fate of @Teslaconomics et alii...they're going to die, one day.

(19/x)

and then they'll be food for the system they've dedicated their lives to—perhaps @Teslaconomics will leave their family and heirs with a lot of indebtedness, if only because funeral parlors are *very* expensive. and #capitalism will reap the profits from their demise.

(20/x)

so in the meantime, they hustle and scam and grab onto every cent possible, whether it's an honest cent or not—which brings us back to @realDonaldTrump and the @TrumpFoundation fiddling money (maybe) from a cancer charity. that's *part of the game*. it's expected.

(21/x)

to be rich, to be @billgates and @elonmusk rich, even to be merely @mtaibbi or @Teslaconomics rich, isn't about *saving*, it's about *gambling*—and about *theft*.

to become rich you need to be the sort of person who'd steal money from a public tip jar—because it's THERE.

(22/x)

"only a sucker would leave this money out for anyone to grab," says the @realDonaldTrump / @elonmusk / @Teslaconomics sort of person—and then they grab it, and accuse someone else of the crime.

rich people are obsessed with crime...because they commit most of it.

~Mona Drafter

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