“No God. No monarchy. No democracy.
The Greed Philosophy means the world
belongs to the rich elite.” – Ayn Rand

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Jazmine Sullivan
with Dumb

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THE BIG PAYBACK
written & edited by Kendall F. Person

a remix of The Philosophy of Greed

In 1804, the nation of Haiti on the island of Hispaniola, should have been welcomed by the free world. Embraced for their strength and courage and celebrated for their hard fought victory when they revolted against the French, defeating their imperialist rulers, thereby gaining their independence. The world’s first Black Republic to do so, the new Haiti was born of former slaves (a free people of west Africa before that, however). But the United States was still a bastion of bondage and servitude, where slavery was seen as an institution. Sixty-one years would pass, before its recognition as a national disgrace, crime against humanity and an affront to an Higher Power. A nation of former slaves less than 700 miles off the US shores was unthinkable, so the United States would not recognize Haiti’s right to exist, humiliated after their unsuccessful attempts in aiding the French. The world followed suit and a land of millions of people, vanished in plain site. So Haiti would grow up all alone, closed off from a progressive and changing world, marooned on half an island, victimized by their own success.

“The point is that you can’t be too greedy.”
– Donald Trump

In 1986, the Haitian people, poorest in the western hemisphere and near bottom of the economic barrel in comparison to the world, would once again revolt, but this time there would be no celebration avoided, because there was literally nothing left. Jean-Claude Duvalier known as Baby Doc and his wife Michelle, were overthrown by the people and chased out of their native land. Once the world had come to know, why the Dictator Baby Doc had been exiled as President, he and his wife would become pariahs and symbols of the philosophy of greed.

Already of considerable wealth, by any standards across the world, but in a nation still tormented by The 1804 Decision and rocked by natural disasters and national epidemics, the Leaders were living the life of emperors. But Baby Doc’s philosophy on greed – branded and quoted by the empire of Trump – would raise the stakes too high, and the house of cards would fall.

“Only the little people pay taxes.” Leona Helmsley

They robbed their own nation he was entrusted to govern, siphoning off funds from government agencies – funded by the people via taxation. The Duvaliers used the money for their own decadent displays, while their country unraveled and its constituents survived at the lowest level. But the people would eventually awaken from their trance and took back their government from a royal narcissistic leader. By the time he was caught, however, Baby Doc had taken money belonging to Haiti and hid it in French banks, adding insult to a long line of injuries inflicted upon a historic republic. Perhaps their trials and tribulations –  I like to think – gave them the strength they would need years later, when the earth would shift underneath their feet.

[Not paying taxes] “That makes me smart.”
– Donald Trump,

Philippines dictator Ferdinand & Imelda Marcos, plundered $5 – 10 billion dollars of State funds

The levying of taxes at times overwhelms, becoming burdensome and an uninspired medium, a lazy solution of solving everything. But it is also how we pay for the demands we make of better schools, tighter security and paved roads. With exceptions made, perhaps to hermits absolute, living on land they own, with water from a natural well they dug, and producing no pollutant footprints or waste indisposed, paying taxes is a Patriotic duty of all Americans and a responsibility when long or short term visitors earn or make money here.

Donald and Melania Trump

In 2016, Donald Trump responded “That makes me smart,” to the question about not paying taxes, it was not a wisecrack, rather outwitting the government with their own loopholes down to paying zero taxes on an empire worth billions, is demonstrative of greed and foreshadowed the type of President he would be. And each time he thwarts the checks and balances and emerges unscathed, he is actually consolidating power. And if he is able to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller, than only a lethargic congress stands in the way of a land of no God, no monarchy, no democracy only greed, ruled by the rich elite.

But perhaps, the era of Trump and the systematic collapse of our democracy and goodwill is the big payback, as a way to even the score, since no apology was ever given for 1804.

— Resist.

Ayn Rand is followed by Speaker of the House Paul Ryan