Trickle Down Your Spine

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The myth that the “trickle down economy” works is constructed specifically for the purpose of garnering support, especially among those negatively impacted by the “trickle down” policies. And, it works! Via careful marketing, millions of non-rich people actually believe that economic policies that favor the rich, will ultimately favor them as well — though that is definitely not what the data show and, with rare exceptions, completely contrary to the “believer’s” personal experience.

Or is it?

In their experience, as is true for most people, more effort means more success. If you work hard on something and work smart on something and do it for a long time, you’ll have a much better success than if you just dabble at it. Let’s say you made a cradle for your first granddaughter and you put a lot of time and effort into it. The cradle was beautiful! (Great job, you).

Another project of yours didn’t work out quite so well. You made a doghouse, but you were in a hurry because of other things and you were going to use old scraps of wood anyway to save money. It looks as it does: sad, unprofessional, ugly. Those you remember, and indeed, there’s no doubt at all that, generally speaking, results are correlated with effort. Results are also correlated with talent. Better golfers and tennis players win more and make more money. Same with many entertainers. More talented entertainers garner more fame and money.

The propaganda part comes in to convince those millions of true believers that what is true of their own efforts and what is true of competitive fields, is exactly what’s in play when one person has a salary of 50,000 a year and someone else has a salary of 50,000,000 a year. And, why would we want to mess with that success, right? No, as it turns out, exorbitant CEO salaries are not required to get good talent. But perpetuating the myth yields dividends: the wealthy gain support for a con that they pull on their supporters!

But there’s a second and more insidious reason for perpetuating the myths of a “level playing field” and a “trickle down economy.” If the wealthy are the source of wealth, then, you’d better be damned nice to them! Say, you have a middle class client who has given you solid business for a decade and then someone truly wealthy comes along and asks you to please just put them at the top of the list, because they’re very busy and who knows how big their next job for you might me. What would you do?

But there’s a third and even more insidious reason for perpetuating the myth. It doesn’t just make it possible to institute policies that screw most of the population. It does that, and it invites people to give special treatment to the wealthy so that they have an even more uneven playing field to play on. The third thing that the myth perpetuates is an intra-psychic mind helix (I really want to use a more apt word but we’ll keep it PG-13) of truly soul-crushing proportions. The ultra-wealthy have convinced nearly everyone in society that there are worthy and unworthy people. Further, to be worthy means that you make a lot of money, or, if you’re unable to that (because of lack of talent or hard work, obviously) at least have the dignity of knowing that you have contributed to society — by which is very clearly meant, have a good paying job (working for the very wealthy).

Your worth as a human being is not dependent on working. It is worthwhile to contribute to society. You could do that in thousands of ways that would bring you zero income. According to what most people really feel, it would be fine to do that. You would be taken care of by your community. But large segments of our society have been made to feel unworthy. And what happens when someone feels unworthy? They are hugely handicapped in getting a job. In some cases, this kind of pattern starts in school. A person is made to feel unworthy because it takes them twice as long to learn something.

There are good solutions for that. For example, you could be very selective in what you decide to learn. You can take twice as long to learn if it takes twice as long to learn. That works. You can use external stimuli to help you remember things. Although this is a worthwhile strategy for the real world, it is expressly forbidden in most school settings. What, exactly, is a student being prepared for?

They are being prepared for failure. They are made to feel unworthy and that’s great, because those who feel unworthy are much easier prey for the tactics of fear-mongering and hate-mongering. The “Trickle-Down Wealth = Worthiness” theory works at three levels: first, the policy level; second, the interpersonal level; third, at the intra-psychic level.

Just as the wealthy hire people to make you feel that the key to your happiness is drinking coke, eating chips, & chewing Tumms, they turn to those same people to make you feel like policies that make rich people richer are “practical” and “good for the economy.” They hire these same folks to make you think wealthy people are just plain better, regardless of what else they do, whatever laws they break, whatever evil they wreak in the world. They hire that same crew to make you believe that if you are not wealthy, you are unworthy. And —-

(Drum roll please). If you feel unworthy, it’s not that you are really unworthy. Oh, no! You are worthy but you have been cheated out of your wealth! Yeah, but not by wealthy people! Oh, no! Shame on you! How could you ever think that? You nasty person! Why just last week, the billionaire gave a million dollars to a scholarship fund! Of course, it wasn’t wealthy people who cheated you! You’ve been cheated out of your wealth because of other poor people or others in the middle class. Yeah, it’s their fault — but not the people just like you! No, no, you’re just fine. But it’s the poor people who are: (Pick whatever items you want): {gay, trans, black, brown, yellow, red, old, young, immigrant, rural, urban, left-handed, right-handed, Asian, Native American, handicapped….} They’re the ones who’ve kept you from being a “worthy person.”

Don’t get me wrong. People would be plenty upset and the Arcturans even if all the Arcturrans did was just take their money. But it isn’t just about money. Because people have been brainwashed from birth that if they are not able to achieve great wealth, they are unworthy!

Except, guess what? A savior comes to show them that they are not unworthy at all because they have simply been cheated out of the great wealth (and worthiness) that they so richly deserve. It is no surprise that many graven images of TFG are literally made to appear Christ-like or God-like even though, in substance, he’s the least Christ-like of any President in history! But in terms of the psychological function he serves in some people’s lives, it’s the same. He convinces them that their soul can be saved! They will be made whole again. They are worthwhile and all it takes is for someone like TFG to be in charge with absolute power, and he will make sure they have the kind of wealth they deserve. He will wreak revenge on the heads of your enemies!

Of course, it’s absolute rot, as it always is when dictators brag about how great it’s going to be. If someone wants to hear a particular message badly enough, they will hear it and ignore the sound of the truth all around them.

At one level, it’s hilarious to see a bunch of mainly rich old white guys complain and whinge and whine about how much they’ve been cheated. That this cadre of whiners and wingers about how unfairly life has treated them is led by a rich old white guy who was born rich, lost a fortune, begged daddy for more money and then still couldn’t make an honest go of it, only adds to the richness of the irony. But however hilarious and absurd it is, it is also deadly serious. And by “deadly” I mean “deadly” — literally. People will die. And people have died because of the “Big Lie” and the thousands of others.

The catechism of “Wealth is Worthiness and the Wealthy Deserve a Special Break” has been enhanced to include: “And My Voice is the Only Voice you can Trust! Ignore that I’ve spent my entire adult life being a con mad and that I’ve cheated in all my relationships with other human beings. So what? Believe me and your enemies will be killed and you’ll be rich and righteous just as you deserve to be.”

Dictators divide in order to gain power. Once they are in power, they can and do steal from everyone. They can and do cheat everyone. They can kill anyone. Read the history of dictators. They’ll kill journalists. They’ll kill business partners who become too successful. They’ll kill political competitors. They’ll even kill co-rapists if that person might provide damning evidence.

Draw a diagram.

Read history.

Think.