We’re missing billions in taxes each year. That’s partly why our roads and transit systems are falling apart. (Mural by graffiti artist Alec Monopoly/ Photo by aisletwentytwo| Flickr CC 2.0)
By David Sirota, TMI, for BillMoyers.com
Headlines this morning are all about looting — specifically, looting in Minneapolis, after the police killing of an unarmed African American man was caught on video. In the modern vernacular, that word “looting” is loaded — it comes with all sorts of race and class connotations. And we have to understand that terms like “looting” are an example of the way our media often imperceptibly trains us to think about economics, crime and punishment in specific and skewed ways.
Working-class people pilfering convenience-store goods is deemed “looting.” By contrast, rich folk and corporations stealing billions of dollars during their class war is considered good and necessary “public policy” — aided and abetted by arsonist politicians in Washington lighting the crime scene on fire to try to cover everything up.
To really understand the deep programming at work here, consider how the word “looting” is almost never used to describe the plundering that has become the routine policy of our government at a grand scale that is far larger than a vandalized Target store.
Indeed, if looting is defined in the dictionary as “to rob especially on a large scale” using corruption, then these are 10 examples of looting that we rarely ever call “looting”:
1. The Fed Bailed Out the Investor Class: “Thanks to this massive government subsidy, large companies like Boeing and Carnival Cruises were able to avoid taking money directly — and sidestep requirements to keep employees on.”
2. Millionaires To Reap 80% of Benefit From Tax Change In Coronavirus Stimulus: “The change — which alters what certain business owners are allowed to deduct from their taxes — will allow some of the nation’s wealthiest to avoid nearly $82 billion of tax liability in 2020.”
3. Stealth Bailout’ Shovels Millions of Dollars to Oil Companies: “A provision of the $2.2 trillion stimulus law gives (companies) more latitude to deduct recent losses… The change wasn’t aimed only at the oil industry. However, its structure uniquely benefits energy companies that were raking in record profits.”
To continue reading this article by David Sirota, go to: https://billmoyers.com/story/david-sirota/
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