Political "Evolution"
Biden "Fights" Oligarchs, Pardons Drug Criminals
In his final address to the nation, Joe Biden warned us about people like him.
Those who would allow an oligarchy to develop. Of course, Biden was presenting his case from a well-polished political position that acts each and every time like these problems are brand new and manifested of whole cloth, just in the past few years. Pay no attention to how the DNC stifled Bernie Sanders when he was running on this issue TEN YEARS AGO.
No. Back then, Bernie was the threat who had to be stopped.
He almost defeated Her Turn in the 2016 primaries, and when he sought the 2020 nomination (after having the DNC argue in court justifying the 2016 conspiracy of the Clinton campaign and Donna Brazile to direct party resources to Clinton during the primaries) the DNC regulars teamed up to ensure that Old Joe got the nomination. Pete&Amy cashed in their dream—Pete, for the Transportation secretariat, and Amy for??? Whatevs. Even in the Democratic party, women are expected to get out of the way, so she never leveraged her exit from the race into a cabinet position, like Opportunist Petey did.
Biden campaigned on returning America to the time before Trump, and the lie worked. Then for the next several years, there was no attempt to hold Trump responsible until it was so late in the process that he got exactly what he needed from them.
For a party just waking up to class consciousness in late 2024 after ignoring working people’s needs for over for forty years, this is simply more of the same, “Oligarchy BAD.” Okay, Joe and the clown committee, what do you plan to DO about it?
There is no better time for a politician to criticize the power structures they put in place and worked to maintain than in the literal last hours of a career. It’s perfect because nothing is ever expected to come of it. The DNC is going to run Neoliberal candidates up and down ballots in 2026 and 2028. They have to; they are the new Conservative Party. God forbid they put together a progressive. pro-working class vision. It’s too risky you see. Far better we have oligarchs than worker collectives.
If you are going to have a corporate capitalist-driven economy, you will create oligarchy unless we change the relations of production themselves.
Joe Biden spent the 1970’s, 1980’s, 1990’s, 2000’s, and 2010’s pushing corporate capitalist and Drug War agendas. His term as president was a kayfabe, where a closer examination shows that, along with the failure to prosecute the insurrection leadership in a way that would result in criminal conviction, the Democrats spent four years telling us that because of Republicans they “couldn’t do anything” regarding taxation, a stagnant minimum wage, the Equal Rights Amendment, or questioning the social indicators used to measure quality of life.
The Democrats crowed about the number of “jobs” “created” under the Biden administration. First, it is inevitable after a pandemic staggers the economy that the recovery will recapture jobs lost. Lost 2,500,000 jobs in 2020? With the end of restrictions, all those jobs are going to be filled again, but since the people who held them lost those jobs, we will create “new” jobs as they re-enter the paid workforce. There’s a saying, “Economists need to learn to subtract,” because Gross Domestic Product calculations do not take losses into account.
The fires in Los Angeles will create a massive amount of housing production over the next few years. Pay no attention as to why.
A “job” is created when there is an income tax stream created. Back when Old Joe was a younger man, a new hire could reasonably expect a long-term commitment by employers, benefits like health and dental care, and earnings such that they could save enough money to buy further education or a new car every few years with cash on hand.
In 2024, when you download the Uber and Lyft apps, create a driver account, and provide them with a Social Security number for tax purposes—you just created TWO jobs for yourself! Congratulations.
No security, no benefits, and a pay rate just enough to keep the car operating. There is no surety of sufficient earnings to cover a driver’s food, much less rent. But to Joe’s Department of Labor, these jobs are as good as hooking up with IBM and General Motors, in 1965.
The Democrats do not accept this simple reality: For the past forty-five years or so the MORE the working class produces, the LOWER their quality of life becomes. They cause economic growth, but because the corporate capitalists have set the rules such that THEY get 95% of all new wealth, every day the working class AS A CLASS has been productive they have become relatively POORER. Since the working class is a large majority, the quality of life for American society as a whole has been in decline.
Corporate media has been working hard for the past decade, trying to get people to understand it is “cool” to adapt to a falling quality of life. Tiny houses! Van life! Food trucks! Hustle culture! You guys are so fucking cool, living outside of former American aspirations like a full-sized house on a plot of land with restaurants that have indoor seating nearby and being able to fulfill needs (and generate savings) by working 40 hours a week at ONE JOB.
“We need to WATCH OUT for oligarchs” is the equivalent of “We need to SAVE Social Security.” It’s not progress, it offers no recipe for fixing things. It’s a clarion call to not upset standard operations, and to trust the Democrats not to fuck working people over as they have your entire life.
Biden’s been a lame duck since August, when it became clear the DNC strategy to hide the old man as long as possible from challengers blew up on a debate stage, and we were left with no other choice by the DNC-selected replacement candidate. Of course, that candidate offered no alternative to the oligarchy-building, but that is because until earlier this week, only nutty Bernie Sanders dared say the word.
Old Joe is also spending his last hours as president commuting non-violent drug offenders—those who were caught up in Drug War practices Joe himself took the lead on creating. It was part of the DNC’s shift to Neoliberalism. Everyone knew Reagan’s tax and other economic policies were going to fuck over poor people, and they would take their own steps to adapt. Hyper-criminalizing drugs would put the police in direct control of these populations, expanding surveillance and suspending constitutional protection in “High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas” would make detection easier. Mandatory minimum prison sentences fed the privatization of the massive number of prisons needed to house them for set periods of time. It also captured labor, literally.
Old Joe LOVED IT so much he became among the Democrats’ most strident drug warriors.
The pardons and commutations have zero mention of Joe’s hard work at making racial minorities into productive pseudo-slaves. Pundits are claiming Joe has “evolved” or “come around to understand.” It’s a wonderfully hegemonic way of dodging the stalwart consistency of Biden and others—their position on saying and doing what they think will KEEP THEM IN POWER.
That is the consistency. The issues change as the population changes, but no matter if it comes decades later, the elected official’s “evolution” on a political position is sold as if it validates a change they had no part in making. Being a practicing catholic, I wonder if Joe ever confesses that he committed a lot of sin, bringing suffering to people in the name of his own career advancements. Probably not. Joe likely doesn’t remember when he lead the charge on crack and powder cocaine sentencing disparities that he now calls “unjust.”