In the mid-aughts, I decided to use my accounting background to explain how the US campaign finance system created bought-and-paid-for politicians, government workers, judges, and more. Instead of explaining these concepts using dry, academic jargon, I made it about SEX.
As in when X political candidate takes money from Y company for a visit to his PAC brothel, Y company gets to demand whatever type of sexual favor they like from X political candidate.
Minimum contributions get you past the bouncer. Add more money and you’re invited to the VIP Room. Give enough and the politician will sexually pleasure you himself.
There’s nothing wrong with legitimate sex work where everyone consents, the workers are treated fairly, and everyone is suitably compensated. But I’m not sure it’s a great model for our elected leaders and other public officials to gleefully embrace.
Anyway, using sex to get Americans to read about how money works did well on Facebook back in the day. I stopped because I got tired of having to trick people into learning about financial topics with lewd titillation.
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This week, I was tempted to go back there. Americans don’t want to read about how money works because so much of it is mind-crushingly boring. It’s easier to think the stock market = the economy and a healthy 401K balance = a good economy and *I can’t afford groceries *= a bad economy.
I decided to write about a wonky HUD program for unhoused funding because it reveals how this regime is now able to work two fronts simultaneously: Bottom-up and Top-down.
A billionaire acolyte of Doug Wilson moves his business headquarters to Battle Ground and spends several years ingratiating himself. Quietly, he begins to buy up vacant properties. He brings a Wilson-aligned pastor to town to take over a prominent church. They work together to open Christian businesses and infiltrate city government with WCN true believers.
As far as we know, this all happened using one billionaire’s money. It has been part of the White Christian Nationalist Bottom-up strategy for decades.
But what if the pastor at the Wilson-aligned church applies for HUD funding to address homelessness?
According to the grant call, the church doesn’t have to provide housing first or even have dedicated housing space to be eligible. They can use the funds to go out into the streets and evangelize. Or buy up vacant properties to add to their portfolio and own more of the town. Or make slick multi-media presentations to help unhoused people address their “sin” problems. Or pay social media groups to spread their message. Or whatever else they want as long as they tie it to addressing the problem of homelessness.
Because they’re a church, we’ll never know what they do with this hypothetical money, because churches don’t have to provide an accounting of money in or money out. The 2024 election enabled the federal government to take our taxpayer dollars and push them down to favored groups - something Project 2025 promised to do over and over and over again. And White Christian Nationalist “churches” - even if they don’t look like a church - are the teacher’s pet in this Top-down strategy.
But we won’t root out this corrupt system solely by voting. Americans must stop funding this system from the Bottom-up. The only peaceful way to accomplish this will be through a General Strike/National Boycott.
I’m talking about a National Boycott/General Strike again because if Republicans refuse to concede midterm elections when they lose, a National Boycott/General Strike is the only peaceful action that has proven effective at forcing autocrats to yield. No work. No school. No travel. No spending. Mass peaceful protests daily. Until everything grinds to a halt and those in power fold.
In 1989, the people of Czechoslovakia ousted over forty years of Communist rule in less than two months using these tactics. Readers can learn more about their Velvet Revolution HERE.
Convince every persuadable person you know to vote in the midterms. Share this newsletter as a conversation-starter.
Yes, a General Strike means doing the opposite of pretty much everything Americans are programmed to do. We don’t have a safety net. Our economy is an Olympic-sized hamster wheel everyone stays on in a desperate attempt to pay our bills. I don’t know how to make everyone understand that the hamster wheel will collapse if people refuse to stay on it.
I can’t change what Americans value. Or make anyone see that clinging to a toxic, murderous system because it’s all we know will eventually destroy us.
We can’t wait for Democrats to tell us what to do. White Christian Nationalist politicians and their billionaire overlords continue to steamroll our national treasury. One billion of our taxpayer dollars being flung into a church-sized black hole is nothing compared to what’s gone to cronies, family members, corporations, billionaires, defense companies, and similar. They won’t stop until We the People make them stop.
I hope you’re talking about how your communities will handle a Republican refusal to concede an election.
It would be wise to band together with a likeminded group of people and decide how you can collectively participate in a National Strike. Every US state has a General Strike chapter. GO HERE to find yours, learn more, and get involved.
If you have other resources or recommendations, please share them in a comment today.
