Okay the Oprah-Lance Armstrong thing is done. So Armstrong “comes clean.?” Please. Bet on there being a lot in it for him doing the Mea Culpa theatrics. But see there’s the rub. If you happen to be well known, famous, moneyed, and especially “White” no matter what your crime you are forgiven— provided you grovel—in this case before a non-White very well known, famous, moneyed fellow one-percenter whose O network could use the boost. Gosh what a win-win.
First, no one lucid thought this was otherwise. Second, so Armstrong used performance enhancing drugs. The tragic part is that he had to lie about it. Performance enhancing drugs should be available to anyone who wants to use them. The reality is that anyone who has had the money or connections to get expensive sports training, equipment and “assistance” has always done so. The idea that someone can be an outstanding athlete with just “natural” ability is ludicrous. No one can go from high school, college or university to the Olympics without an incredible amount of “help.” It’s not going to happen. Deal with it.
The “Bambino” was gifted and could whack a ball out of the park. He was a natural. He was unique. But in today’s instant “microwave” world we want what we want, now! Besides if you just go with what you have you are likely to be outdone. To succeed you need a little helper.
I’m well aware, first hand, that even today’s great tennis players for example have received all kinds of advantages that the average tennis player just doesn’t get, can’t afford and certainly doesn’t have access to. But those advantages are seen as legal. No one challenges them. That hypocrisy translates to US colleges, universities, the workplace and the economy.
The reality is that performance enhancing drugs are little more than parlor tricks of the trade that the average “athlete” doesn’t have access to. There are great advantages that those who have the access to—use. They do so openly and no one says a word.
Think of it as the Ivy League’s “legacy” program. You don’t have to gifted and talented just connected. If your dad and granddad attended Yale you’re a shoe-in. It’s the way the majority population, especially the one-percent, have kept all the good stuff to themselves forever. Do you really think that the less than two-percent of the population who own almost everything in the US acquired it legally, fairly or by ability alone? Seriously?
When I was a teenager watching professional baseball on television, I seldom saw a Black professional baseball player much less an Hispanic. I would ask myself, “why?” Were there none? Of course there were. But the majority population, the Anglo-Saxon, the Teuton had the “White” advantage. Being “White” was the “White’s” performance enhancing drug.
Yet people are so ridiculous and uninformed that they either don’t realize it, are completely unaware or have been sufficiently brainwashed that they understand the hypocrisy sold to them as reality.
Consider this, the reason that for the longest time “Olympians” were not allowed to work. That is anyone with dreams of being in the Olympics could not do so if they had played for pay. Hopefuls who had played for pay—were not allowed to compete in the Olympics giving the advantage to the children of the one-percent. If found out those of the 99 percent who had played for pay and scored a medal were stripped of it. Even in the Olympics having the advantage has been a way of life.
The idea was to give the advantage to the privileged offspring of the one-percent and so that “the poor, the tired, the huddled masses yearning to breath free” wouldn’t represent competition to the one-percent. Think: Jim Thorpe.It’s how the 1 percent has always done it.
These sports examples are nothing compared to how the one-percent controls and has always controlled access to success in Texas Red in particular and the US in general from before day one. This stretches from public policy to elections.
I know what you’re thinking, “but didn’t President Obama just win a second term?” “Mr. Obama is Black.” “GOPers thought they had this one sewn up.” That just goes to the heart of the matter. All of these players are 1 percenters. What we have in the US is two right-of-center political parties; conservative and more conservative. We liberals have almost no representation, little of the money and even less of the wealth. Money is the domain of the one-percent.
It is just not possible to reside in the White House if the person residing therein has not completely sold out to the one-percent. Besides which the majority population has always allowed racial tokens so as to prove that “pulling yourself up by the bootstraps” can be done—though often difficult when you’re in prison or hanging a foot off the ground with a noose around your neck.
Think about it, who has the money, time, education, or connections to be selected for Boards of Directors, members of public policy foundations or elected office?
We as a people say one thing and do another whether the topic is freedom and equality or access to any of those opportunities that lead to a better life. We’re so much for freedom yet Blacks were bought, sold and traded across the South well after WWII. Hispanics are still treated with impunity but we demand human rights around the world. Jews in Israel oppress Palestinians in the occupied states with our money, weapons of war and tacit approval. So, seriously you think our culture is not hypocritical?
Are there people who succeed in the US who are not part of the one-percent? Yes, of course. But then again once in a great while someone wins the Lotto. So what’s your point?
From Texas Red: a cratered landscape of prisons, deplorable apartheid public education, lack of healthcare and politicians and majority population intent on keeping it that way…
Hasta Siempre,
