It’s not left or right, it’s forward
There are two qualifications required to be President of the United States 1) you must be 35 or older and 2) be an American Citizen and resident of USA for 14 years.
I haven’t felt this hopeful for the future of our country in a long time.
Looking left and right, it looks bleak. Dysfunctional government, ass-backwards administration. Is it surprising that drug overdose and suicide surpassed death by motor vehicle in the past two years (during Trump’s leadership). Did it really have to get to the current levels of insanity for us to react as enraged citizens and engage civically? What do we do? Where’s the adult in the room?
We vote to change leadership, obvs. Bitching on Facebook doesn’t help change leadership. I miss the old Kanye. Presidential hopefuls are rolling in squad for 2020: Kamala Harris, Howard Schultz, and someone by the name of, Andrew Yang. Pro-tip: It’s not left or right, it’s forward. I hold my 10-month old daughter, look at her rosy cheeks and honest eyes, and I am hopeful. I smile, assured that all will be okay in the grand scheme of things because Trump will be dust before she’s a teenager. So rather than focus on yesteryear, let us look forward. I’m all in for Andrew Yang.
Listening to old guard’s like Bernie Sanders (meh) makes me depressed. He’s had a part in how we got here because Bernie got his ass handed to him by Hilary and her thugs, err, party. In light of the Presidential hopefuls, I view Bernie Sanders as a community pillar, volunteering at the local town hall meeting, sharing herbal lozenges. Experience counts, but with his stick-in-the-mud running record, he doesn’t have the capacity to handle the dynamic rigors of leadership nor provide answers on how to lead America towards the future.
I got 5 on it, Mr. Andrew Yang. He reminds me of both you and me and is aligned with viewpoints that we share on a daily basis. It’s alarming how refreshing it is to have a coherent and business savvy, genuinely smart, person, interested in politics. The whole message is uplifting, spirited, statistics and fact based. Surprisingly, Andrew Yang offers solutions and the path in response to the discourse.
For example, Andrew starts with Year 2021 and Universal Income aka the Freedom Dividend. $1,000 in your pocket, and every American Citizen, every month. “Say Whut?” Yes, in fact, Americans in Alaska have had a dividend for 37 years, the results of oil spills and oil revenues.
Another young leader, Mayor Michael Tubbs, City of Stockton, is on the same page of Universal Income and using it as a tool to activate and support the aspirations of the common American — even if that is simply putting food on the table. Ms. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Green New Deal share similar values in supporting the everyday citizen; AOC is on fire in her rookie-of-the-year service as American senator.
Doubters, who do not have the answers, will ask, how will America pay for the Freedom Dividend? Let’s illustrate the affordability. First thing that comes to mind is military spending, paid for, no questions asked.
Facts: Fiscal year 2019 US military defense budget is $686,074,048,000.00. Let that sink in. $686 BILLION, for one year, only.
Facts: 2019 US population is 327,000,000 -or- 327 million citizens. We’ll use these figures for math later, but first, a comparison: China has 1.4B population, 500% more citizens than the USA, the Chinese have proven to outlive, outwork, and out produce other countries — and by the time you’re reading this, China may have overtaken the USA as the #1 global economy by GDP. More on GDP later.
Doing the math with the above facts, the affordability of a Freedom Dividend is less in question, and more of an answer, as we already mis-budgeted $2098/year per citizen, for military spending only. Question: do you think the cleaning maid or fast food drive thru employee can or will want to contribute 12% of their annual full-time pay, to ensure America has the deadliest fighter jet planes? We waste a shitton of money, thousands of times billions, on society’s crumbling infrastructure — functions like incarceration, homelessness, health care, education, roads and waterways. Why throw shelter at a homeless person when all the homeless person wants is a hot shower and clean clothes? Mismanagement and recklessness abounds. Is our society sick? Are we fucked? How’s your health? Cue the Fall of Rome — our leadership has failed us. Like 21 Savage raps, “Flint, Michigan, still need (drinking) water!”
Important: Let’s not tune out, let’s tune in!
Recently, President Obama teamed up with Stephen Curry at a town hall meeting in Oakland, California. An all-net takeaway is that well-being starts with you and your community. We have to self-educate, desire awareness, and demand our politicians to act and make decisions on behalf of us, our values and for what’s right for our community. If the politicians are not acting for us, then we must replace them. And if there is no one to serve as a replacement, “then you should step up, self-educate and prepare yourself so that you can replace them.” Swish.
Andrew Yang offers a profound proposition in how we ought to view success and defining our meaning and purpose. Currently, politicians use gross domestic product, GDP, as the metric of a country’s success. Status quo. And as such, we will continually lose or be interpreted as losing, especially when it comes to automation. For example, an honest, hard working, person that values integrity, versus a deadbeat, lying, malicious, lazy person that values anarchy. It doesn’t matter which you identify with; using GDP, when compared to automation, both persons lose, morality of humanity isn’t valued. Further, Andrew uses his anecdotal experience: his wife, a homemaker who cares for his 3 and 6 year old children, one of them autistic, has zero GDP measurable value. What does that say about GDP as a metric of society’s success and health? If automation and robots are coming, then we need to shift from using GDP, invented 85 years ago in 1934 — a response to the Great Depression. If you think the future of automation looks like a vision of sci-fi Hollywood’s Surrogates (2009) or Bladerunner (2017), look up images of “Amazon automated warehouse”. Robots are already here, taking jobs, and completing basic repetitive tasks, cheaper and faster, than your high school educated hourly wage worker.
Our first-world modern society, and the miraculous technological advances at our disposal, like a hundred dollar pocket oracle, have freed us of more time. True or false? You’ve volunteered and contributed your free time to community? You’ve started that home business on ebay? No? Too busy, huh? Elon Musk.
Ultimately, Andrew Yang, is irrespective of red-blue-left-right — together, we should think, vote, and move forward. “How many people will vote for $1000 in their pocket, and in the pockets of their family members, and in the pockets of everyone in their neighborhood?” It’s not free money, if instead of shuttling monies to an offshore ledger that generates dividends and tax-breaks for corporations, money is distributed and spent in our local communities. The Freedom Dividend is not a handout, rather, it’s an American right for all stakeholders of America, an investment for returns in you and me, the American Citizen.
Written February 26, 2019 by Wilson Tai
References and Sources for further study:
- Andrew Yang on Joe Rogan Experience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTsEzmFamZ8
- Andrew Yang on Fox Business: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x3Hx8i2FhA
- No, it’s not Socialism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZubVN9VU8U
- Let Andrew Yang Unfuck You on Fung Bros: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUolzAltwKI
- Andrew Yang Presidential Campaign and contribution site https://www.yang2020.com
- Water crisis in Flint, Michigan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd2qxi2mF_4
- Elon Musk forecasting the future at 2017 World Government Summit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCoFKUJ_8Yo
- Town Hall #loveoakland President Obama and Stephen Curry https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_z0h9mTefY&t=3696s&fbclid=IwAR37qXivQN02TswTa0-CipLtP2Hu_Bej7a_4T6NjNdOi6oSCD95fkoo34gU
- Alaska Permanent Fund: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund