Radio Host Rob Redding Calls For "Stimulus Package For Black Folks" - No Mention Of Sanctions and Regulation For Failure That Banks Received

Audio Report:  Radio Host Rob Redding Calls For A "Black Stimulus Package"

What better time to explore the entire array of one's ideological and racial preferences than to compare one's reactions to two different targeted ends.

Recall President Obama's words said against banks and insurance companies in response to their "irresponsibility and recklessness" which put them into a ditch, requiring a federal bail out.   I had a post in the back of my mind entitled "What If Barack Obama Treated Individuals As He Does Corporations And Vice Versa?".   This request by Rob Redding is enough of a catalyst for me to shake lose the post that I had planned.


What If Barack Obama Treated The Request For A "Black Bailout" As He Did AIG and Citibank?

You heard the president (or his administration) speak:

• "I am going to make sure that I get back every dime that these banks made me spend from the American treasury"
• "We are going to keep a 'boot on their necks' to make sure that they do the right thing in this crisis"
• "I don't want to talk to their leader because in my experience they tell me what they want me to hear.  Instead I would rather talk to the experts in order to figure out who's ass I have to kick".

Let me say up front that to President Obama - the "Corporation is his Welfare Queen".  
Make note of how, for example, President Reagan was accused of pulling out the picture of a poor, minority, female who lives in the project as a hapless dependent and "kicked her ass" with the hopes of riling up his base with the image of him as a hardnosed, no nonsense type of guy who would not accept any stragglers trying to get over.    This model perfectly depicts President Obama with reference to his use of corporations as his rhetorical pinata.  The key difference is that since his particular "villain" is seen as a worthy target, particularly to the anti-capitalists he is not going to be labeled as a "hate-filled bigot" for his wanton attacks. 

The damage to the national economy as Obama eviserates his "corporate enemies", in line with what past "local progressives" have done to various once prosperous cities of note is a different matter all together. 

Since we know how Obama feels about a group who's anemic condition has triggered them to look toward the federal treasury for restorative nutrition please allow me to juxtapose President Obama's stern words but apply them to the Black community.   Let's see if he would survive after doing so.

With respect to the corporations it was:

• Greed
• Lack Of Regulation
• Incompetent Executives and Managers
• Undue Government Influencing 
• A Complicit Government Administration (Bush)

which lead to the desperate state of the banks, insurance companies and auto manufacturers that were "too big to fail".   Supporting this notion we were presented with certain artifacts such as e-mails and voice mails attesting to the conditions which were in place prior to the fall.   There were a few insiders to all of the action that were made celebrities on "Newsweek" magazine.  "Had I been listened to none of this would have happened.  Instead in their arrogance - they ignored me.  Thus we stand here today."  is what they are heard saying during their congressional testimony.

What if "Black America" was made to testify before various US House and Senate panels, explaining WHY there is a need to send a federal stimulus package into the areas where they live in highest concentrations?   If we use this model borrowed from the bank we would have to produce two lists:

1. How did it happen?
2. What regulatory regime must be put into place in the future so that it will NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN?

How Did It Happen - To Black America?

This list will have two versions depending on who you talk to.

The first version will attempt to take the biggest roll of "Police Crime Scene Tape" that was ever produced and tape up all of America.  In fact they might even try to extend the tape across the Atlantic Ocean and to South America and document what the State of Texas now calls "The Triangular Trade".  We know this as "The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade".   The expert witnesses of this mindset will argue that today's "Black Stimulus Package" was triggered from the "derivatives trading in slaves" from 1692 and beyond.  Everything that has happened beyond this point has been triggered by those who stole our culture.

When that "inside treader" that was mentioned before is asked to testify - she is placed in a hood and behind an opaque glass wall that is bullet proof.  You see - she is a federal version of "a snitch" and thus her life needs to be protected.    She has the audacity to point a bit closer to home regarding how the problems in THIS INTERVAL of time have precipitated among Black people.

She will point out that:

• The people representing these areas with high concentrations of Black people have been elected via popular will.  Regardless of their race they appear to have a particular ideology and perspective that the populace found favorable.
• The economic policies that were adopted chose to throw caution to the wind.  They adopted a more "social justice" tenor than one which dispassionate considerations of creditworthiness were made.
• She points out that the very banking institutions that the masses now say have come in and "exploited them" are the same institutions that they had first begged them to come into their community and then later used legislative mandates for them to transact business within.
• Of the means of production that used to be housed in the buildings which are now crumbling - these locations where scenes of 'wildcat strikes'.   Though the masses of people were more productive then than they are now - they had mass grievances at the time that causes them to walk off of the job.  In some of these cases their demands exceeded the fragile balance which this "consumer of labor" had to maintain while operating in that particular market.  Thus while these, the suppliers of labor, might have received a higher price for their goods sold - it was only temporary.  Their choice customers are now gone.

At the end of her testimony the "Snitch" is rushed out of the room with 3 body guards by her side.   The audience didn't appreciate her "blaming the VICTIM" as such.  They see themselves as 'History's Victims'.   Despite having more political power and representation than ever before - they realize that they have a "soft tissue injury" that no MRI or X-Ray done by a their party could ever tell them that "THEY ARE CURED".  They will tell the world this message when they remove their neck brace.

What regulatory regime must be put into place in the future so that it will NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN?

 If we are to have intellectual honesty in our comparison between these two entities seeking bailout funds then such fidelity is maintained in the "What are we going to do so it never happens again" portion of tale.  Today we have "Financial Markets Regulation" slapped upon the banks.  We had Health Care Reform slapped upon the Health Care Insurance Industry.  We will no doubt see new regulations upon the oil companies.

What of the Negro?
How should he be "regulated" in the future so "This never happens again"?
A corporation is merely a group of human beings assembled together for a certain purpose.  There must be a management overlay to direct them toward a targeted end.  It has access to resources and capital funding sources seeking to profit from the operations of the collection of people.  While a "race" is not as formal of a collection - it does represent a collection of people who COULD voluntarily choose to conspire together to achieve a certain end.

If this model is good for the corporation who is in need of stimulus then the following should be considered:

1. Fire those who functioned as the Leaders/CEO/Managers.    Those who lead them into their past predicament via the operating environment that was allowed need to be RELIEVED of their duties.  Failing to do this the government risks "throwing good money after bad".
2. Submit to open and transparent reporting in the future.   When an entity was left to its own devices it showed that it promoted its own selfish interests and failed to uphold its fiduciary responsibilities to operate in an above board manner.  The need for standardized reporting of an entities actions to allow a dispassionate review by a third party is a necessity
3. Establishment of an "Industry Fund" by which future emergencies can be funded.    The banks and the oil companies will be required to pay into a fund during the 'boom times' so that there will be money available to bail them out if they get grounded again.   These funds are to sit in escrow all the while.  It has a stabilizing effect, removing a small portion of the operating money that would be ordinarily put at risk.
4. Development and Implementation of "Good Governance Policies"  With a bit of contrition the industry is made to accept the damage that their past actions have exposed the interested parties to.  Operating from this contrition they agree to submit to a certain set of "best practices" for conducting business.  A new CULTURE is developed within the industry.  A new set of channels is opened between the industry and its regulators.  Occasional Congressional testimony is required where the industry statistics are presented and the present conditions are articulated for all to process

As much as some might believe that there is a radical difference between the two sets of people - one operating as a corporation - the other as a collection of "racial communities" the fact that they are both equal human beings means that they are both subject to the very same constructs of "human resource management".

At minimum the void within which certain operatives who are up to no good must be purged.  Within these voids in which selfish interests are pursued originates the foundation of the "train wreck" which so often follows.

Unfortunately the "Stimulus Money For Black America" will most likely be argued as a "You Owe Us", social justice movement rather than an opportunity to move Black America into the 21st century with a reformed set of governance - as was done with the "South" or various Police Departments around the nation.