Mugged American Style – Bank of America Debit Card Fees

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The latest outrage to be thrust upon an economically beaten down American populace was the announcement that the nation’s largest bank, Bank of America, will begin charging customers $5 per month to use debit cards to make purchases. Excuse me, if you let me hold your money, I will charge you when you spend it. Do we have a deal?

Now some of the same institutions involved in taking down the economy are now involved in a near literal shakedown of the very citizens that bailed them out with taxpayer funds. The economic collapse that burst forth during the last few months of 2008 has been long lasting and deep. Millions of Americans were flushed out of the workforce and over 14 million still find themselves unemployed and seemingly unemployable. In many ways this was a double crime with hardworking citizens in the United States being initially mugged by those manipulating our financial system and then taken hostage by politicians corrupting our political process. As this socioeconomic terrorism was taking place, the wealth of those caught in the crossfire was melting away as they strove to survive by burning through personal savings, retirement funds and other assets of value. While millions were free falling from their former positions on the economic ladder, the wealthy were becoming wealthier. The future of the United States will be decided by a struggle between new age robber barons aided by their political enablers versus sane, rational Americans seeking to return this nation to its full former glory. A fee to use your money is one more insult on top of injury.

What are besieged consumers to do? A system has been set up that runs on electronic transactions from using debit cards, online bill payment and electronic funds transfer. Sure banks have invested in worldwide automated teller systems but that saved manpower costs and allowed them to operate with fewer physical branch offices. ATMs don’t take weekly salaries, health insurance or vacations. This is strictly about taking money out of the hide of customers since new regulations limit how much banks could charge merchants to process transactions so it went to its own account holders. This $5 fee does not hit everyone. Account holders with larger average balances can avoid the fee so it really only hits those that can least afford it, is this the new American way.

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Pastor Terry Jones Burned A Quran And Threw Fire On Gasoline

 Burning The Holy Quran Was Not Wise

There was a time when no one knew who Pastor Terry Jones was outside of those in the vicinity of his church in Gainesville, Fl., then came the media feeding frenzy when he announced that he would burn copies of the Holy Quran on September 11, 2010.

You see perception became reality when constant national and worldwide media attention focused on Terry Jones and his Dove World Outreach Center when he decided that he would set fire to the holy book of Islam, the Quran. Jones came up with a self-created International Burn a Quran Day. This apparently started on Facebook and grew from there. Before long national and international media attention was focused on whether Jones would follow through on his threat to burn Qurans on September 11, 2010.

Political leaders weighed in on the issue. General David Petraeus, the top commander of American troops in Afghanistan spoke out against it as a danger to United States troops. The white hot glare of the national media focused on Jones and his every move. For a period of time Terry Jones seemed to be a more powerful religious figure than the Pope. In fact The Vatican condemned a Florida pastor’s plan to burn Qurans.

Jones strung the world along and enjoyed his elevated status. He even tried to use his new found fame to inject himself into the other hot issue of the day and that was the proposed “Ground Zero Mosque” issue. Jones travel to New York supposedly to meet with officials involved with the center. Finally Jones said that he would not burn Qurans and the media as it does faded away and moved on.

Then in March 2011, Pastor Terry Jones decided to burn the Quran and posted the video on the internet. Jones says he is not responsible for the death of the U.N. workers that were killed as protests spiraled out of control in Afghanistan. These workers were brutally murdered for something they had no hand in causing. The true blame is on the people that committed the brutal acts, but what about Pastor Jones. While he did not commit the acts, did he light the fire?

Blacks Distracted By Angry Black Woman Pepsi Max Ad While Black Unemployment Rate Almost Twice That Of Whites

The uproar over a Pepsi Max Super Bowl XLV commercial has caused a firestorm because it was thought to have promoted a stereotype about the angry black woman. For the record it could have been interpreted as hitting on other hot buttons in the black community, such as black men finding blond white women so irrestible that they would disrespect their wives to look at one. How about black people not being able to resist food that is bad for us. We are outraged about that when the January 2011 unemployment rate among African Americans was 15.7% compared to 8% for the same category of Whites according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. That is a true outrage. The jobless rates for Whites went from 8.5% to 8% while blacks went from 15.8% to 15.7% comparing December 2010 to January 2011.

Selective Outrage

A firestorm erupted after the commercial aired. Black bloggers, websites and even politicians weighed in on the issue with their outrage. An article titled “'Angry black woman' Super Bowl ad promotes stereotypes” by Ronda Racha Penrice February 7, 2011 and published on the Grio website go into the roots of the anger. We can may reasons to be outraged over or image being trampled by our own people given the movies and television shows that have been produced with angry black women and brutal black men made by black producers. Music videos promote other negative images of low morals among black men and women worshiping at the alter of sex, money and excess.

There are many things to be angry about when it comes to how our image is being promoted, yet we support the TV shows, movies and music just as much as we buy Pepsi Max soda. Was the real outrage that it was shown to 111 million people. Was the commercial wrong, yes it was, but let's use the outrage to clean all of the bad image promotion up. We should not get caught not get caught in the old we can say something among ourselves and cheer, but someone else can't show the same thing. We already have that problem with the use of a certain word.

Cheers will erupt in a movie theater when a black woman burns down her husband's car, throws hot grits on him or let's his luxury SUV go over a bridge. Areas are packed as a black entertainer describes how he has his way with women and throws them aside. Where is the outrage?

Do We Need A Black Unemployment Stereotype Ad

Do we need a commercial showing a consumer products company hiring white workers at a 2 to 1 rate over equally qualified black applicants with black women getting angry in the interviews and black men leering at the white blond receptionists. That would be something to become outraged about because we know that is not why the black unemployment rate is almost twice that of whites. Why aren't we expressing our outrage?