I didn’t vote in the 2016 presidential election. Surrounded by the hysteria of white liberals (wittingly or unwittingly) neoliberalism’s foot soldiers in Madison, Wisconsin at the time, those who ignored Barack Obama’s history in Chicago as the “community activist” yet promoter waging of “just” wars, I couldn’t bring myself to go to the polls for Barack Obama. Either in 2008 or in 2012. He would be, I noted in my Black Commentator and Capital City Hues columns, a man who would assume become the black face of US Empire. It didn’t take long before he rewarded his friends on Wall Street, from the banking and corporate worlds, to join him at the White House.

“The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today,” said Dr. Martin L. King Jr., is “my own government, I can not be silent.”

War takes from the economically poor most of all, King warned. It steals lives too. There are the dead and those mentally traumatized forever.

Obama served his eight years. The necessity of war for the US Empire arose many times, with Hillary Clinton, a hawk, and Democratic presidential candidate in 2016, running against Trump, recognized, with the expertise of a woman with corporate friends, “predators” in Libya just as she did years before in the US. Sounding like the Republican New York Bloomberg and his “m.o.” for describing “minority” males, prone to the world of crime.

But who remembers?

King focused on poverty, but it was for the corporate capitalists about the 1%. It’s just that the middle-class heard refers to them by the candidates of both parties. Middle class! Middle class! Middle class!

There are photos of presidential candidate Senator Robert Kennedy, visiting the economically poor rural and southern areas—shaking hands with parents and children on the front porches of abodes without running water or even electricity. Today, it’s rare to see presidential candidates shaking hands with the economically poor. Outstanding warrants or previous prison time deems these citizens less worthy of politicians’ time. But, politicians make their worthwhile stressing to their base the necessity for law-and-order policies that general impact the lives of the economically poor.

Then there’s the often deliberate inaccessibility of the voting polls making it impossible for the working class to vote. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) seems to think this inaccessibility is not a priority. And why not?

The middle class, on the other hand, attend rallies and town hall sessions. The politicians want to seem this class—at staged events. But, unless a relative or long-time friends, the manager at a local Walmart or any fifth grade teacher in Chicago or LA isn’t a regular lunch mate with the billionaire candidate. The Walmart worker, black and mother of two small children—not a chance.

In the midst of the liberal middle-class hysteria over Obama, the local policies of cities and towns in Wisconsin featured built-in manholes: you could watch as black and brown men fell into these holes, otherwise known as prisons, many so far away from family and their community.

Good luck locating housing for the newly released from prison. As the black and brown communities of the economically poor, working class, and even middle class can attest to—affordable housing is disappearing behind that capitalist necessity (again) for corporate-sustaining projects that create gated-communities for predominately white upper class citizens, valuable, citizens, because moneyed citizens.

Those corporate-sustaining projects breed more projects guaranteed to upgrade not just “blighted” urban areas but also downtown centers throughout the US which, in turn, justifies sprucing up the City Hall, the Opera House, the university and affiliated medical facilities, the museums, parks and recreation centers, and high-end fashion as well as jewelry and accessory stores. And soon, the whole city isn’t affordable for everyone with less than a six-digit income.

In a mid-size city such as Madison, it’s impossible to live downtown without maybe two “middle class” incomes combined. Maybe. Then that’s a certain class, isn’t it? And the preferable class excludes what races of people? And mind you, the supporters of neoliberalism paraded Obama buttons while declaring Obama their man!

For the most part, the so-call debris in whitespaces were (and are still today) black and brown and Indigenous people. If you are “acceptable,” that is, based on your income, then you are welcome—unless the police think otherwise, of course. But the merchants and politicians generally don’t have a problem with the color green.

Deliberate blindness.

In 2016, diagnosed with cancer, I knew here, in a small town in Wisconsin (by the way, I’m a Chicagoan, birth and education), Trump was the man for neighbors and merchants, even otherwise “liberals.” A lawn sign with Hillary Clinton’s name was nowhere in the vicinity of my neighborhood or any boarding neighborhood—and the neighborhoods had a small, but nonetheless, racially diverse population. It was a draining few months that year for me. Scary.

I’m not Senator Susan Collins, so I never believed Trump would come to his senses after the Impeachment Trial and the Republican party’s acquittal of Trump. I don’t believe the DNC will come to it’s senses, at least, not on it’s own. For the 2020 presidential election in November, the focus is on African Americans. Remember the huge turn out of African Americans in 2018? America was stunned by the turn out.

Can blacks do it again? But who is asking the question? Are we talking about a money machine like Trump or someone who will really put a halt to this downward spiral of the entire American experiment in democracy?

Joe Biden isn’t the man he once was—that is, he sees himself as beyond the warmonger he used to be when he campaigned and supported the US invasion of Iraq. That Biden, gone, replaced with Obama’s Vice President. Obama’s point man when it came to health care in America. This Biden is a friend to black people. For weeks, the media blasted images of Biden as Obama’s right hand man. Remember those eight years he stood by Obama?

But the Democratic Socialist, Senator Bernie Sanders, won the popular vote at the polls in both states.

And what’s the name on the cheer cue card now? Mike Bloomberg!

You remember him! The former Mayor of New York from 2002 to 2013. Republican—but never mind that? Bloomberg has reformed, emphasis on reformed.

As for the Stop-and-Frisk policy that Bloomberg tooted, that policy that for years harassed black and brown people guilty of being black or brown—well the presidential billionaire candidate has enough money and clout to insists everyone just put that business behind them. It was a long time ago. Let’s move on. Watch my television ads! I have money of plenty to generate ads. Reform is on the way!

It’s being reported that Bloomberg is garnishing black support, and the American public is treated to images of black people in the foreground while Bloomberg stands behind a podium, all reformed, of course. There are blacks introducing him to a cheering crowd. Blacks on his team are now tooting for Bloomberg.

And it has to be said, too, that on the “ground” blacks, there is an unfortunate history of African Americans after having the Iron Heel stomping on their necks for so long deciding enough is enough—and, waving the white flag, defect to the side that has historically branded the disenfranchised black and brown as “lazy” or “failures.” or “troublemakers.” In other words, black and brown are snubbed by some black and brown people reflecting the larger American society’s power to undermine the struggle to make black and brown and Indigenous lives matter.

Already the gatekeepers, these are African Americans who see opportunity for themselves and their families. To question a failing economic system such as capitalism is out of the question if it means sacrificing one’s changes, and the changes of one’s children from being racially “superior” then at least by being associated with the color green. In American culture, the values of the wealthy class matters. Play no attention to the disgruntled. The one’s too far down to help.

The black lives that matter for Bloomberg are the one’s for whom Stop-and-Frisk wasn’t intended to snag—unless showboating an expensive car in economically poor neighborhoods.

“Ninety-five percent of your murders and murderers and victims fit one M.O.” Male and minority. It’s true in New York; it’s true in any city in the US, Bloomberg said in 2015. “It’s a philosophy,” said Andrew Gillum, former mayor of Tallahassee, Florida. A “dangerously disturbing worldview.” But for the mayor of Stockton and Bloomberg’s campaign’s national co-chair, Michael Tubbs, any outrage response to Bloomberg’s policy or “philosophy” is just an example of “fake outrage.”

There’s a reason socialism in the African American community back in the 20th Century was crushed!

What happened to the economically poor and working class under Bloomberg? Well, you know, Pay no attention to that image of Bloomberg, the Republican Mayor of New York with his foot on the necks of black people.

The black middle class believes Bloomberg can beat Trump. That’s what the media reports and repeats again and again. And there’s Bloomberg’s face in an ad. And the ads show Obama, congratulating Bloomberg. A good man, that Bloomberg. Moneyed! There’s a future at the big table, seated around President Bloomberg! This time, maybe instead of Timothy Geithner or Larry Summers, it’s one of Bloomberg’s black supporters.

According to a March 2018 article in the Washington Post, “4.4 million of Obama’s 2012 voters stayed home in 2016.” And a third of those voters, the article reports, were black. In fact, 1.6 millions blacks stayed home.

I can’t imagine blacks or people of color in general make the effort to register and possibly standing in long lines to vote for Bloomberg. This election in November is too crucial. To crucial for the planet and climate change is a reality. American want change! No more catering to the wealthy and powerful class. Life around us is dying. And that should matter!

People who wear the boot of the capitalist class historically have been oppressors, responsible for millions of destroyed lives.

The lives of blacks and brown and Indigenous matter—but that’s scares America’s capitalist class. But, for African Americans, trying on the Iron boot should be a scary proposition.