Sunday, September 15, 2019 5:09 PM
Own Best Interests (2019Sep19)
Decades ago, we had already settled the argument over right and wrong with such things as Social Security, Immigration, and De-segregation. And as for Human Rights, America wasn’t just for them, we were pretenders to the Champion of Human Rights.
Somehow, we’ve devolved from that point, through the Reagan Right-turn, into a Capitalist Autocracy where these ‘settled’ issues had now the old one-two: both amnesiac re-booting of Hate as a ‘new idea’, and questioning whether problems such as racism and sexual assault even exist. (Hint: they do.)
If (1) we’re the richest country on Earth and (2) we have only a handful of citizens hoarding the majority of that wealth—then the proof that these fuckers run the show is in the fact that they just got a tax break—from an ineptly unfit joke of a ‘president’ and a confessedly-corrupt Republican Party.
Conversely, you could try explaining why a few thousand Americans own every. fucking. thing.—and that’s as it should be. But don’t try that with me. I was born at night, but…
People warned about all this stuff. Sure. But money eventually wore down individuals who had ‘pieces’ of the responsibility, until all responsibility was gone. Mass media being controlled by corporations—especially news, and that which dresses in ‘news’, such as FOXnews, eliminated the foundation of free speech—a shared reality.
People warned about the environment—especially the impact of petroleum combustion on the atmosphere—for over a century. And you will still find rich people who claim that Climate Change is a hoax—but no poor people.
People warned about opening the floodgates to campaign financing—and industry-lobbyists having more influence than voters. But we let it go, and now a drooling idiot sits in charge of the Free World.
What frustrates about Donald Trump the most isn’t the bullshit he does—it’s the traitorous Republican-majority Senate that refuses to say ‘boo’ about any of it. These are the same prissy-pantses who still pretend to have a fainting spell whenever they mention Bill Clinton getting blown in the White House—the same jack-asses who fought for decades against Healthcare reform and are still mad that they lost that fight.
You could pooh-pooh Socialism all you wanted, back in the day. The news didn’t report on the systemic racism and sexism—and a younger Capitalism still had plenty of room for growth. The digital age had barely gotten started. But now—now you’ve got low wages, student debt, income inequality, national debt, and a recent middle-class tax increase—socialism doesn’t sound so much like poison these days.
Let’s face it—nobody’s getting rich in America. The malls are all ghost towns and if you want to start a new retail business, you have to go through Mr. Bezos’ little shop. You can make your own demos today, but the age of the rich rock star has passed. China and India are cranking out new everything, including entrepreneurs—and they have the hunger. Plus, they can get rich without coming here, now—so there’s that.
Strangely enough, Capitalism is a luxury we can no longer afford. Money is costing us. Wealth concentrated in the hands of the few (with those few fixated on the status quo) paralyzes our ability to adapt to new information, to adapt to change.
And this is what’s so toxic about blind USA-boosting. We chant USA! USA!, and threaten to flatten anyone who disses America. But that pride is misplaced—it should be pride in what our fathers and mothers and forebears did. We have done nothing to be proud of since we fell spellbound into the GOP’s siren song of an ‘established America’ that required no change, no maintenance—and certainly no re-thinking.
Hence, the increasing popularity of Socialism—when the rich are the problem, just take their money in wealth-taxes. But it’s not that simple. America is a car doing 80 on the interstate—fixing it on the fly is dangerous and difficult.
All of this, however, is nothing compared to the problem of forming a more-perfect union, using democracy, when the wealthy few have taken the truth hostage (along with all the communications/entertainment industry) and they are busily spreading false propaganda to citizen-voters who have little enough education to start with. These voters then proudly vote against their own best interests.
That is a problem so titanic that Trump’s ‘presidency’ is merely one symptom of it.