Unarmed, Unheard and Unrepresented

Sitting in sunny Santa Barbara feeling surly and mean. Thinking, what’s an average, law-abiding American citizen to do? Three thousand miles from here, give or take a few hundred miles, in the capitol city of this so-called democracy, lucrative deals are made in large, high-ceilinged rooms by people who are supposed to represent the interests of residents back in their home districts.

That’s the generally accepted idea of representative democracy, but in reality our elected representatives, more often than not, pimp for the narrowly focused interests of industry (pick one—defense, finance and insurance, real estate) groups. Money rules the day. Money talks. Money dictates.

In our name but frequently without our consent, political rulers write laws that benefit their benefactors. Remember the bailout? Trillions of dollars handed over to banks and investment houses, the insurance giant AIG, with virtually no strings, oversight or accountability attached. In itself that was corrosive enough, but as we purport to be a representative democracy, where was the public debate, the open hearings? Talk about a sweetheart deal: Here, boys, take this huge pile of dough and do with it whatever tickles your fancy. Buy other banks, take illogical and insane risks, award huge bonuses to your executives.

The bankers laughed then, laugh raucously now. A sucker is born every minute. Isn’t American-style capitalism great? We get to keep the lion’s share of our profits and lay our gambling debts on the taxpayers. Perfect, no lose system, a veritable money machine. The Mafia never had it this good. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus and he lives in a penthouse apartment on Wall Street.

The political class along with their media and corporate enablers don’t fear the masses because they know how easily we are diverted, distracted and divided. Think on it for a second. If you can persuade a Medicare recipient to stand up at a public meeting and denounce “socialized medicine,” you’re not merely good, you’re a grand wizard, like Albus Dumbledore from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry. Some overweight redneck, utterly dependent on Medicare for the pills he needs to control his Type-II diabetes, wearing a ratty t-shirt with “DON’T TREAD ON ME” emblazoned across his chest, thinks it’s patriotic to fulminate about the heavy, intrusive hand of the Government. Glenn Beck said so.

There is dumb, and there is Dumb.

The sun shines here on the California coast. A turkey vulture circles high overhead, scouting for his lunch. The clock moves slowly around the dial. Birds chirp, twitter and shriek. A truck backfires, a siren wails. The Food Bank runs low of provisions for the poor, and the homeless shelter down by the beach is short of beds; real people, real pain, flesh and blood, soul and spirit, dreams and demons. Bad luck, bad genes, bad karma.

The down and out harbor no hope for a taxpayer bailout or a bank loan at favorable interest rates. In America, that sort of largesse is reserved for those that need it least.