Glory to the French and the Greeks. May Americans learn something from our feisty European friends.
When the governments of France or Greece try to screw their people with austerity measures and unravel the social safety net, the people have enough gumption to pour into the streets and make some racket.
By contrast, Americans display all the fire of tree sloths. We’ve been getting screwed for decades, and for the most part have taken our screwing silently and on our knees. Oh, we get exercised about abortion and illegal immigration, make no mistake about that, but when it comes to having our pockets picked clean by corporate greed heads, we can’t be bothered to lift a middle finger in protest.
As the crime goes down we listen to fools like Hannity, Beck, Limbaugh and O’Reilly, swallow the rot they spew about the evil federal government; we watch network news anchors who rarely connect the dots between economic policy and the fate of average Americans; and we routinely vote against our self-interests because we believe the “free” market gibberish peddled from the corporate media.
Our problem isn’t too much government; our problem is too little government. Ever since Ronald Reagan rode into Washington D.C. determined to restore America’s faith in its own myths and fables, corporate power has grown while the countervailing power of government has declined. The results are visible in almost every industry: energy, food, telecommunications, transportation, banking, and finance, health care. Corporations are bigger and more economically and politically potent than at any time since the Gilded Age and the heyday of big trusts. Tea Party faithful constantly evoke the Founding Fathers, but what that rabble conveniently forget is how wary the Founders were of power – particularly power concentrated in too few hands. This is one reason why we have (or had until Bush Jr’s imperial presidency) three co-equal branches of government. Each branch has certain powers along with limits to those powers, all designed to check and balance one another.
Balancing power is the same reason we had anti-trust laws and the Glass-Steagal act.
But the anti-trust laws that helped crack Standard Oil and other trusts have been systematically weakened ever since Reagan set his jellybean jar on the desk in the Oval Office. Regulatory agencies like the Federal Trade Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Labor have been systematically gutted or neutered, tilting the balance of power in favor of the wealthy and corporations. Size and capital equate to political power, lobbying power and campaign contribution (bribery) power. Corporations are not only too big to fail, they are also too big to regulate and control.
It’s not David vs. Goliath anymore – it’s Goliath vs. an unarmed pygmy.
This revolution of power happened right in front of us and with our silent consent. Trade and monetary policies eliminated our jobs and sent them to Mexico, Thailand and China; tax policies favored capital over labor; labor laws were diluted, overturned or ignored without penalty, and our entire economy became dedicated to the enrichment of corporations, investors, speculators and stockholders. Government services that were designed to help ordinary people live better lives were outsourced to corporations who always place profit first and people second. In the brave new universe of the infallible free market, the inherently fair and just free market, the efficient free market, wage earners no longer mattered, and neither did the public’s interest.
The Greeks and the French take to the streets; Americans retreat to the safety of their living rooms, hunker down in front of plasma TV’s with a bucket of fast food and lose themselves in trivia. The corporations and the wealthy have nothing to fear from us; they know how accustomed we’ve become to living on our knees, pygmies in Goliath’s shadow.
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