Clowns and Zealots

“The wider the spread between the wealthy few and the impoverished many, the worse the social problems.”  Tony Judt

The circus is in town, settled in tents and trailers on the low road at the edge of the swamp. At night fires burn in oil drums, and shadowy figures come and go through clouds of smoke. An unseen violinist plays a mournful tune on an out of tune instrument, hour after hour, the same tune. Sometimes the crack of a whip can be heard, or the shriek of an animal. Bad tidings. Local kids and feral cats avoid the encampment. The bearded lady bears a strong resemblance to John Boehner; the human cannonball might be Paul Ryan’s twin; and the sadistic ringmaster, torch in one hand and Bible in the other, looks like Ted Cruz.

Just a bad dream, right? Maybe not. Look around.

Zealots and nut-bags whose only goal is to stick it to the black guy in the White House hold the federal government hostage. With the exception of the armed forces, the national security apparatus, and the courts that uphold the sanctity of property rights, these zealots claim to hate everything about government. Every ill faced by the nation will be remediated if we return to the

moral clarity of the 18^th century, when women, laborers, children, slaves and indigenous people knew their place. 

Ironic that people so rabidly opposed to government raise and spend millions of dollars to run for office, and once in office invest an inordinate amount of their time begging money from donors so they can win re-election. After seeing that government works for their patrons – tax breaks, direct subsidies, exemptions from law -- the zealots take every benefit government has to offer: pensions, healthcare, paid vacation, sick leave, goodies that lie miles beyond the reach of most Americans. Food stamps for the poor we can’t afford, gold-plated benefits for lazy legislators we can. Like the hypocrites they are, the zealots hate the golden goose but covet its eggs.

Who was it that said, “The last American president who feared the people was Richard Nixon.” Chris Hedges? A large part of the problem in this country is the absence of mass opposition. Unlike France or Greece or even Italy, Americans fear the government, not the other way around. Look what happened to the Occupy Movement. It didn’t take the State long to stamp it out, shut it down, and shut it up.

Is the Affordable Care Act really the cause of all this angst? Have the zealots forgotten that the ACA is a law concocted by right wing, corporate-friendly think tanks and written by lobbyists for insurance and pharmaceutical companies? Have they forgotten that the sanest and most cost-effective medical insurance option for our nation, the “public” option, or Medicare for All, was murdered in the womb?

The debt ceiling and the shutdown, the national debt and the frothing over the ACA is a sideshow to keep the people distracted from the real problems facing the country: jobs, income inequality and the environment. Our corporate masters don’t speak about these subjects because the status quo is working just fine for executives and shareholders, investment bankers and hedge fund managers. A week into the shutdown ABC News is focused right where you’d expect a propaganda organ to be: on how the shutdown is affecting the stock market. As if the market is any indicator of the economic health of our nation, as if the market can alleviate the woes of working people whose wages have been flat or declining for years. 

Tax, trade, and monetary policies enacted and followed over the past four decades have jammed a fork between the shoulder blades of the working class. Venal, sociopathic dimwits abducted the soul of the Republican Party, and the Democrats –from Barack Obama down – are pussies. Both parties are owned and operated by corporate donors and plutocrats who don’t give a rat’s ass for the people. Everyone forgets that Bill Clinton jumped into bed with every corporate titan who offered the Democratic Party campaign cash.

The corporate coup has been ruthless and breathtaking; almost every facet of American life has been transformed into a commodity and judged by the price it can fetch in the marketplace: public education, health care, criminal justice, you name it. Our brand of capitalism is out of control, devouring itself, and we keep on extolling its virtues.