State of Disunion

“The late 1960’s and early 1970’s marked the dramatic erosion in the belief among working-class whites that the condition of the poor, or those who fail to prosper, was the result of a faulty economic system that needed to be challenged.   Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow

As I write this, all eyes in the political world are on President Obama and the annual State of the Union address. It’s the Grammy Awards for the governing elites. The big military brass get to dress up in their crisp uniforms, shoes spit-shined, medals gleaming; the Supreme Court justices arrive in their flowing robes, and all the Cabinet officials are on hand to support their boss. According to the mainstream press, Obama won’t outline any grand strategies this year because he knows Congress will not act on anything he proposes. John Boehner will sit behind Obama, smirking throughout the speech or looking pained, as if suffering from a bad case of intestinal gas. Mitch McConnel will look smug, like an old Southern racist might look when being addressed by a black man.

The Prez will no doubt talk about the dangers of income inequality, trot out stark facts to show just how far ahead of the rest of us the plutocrats are, maybe even conjure the ghost of LBJ, but, rest assured, though he might bemoan the ugly consequences of such inequality, he has no solution for it. Obama knows, only too well, who his masters are. Obama is not Theodore Roosevelt. We can expect soaring rhetoric, as always, and inconsequential tinkering on the safe margins. In other words, more of what Obama has delivered the last five years, which, for working Americans, equals squat.

Though the American horizon is dark and the majority of people running scared, Obama will remind us of the strength of our union, how blessed it is by the hand of God. Keep in mind that we are the exceptional nation, the chosen nation, if you will – if you can still suspend your disbelief and believe in that shit. Never mind the perverse failure of corporate capitalism to provide for the majority; never mind all the phony debates about the size of the federal government; never mind our illegal drone wars in Pakistan and Yemen and Somalia; never mind the size of our prison population, a stunning majority of which is African-American; never mind the abysmal failure that is the War on Drugs; never mind that working people have no power; never mind that our government spies on us – all the time.  

Is the union strong? No, not as strong as it could be if our political leaders had any vision, morality, honesty, or compassion. Make no mistake, it’s a dark time on this fruited plain; the few honest voices (Bill Moyers, Amy Goodman, William Rivers Pitt, Chris Hedges and Cornel West among them) that point out that we are hurtling toward the abyss are drowned out by the din of corporate cheerleading. It’s all about Wall Street, the number posted on the big board at the closing gong, as if that number – up, down, sideways – means jack shit to wage slaves like you and me. Wages flat, pensions looted or gone, Social Security under attack, working class whites and blacks and Mexicans divided by the same racist machinations that have long pitted them against one another. Divided we get used, abused, and tossed.

You’d think we’d learn.

I avert my eyes from the State of the Union. Better to switch off the light and sit in the dark, with the doors closed and locked, and the blinds drawn.