Wednesday, December 30, 2015

In Search of Wiser Heads & Hearts

A very few people owned most of the land and were keenly resented. Three percent of the population controlled 50 percent of the wealth. People were not stupid; there was general knowledge of the plunder, chicanery, favoritism, privilege of name and corruption of government officials that had created such inequity.” E.L. Doctorow, Notes on Art & Politics

What period of American history do you think E.L. Doctorow was referring to in the passage quoted above? It sounds like contemporary times, doesn’t it, when the members of the Forbes 400 congratulate themselves for owning more wealth than, well, almost all of the rest of us serfs, combined.

But Doctorow wasn’t writing about our times, he was writing about America the colony, before the revolution, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Even back then, the elites ruled, and often by means of the same tactics employed by the wealthy today: plunder, chicanery, and that reliable old standby, corruption. Like the buying of influence with campaign contributions, or funding think tanks to churn out favorable policy analysis and positions, or hiring lobbyists to stroke and soothe and succor elected officials.

Chris Hedges, whose Truthdig column I read every week, sees a dire, dystopian future for America, full-scale social collapse, environmental devastation, and an internal crackdown on anyone who dares to buck the prevailing corporate-controlled order. For the sake of my children, I want to believe that Hedges is wrong and that wiser heads and hearts will put America right before it’s too late. But I also think we are running short on time, and that it’s unlikely a savior will rise from within the current broken two-party system.

We might be fucked. Look at the leading contender for the GOP presidential nomination, Donald Trump, and at the wing nut right behind him, Ted Cruz. Even if you’re not an American, these men should scare you. It’s not much better on the Democratic side. Democrats once stood for working people, the poor, the elderly and infirm, but that was years ago, before a certain charismatic governor from Arkansas figured out that Democrats could cut deals with big time corporate money men; his wife has the same jones for Wall Street.

Bernie Sanders is no more than window-dressing, a candidate with no purpose other than to hoodwink the electorate into thinking it has a choice. Sanders never had a chance in hell of securing the nomination, that’s not how the rules of the fixed game work. Because of Sanders, Dame Clinton may make populist noises, but once she has the nomination in her crooked fingers, and she will, any and all left-leaning positions she once espoused will be ditched faster than her hubby ever ditched a one-night stand.

The grim outlines that Chris Hedges writes about week after week are visible – if one looks behind and beyond the BS that passes for news in the corporate media.

The clock is winding down.


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