Where Serfs Are Rarely Allowed

 

“It’s not the poor who make revolutions.” Chris Hedges, in conversation with Chauncey DeVega

All Joe Biden can do is slow America’s slide, but I don’t expect him to instigate or inspire the true course correction necessary to keep the country from coming apart at the seams. He’s got a narrow two year window in which to operate and a razor thin majority in a completely dysfunctional Congress. Trump drove the GOP insane and now the inmates have seized control of the guard towers and are headed for the armory. Unless we quickly strengthen and reinforce our democratic structure and some of its machinery -- voting rights, eliminating the filibuster, ending gerrymandering -- the republic cannot long survive. 

Accomplishing such reforms would be a major achievement for a functioning Congress. It seems obvious to me that the same political system that landed us in this ditch cannot pull us out. The corruption is too deep in the Senate, for example, for that body to accomplish anything except tax cuts for the rich, corporate handouts, and obscene annual tithes to the Pentagon. For the majority of working-class Americans -- and by this I mean people of all genders, creeds , political persuasions and skin tones who work for and depend on wages -- all we ever get from Congress is indifference and hypocrisy. The US has some of the weakest basic protections for working people in the world, and no organized labor power to speak of. Congress wrings its soft hands, knits its brow, and squeals when the subject on the floor is aiding working-class citizens in the middle of a devastating pandemic. Republicans make one-time $2,000 payments to eligible citizens sound like the worst profligacy imaginable. But they have no qualms about cutting taxes for corporations and the wealthy, handing out millions of dollars in welfare to companies that don’t need it, or drowning the Pentagon in money. No qualms at all, that’s simply business as usual, constituent service.

In a corrupt, upside down system like ours, the needs of working people will always be subordinated to the needs of the wealthy and powerful. Look at the Dow Jones Industrial Average if you need proof. At a time when our economy is limping along and millions are struggling to pay the rent and feed their loved ones, the DJIA is riding above 30,000. One clearly has no relation to the other. Two completely different games are going on here. How can the economy be booming for a few and collapsing on the many? How did we engineer such a perverse system? Why don’t we talk about it? Why don’t we speak in the language of class warfare in America when that is precisely what has been going on for almost half a century? Is it to maintain the meritocratic fantasy that every American is born with equality of opportunity? That every American rises or falls by his or her own effort and talent? Is it to justify the winners and explain the fate of the losers? 

People and companies who benefit from a 30,000 DJIA might reside in the same country with the serfs for whom the DJIA is meaningless, but they travel in fine automobiles on private roads where serfs are rarely allowed. 

As we approach a full year of adapting to the pandemic I’ve been thinking about the role of elders in society. In an article about loneliness, I came across some startling statistics, such as the large percentage of elderly people in America who live alone. My brother, cousin, and mother are in their 60’s, 70’s and 80’s respectively, and all live alone. Extended families living under the same roof are rare. Families scatter now for schooling, work, military service, affordable housing, temperate weather, and many other reasons. Transportation is easier, faster and more efficient than it was a century ago. Upward mobility on the economic ladder might be a thing of the past, but people still pack up and move in search of better lives. The question I’ve been thinking about is: What do we lose when families scatter? The elders, for one thing. Elders are supposed to peer down the road ahead, see how it compares to now, and make a guess, using all their lived experience, about the dangers that might lie ahead. This might have been more immediately relevant to survival in indigenous societies, but I still think elders matter today. Even if the technology of the future is even more mind-boggling than it is now, and it surely will be, we remain human beings with passions, prejudices, fear, and the potential for violence. Wise elders encourage a cooling down, a meaningful pause to consider the consequences of words and actions. That’s the opposite of our lightning fast, digital, social media news feeds, YouTube favorites, and other noise that comes at most of us many hours each day. Without elders wise about the ways of human beings, without stories of people and places, events, times lived through, and threats survived, we lose the everyday wisdom of those who came before, and who can tell us how this or that place used to be.

How many of our elders have died alone due to Covid? How many of those deaths belong to Donald J. Trump?

I’ve also been thinking about China. Despite all his bellicose rhetoric, Donald Trump was easily outplayed by China on the trade front, and before much longer China will take our belt and become the preeminent economic power in the world. As political sclerosis and social unrest and division weaken the US, China will stroll through the double doors Trump left open and dominate technology and trade. Trump sundered America’s traditional alliances, alienated world leaders, made preposterous claims and a mockery of America’s longstanding claim to global leadership. Although America’s dominance was eroding when Trump moved into the White House, his reign was like tossing a Molotov cocktail onto a runway slick with jet fuel. Trump’s grandiosity and stupidity accelerated America’s decline. What does this mean for the millions of Americans who have nearly been forgotten in the half century of America’s disastrous experiment with neoliberalism? If we think those deemed “losers”in our unforgiving meritocracy are angry now, just wait. 

As our economic power wanes so will our military power, and then maintaining a global network of military bases will become untenable. The empire will be forced to fold its tents and limp home. 

When revolution comes to America it will arrive from the political right and it’s symbols will be the flag and the cross. Or the bullet and the Bible. Trump blathered about a fictitious “radical left” but the true danger is from Christian fascists, who for decades have been funded by conservative oligarchs. I found this passage in a book titled The Power Worshippers by Katherine Stewart:

“Addressing gerrymandering, voter suppression, and other abuses of the electoral process that continue to hobble American democracy will be a central aspect of any effort to meet the challenge of Christian nationalism.”

Can I get an Amen on that?