Note, this piece appeared late last week. I am reposting it because it’s just so excellent and I want more people to read it. — efc
Judith Gayle | Political Waves
The American oligarchy spares no pains in promoting the belief that it does not exist, but the success of its disappearing act depends on equally strenuous efforts on the part of an American public anxious to believe in egalitarian fictions and unwilling to see what is hidden in plain sight. — Michael Lind, To Have and to Have Not
I know what drives the Teabagger movement. I get their anxiety and despair, their outrage and desire to turn back the clock to easier times. Both of my talented sons are unemployed — one with kids and an exhausted wife hustling two little jobs; one out of work for over two years, picking up an occasional buck as a handyman.
Here in the Patch, the leaks in the roof that escalated to full-blown waterfalls in October took on dire overtones with the snow load. I now have a lodge pole in the living room, wedged to keep the roof in place — since I won’t be addressing that challenge anytime soon, I haven’t decided whether to hang things on it or carve it as a totem. It will be interesting to see what new decorating options the Spring rains bring.
I know what drives the anger. Within the Bagger movement, many are old enough to have heard about the Great Depression and some even lived through it as kids, telling tales of meager meals and shabby clothes. The ripple effect drove the generation that produced the Boomers to strive for stability, security, and resulted in stuff. Remember “Two cars in every garage and a chicken in every pot?”
The Boomers grew up thinking that’s what stability and security meant and when they got over their idealism, they got even more stuff. Now they’re afraid the hippy-dippy liberals want to do away with their freedom to get more stuff, and take away the guns that they need to protect it. They’re full to bursting with tales of conspiracy perpetrated by a president that isn’t even an American.
I know what drives the fear. During the Bush years, there were a lot of conspiracy tales that kept us awake at night. We came within a hairs breadth of fascism under Dubby, the legacy of which is alive in a defiant Dick Cheney and the still-scheming NeoCon movement. And those particular conspiracies were actual — we regularly get bits of pieces of their true horror floating to the top where we can examine them, but we don’t have time. We’ve moved on to other challenges, other conspiracies, especially under this socialist, communist, Muslim president.
Here’s the thing — American fear and the anger is real enough, as is the conspiracy driving all our lives. Even as the baggers, the socialists and all those in between cry for jobs, jobs, jobs we are only slightly aware of how big that conspiracy is. Even as we vent our spleen against whomever we think is obstructing us, shouting “This is America, damn it!” and worrying about our stuff, we’re clueless to the extent of the manipulation.
I’m with Bill Maher, who thinks that this nation isn’t nearly angry enough. We’re all pissy about this and that circumstance, eager to place blame here or there, but many of us haven’t even identified the actual problem. Maybe if we got the full monty on what’s wrong, notice that our challenge isn’t with the political parties, per se, but their corporate masters, we’d find common cause and stop being so politically lethargic.
Oh, we’re aware that corporations are too big for their britches, as the polling numbers against the recent Supreme Court decision reveal; we just don’t understand how much harm they have planned. If we did, we’d be in the streets. Anger is a catalyst — we can’t live there, but it certainly gets us to our feet quickly enough and puts a little needed stiffening in our spines.
Arianna Huffington touched on the tip of this iceberg today, citing the 3% unemployment statistic for those making over $150,000 while the lower class polls at a staggering 31%:
“Does anyone believe that the sense of urgency coming out of Washington wouldn’t be wildly different if it was the unemployment rate in the top ten percent that was 31 percent? If one-third of television news producers, pundits, bankers, and lobbyists were unemployed, would the measures being proposed by the White House and Congress still be this pathetic? Of course not — the sense of national emergency would be so great you’d practically be hearing air raid sirens howling.”
In this amazing moment, when too many of us are trying to turn back time rather than cooperate with the turn of ages that has potential to transform centuries of servitude, we need all the truth we can get. Today I’m offering a handful of links that make the conspiracy business easier to decode — pony up and read them. We dither our energy away until we get to the heart of this matter.
The first is a revealing Garrison Keillor piece that illuminates the Bagger mindset with precision and charm. The next two links, here and here, will take you to a breakdown of the real challenge to this nation, a full-blown class war that — should it succeed — will bring back the jobs we saw migrate overseas but will not pay much more than they do in Third World countries. Then we’ll ALL be working, grinding out the stuff we can no longer buy — something like the WalMart employees who can’t afford to shop there. And the only ones that will be happy are the top one percent that, as we speak, owns over 70% of this nations financial assets, a shameful all time record.
The Gilded Age, like the Great Depression, isn’t just a story in a history book. It’s an enduring loop of old paradigm manipulation and greed that is hidden in plain sight. Up until now, we’ve had enough stuff to keep us calm and compliant. Those days are disappearing quickly.
This is America, damn it! It was worth fighting for a few hundred years ago when we gained independence; worth the unspeakable cost of setting brother against brother in a Civil War that eventually preserved the Republic. What’s it worth now? Are we just too beat down and burnt out to make another stand for the Constitution that endows us and the nation that we love?
We have some decisions to make, don’t we.
Jude
Mystes, I’ll take your commentary to my PAC group next month, and I know your response will delight them. They’re a devoted but aging group, dedicated to making a difference in a spot on the map that virtually ignores them. They could use some wind beneath their wings and you provided it. This is one of those we’re-all-connected things that makes me happy. Thanks for the big grin, today — and I’ll be looking for those songs!
Jude writes: “We belong to a Dem PAC and met this weekend to discuss a local essay contest we sponsor encouraging kids to vote. ”
Brilliant! and thanks for the inspiration. This is an idea I should (and will) try to figure out how to emulate here in Austin. Except we’ll see about writing the best cosmic cowboy song to encourage people to vote.
I’ve been working for a candidate to a county office who has truly progressive ideas for how to reshape this part of the state. I love the guy’s ideas, I love working with the motley crew that is rolling him into office (against a very corrupt incumbent) and love being in the field talking to citizens. But when I listen to 10 people, 2 of them will say that they don’t vote, and don’t allow their families to vote because it is futile. What do you *mean* you don’t vote because it is futile? I just want to calmly walk out, unscrew their streetlights, stop up the plumbing that goes into their houses and turn the roads that lead to their driveways into papier mache. Are you using this infrastructure? I see cars, houses, trees — assets, damnit. Just how, tell me, did they come by those? And just when will they be packing them up and taking them to a country that … well, has no democratic process?
Behind that obdurate pessimism lurks a tidal wave of weird (and not the kind we try to cultivate around here). We get the government we build. If less than 30% of the population will actually deign to put a hand to this messy process, the results default to the Behemoths. If Corporate America and the US Government have become the same entity, it is the result of that old axiom: Nature (well, actually Power) Abhors a Vacuum. I can’t imagine that the story could be simpler.
We sit around and wail that we have no power. We have power. We don’t use it because we have become entranced by 8 (now 9) years of feckless stupidity in governance. Get up, find a candidate who wasn’t born to privilege and give 2 hours a week to his or her campaign. If the 15% progressive bloc and the 25% functional Dem bloc would do this, the story would shift. In a big, fast heartbeat.
Vote.
Glenn Beck wants more ‘purity’ in his party. Less than 5% of the Teabaggers, the movement that defines itself as watchdogs for taxes, are aware that 95% of the country got a tax break last year. Colin Powell says he can’t figure up what crazy old Uncle Dick Cheney is talking about on national security. One of the folks who helped write Bush’s Patriot Act thinks Obama is killing too many Al Qaeda leaders.
There’s a lot of confusion out there, right now. The American character doesn’t handle that well — we’re growing out of our Puritanical right/wrong, black/white thinking that we thought kept us safe, and finding we have to stand on our own two feet. This is a learning curve and I wish we were progressing faster, but I’m not giving up on this experiment in democracy.
As I’ve long written [and sung,] waking up is hard to do — and while I share your frustration, Louise, it helps to understand how this habitual behavior and mindlessness is perpetuated. George Lakoff has a good article here, discussing both ”framing’ which the Pubs do SOOO much better than the Left, and brain science: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/02/21-0
I have an elder friend, here in the Patch — she’s a sharp old gal, a retired social studies teacher, a woman who went to Alaska in the 50s all alone and carved a rich, feminist life out of a wilderness. She’s one of the most progressive, open-minded people I know; childless, she has put several children through college and ran a woman’s book store that championed political activism. Lucy constantly writes letters to the editor here in S. MO, facing a shit-storm of criticism for her point of view.
We belong to a Dem PAC and met this weekend to discuss a local essay contest we sponsor encouraging kids to vote. This year we’re giving money awards and copies of Howard Zinn’s ‘People’s History’ to the winners. Discussing that selection, she said something poignant, very unlike her — she said that she was ashamed that for so many years she was unaware that what she taught wasn’t true, that she’d implanted facts in the minds of her students from the school board-blessed curriculum without questioning it. Zinn changed that for her.
That was an a-ha moment for me, in terms of my frustrations with all my sleepy-headed neighbors. If Lucy, one of the sharpest arrows in the quiver, can confess her learning curve and admit there was a time when she slept too, then there’s hope for us all. Sometimes even the best of us don’t ‘get’ it until its pointed out.
And that’s our challenge: to learn, to grow, to act and to change.
I’ve pretty much had it with this notion that our President is Muslim, a Socialist and more insanely, not an American. That right there shows the problem with this country. Fear and greed. The mess we are in at this minute is due to the 8 years of the most corrupt, self-serving, lying, deceitful administration we saw under the Presidency of Dick Cheney. Bush was merely the beard. You’re angry about this country still being at war in Iraq? Think of 911. The catalyst needed to enter into a war that directly financially benefited those in high government. Quiet like a rat gnawing away at our rights and freedoms. Once Obama got elected, he was all over the media. Why? Fighting for his right to continue forcefeeding fear down our throat, I should say yours, for he never fooled me. For those eight years, President Cheney sat in his office, crunching his numbers. Who elects a businessman to hold the second highest office in this country? You morons did, and you deserve everything you get. Americans are greedy people – all things material. We haven’t changed that much. Just travel into the guts of this country. Still prejudicial of anything or anyone different. As if America isn’t all about things different.
We’re apathetic allright, with our stupid cell phones, and our obese children and the mindless sitcoms that people sit in front of, motionless, unobserving of the lack-luster fare we eat. Simpletons just droning on in their lives. And you expect this bunch to get involved in the serious issues at hand? They won’t even recycle! They’re too lazy. You expect them to understand, know, read about the countless conspiracies perpetrated in the name of democracy, and the American way. Poor, poor Emilea Earhart used by FDR, buried somewhere, who knows in Japanese ground?
The biggest mistake this country has recently made was to enter into the NAFTA agreement. Outsourcing is what is killing this country, and also our own greed for charging so much for products that can easily be made at a much lower price, and making them inferior as well. And then on top of that, to support China by going to the Dollar Stores and stocking up on all those savings! Those people grumbling as they stand in line to pay their dollar are not thinking of the slave labor that is turning out the useless and dangerous to our planet, items that litter our country and our lives. You expect them to read? To look into, to accept just what it is they are contributing to? No…they must have that plastic container to hold the last of their fast food.
Our current medical institutions, and the pharmaceutical companies need to be radically changed. It is not the fault of President Obama that so many Americans don’t have health plans. It’s the greed of the business owner, like WAL-MART, that simply will not insure their employees. That good old American greed, for there are many people that will gladly accept a job at Wal-Mart and be thankful to be abused and mis-used because, after all, they now have a job. Shame on Wal-Mart and every company that won’t contribute to the ‘whole’ of their company thereby contributing to the ‘whole’ of this country, and the ‘whole’ of this earth.
Every ideology has its minefields. Capitalism may be the American way but it has cost us plenty. I would dare to say it’s costing us our very country. So, Mr. Teabagger, when you are ready to throw the tea over, let me know, and I’ll tell you where it is.
I hear your disbelief, dearheart — and share it. It makes no sense to me that these people would kill the middle class but that’s what they’re doing. I’ve never understood the rationale of these people. For instance, they’re damaging the planet by critical degrees to make short-term gain. I have no idea how they justify that.
If you think back to the turn of the last century, the poor were ignored, the sweatshops were full and the money traveled upwards as they plundered the resources of the nation. The rise of the NeoCons gave them greater aspirations, as in plundering the resources of any nation they find appealing. The big money is in war and arms and and even now, due to economy, there are a lot of happy recruiters these days. Between what’s been privatized and what’s been deregulated, the middle class has already been squeezed of any extra. If they can bleed the middle and working class without outright killing them off, eliminate the lower class by denying them and keep their military-industrial complex well fed, they have a perfect profit world.
They’re insane. But until we get a clear picture of just how much, we trudge along hoping it all turns out ok. And yes, I hear a lot about ex-pat’s these days. Here’s a clue: the cable channel HGTV, that used to show you how to decorate and/or “turn” your house for quick sale, now shows you how to price and buy overseas.
Thanks for responding. I know this isn’t a “fun” post and it’s frightening to think this is true, especially when we’re feeling so vulnerable. But it explains a lot — the Wall Street stuff, the Republican refusal to oversight, yadda. And it’s pretty hard to argue with the statistics. Ultimately, I believe they’ll fail in their pursuit, but until the public gets on to them, we cooperate with all this without knowing it. Orwell was, unfortunately, pretty prophetic.
Ok. I get it…..the Elite want us broke, working for nothing and cranking out stuff. I have a question about that. Americans are the BIGGEST consumers on earth. If the biggest consumers on earth are no longer able to consume and no one else is in position to consume enough; how will the Elite sell all those goods and services we now-broke Americans make-provide for slave wages?
After WWII, the war machine factories were retooled to make stuff. The problem was, Europe was in ruins, Asia was still third world, South America was still third world so there weren’t enough consumers to buy all the stuff. So Americans, who had been living in extended families, were urged to “move out” get their own homes, become the “nuclear family” and live away from the city where their jobs were. Individuating meant more stuff got sold because sharing household goods and each person having their own household goods were two different things. Now highways had to be extended and finished so that each new individual family could live in the suburbs but work in the city. More homes were built and sold, more cars were made and sold, more household goods were made and sold and more construction of roads, houses, shopping places and bridges was done. Jobs were plentiful because of all this activity. A strong, consuming middle class was created that kept the economy going well.
How can the Elite continue to make money if they bring the very consumers of their stuff and services to their non-consuming knees?
Are the Elite so stupid as to ruin their long term ability to gain by opting for short term (current) gains?
Sure, there is a middle class in India and China but have they become able to consume to the level that America has been? Will they be the next “market” for cheaply American made goods? Will Americans now occupy the place India and China used to by being a cheap-labor, third world country? If so, the mass exodus of Americans to other countries will gain momentum. Already those Americans that still can afford it are expatriating to other countries to live in quiet obscurity.
Wow. Just. Wow.
Jude:
Apparently the news is bringing forth someone who HAS made a decision.
Mr. Joe Stack. The guy who flew his plane into an IRS Building this morning in Austin Texas.
Eric will have particulars up in a little bit.