Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/11/14/ivory-handled-back-scratchers.html
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One dollar, one vote…
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Government of the People, by the Elite, for the Super-Rich.
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You can almost feel the system starting to collapse and lurch towards a revolution of some kind. This can’t continue for much longer. The only question is what’s going to rise up from the ashes in the aftermath?
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Taxation without representation indeed!
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If the GOP succeeds in pushing through this plan, they’ll face a drubbing that makes last week’s elections look gentle, as Democrats parade dying children, debt-haunted students, laid-off people in wheelchairs, and jobless veterans in their campaign materials.
Or they will trumpet their “fiscal responsibility” and manage to win elections all across the country despite all evidence. An electorate that can be influenced by facts and reason wouldn’t have voted in Donald Trump and at least half of the Republicans in the house.
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People have been saying, figuratively for ever, that there’s going to be a revolution.
I have to wonder if it seems more likely now because things really are bad, or because I’m getting old and crochety.
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Bread and Circuses man. It’s nowhere near bad enough for the general populace to break out the pitchforks. Most of what you see is increased turnover around election time as people vote against the guys who aren’t solving their problems, and nobody in mainstream politics outside of the Bernie Sanders minority are really talking about doing anything about inequality. Donald Trump did talk a bit about opportunity, but follow through has proven difficult since giving huge handouts to billionaires doesn’t improve opportunity for anyone. Not even the billionaires, it’s just more of what they were already doing quite well.
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I dunno. Based on the research I’ve done, the last time there was this much partisanship in politics here–and demonization, and “my way or the highway”–it was in the 1850s. And that ended in a civil war. Which would still count as an attempt to end the current system and set up a new one more to the liking of the rebels, right?
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I don’t see why they’re so nervous about thier donors, isn’t the party of ‘personal responsibility’ all about pulling themselves up by the boostraps?
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Nah, that’s only for the Little People.
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Have corporate tax cuts ever resulted in more jobs and a better economy? Conservatives have been saying that for years but it never seems to work. Logically speaking, the upper management would keep that added income for themselves instead of hiring more workers.
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Seems you’ve discovered the Voodoo Economics that Bush the Greater warned about on the campaign trail back in 1980. 37 years of rinse and repeat have brought us the greatest wealth inequality since the days of the Robber Barons. But maybe, just maybe if we polish this turd one more time all that promised wealth will finally trickle down to the 99%.
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Bread and Circuses plays a part – and probably never before in human history have even the poorest enjoyed so much bread and so many circuses – but there’s also a kind of ‘taught helplessness’.
I’m a transplant to the US, and one of the things that continually strikes me about the US is the pervasiveness of the messaging designed to present the status quo as the only possible way. Part of it is rooted in American exceptionalism – this is already the greatest country on Earth, we have nothing to learn from any other country – but part of it is a repeated, insistent message that if you even look at alternative ways to manage your society you will lose everything you have.
So anything that even hints of prioritizing social over economic goals is not only naive and contemptible, but fraught with terrible danger. Venezuela, of course, is the cautionary tale par excellence here, but there’s also a lot of synchronized sneering at Europe. As everyone knows, Europe’s embrace of social democracy means that every nation there is a terminal economic basket case, hovering just a heartbeat away from total fiscal and social collapse. And of course everything good flows from the super-wealthy and giant corporations, so if the capitalists aren’t allowed to have everything they want, unchecked and unquestioned, then the entire US economy will go tits-up in the space of a week.
Environmental problems? Can’t impose restrictions on industry, because then the US won’t be competitive, and then it’s your job that goes, Joe. Unionization? Good luck finding work when unions have destroyed that industry too. More taxes on the rich? Are you out of your mind? Do you want the ‘job creators’ to stop creating jobs? And so on and so forth.
And this stuff is, as I say, pervasive. It’s not just Fox News putting it out, although they bang all those drums pretty hard. The supposed ‘left-wing’ media (pardon my scornful laugh) also take this stuff as a given. The same basic assumptions are present in everything they put out. The people who benefit most from the current state of affairs work very assiduously to persuade everyone else that it’s also to their benefit, and to discourage them from contemplating any possible alternatives.
Given this almost constant propaganda, some subtle, some not, devoted to the idea that, in the words of Margaret Thatcher, “There is no alternative”, it’s not surprising that the lesson has sunk in, and now forms a foundation for many people’s vision of the world. Until people start questioning that, meaningful social change looks quite unlikely.
Which is, of course, the point.
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The phrase “the chickens coming home to roost” comes to mind. The GOP has been following this path a long time, seems obvious it was bound to end up here. I don’t think it will lead to a revolution in any normal sense, but it could (should) lead to huge losses for the GOP in the next few elections. I only hope the Democrats move more to the left instead of sitting in the middle like they always do.
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