“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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