Fool the Nation Three Times…
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
By Gregg Wall (5-14-2022)
These are extraordinary times. Capitalism isn’t dying, it’s still a useful tool. But untrammeled greed, oligarchy, and the two-party system look like proven losers. How many times must cartel and monopolies fail the country (and the Dems’ & GOP’ support for cartels, monopolies, and unbridled Wall St consolidation and M&A), before Americans, finally, say ‘enough’?
The latest is baby formula. Crazy. I forgot. Is America a first world country, or just another banana republic?
How many times must the Washington duopoly fall on its pompous and prodigious keister before America, finally, says ‘enough’? And if you follow the news, as I do, it’s so painful to watch. Forty years of Reaganomics, Thatcherism, and Clintonism are blowing up right before our very eyes. Americans, refugees, countries… that depend upon a responsible US government (if for nothing more, as a beacon of hope; if for something greater, as a real leader) … are suffering very real consequences from endemic corruption and failure in Washington.
I long thought the GOP would be first to go. It was their economic policies, after all, that have failed: trickle-down, market rule, endless corporate welfare, and the suspension of disbelief and reliance upon billionaires, captains of industry, and Wall Street (despite an endless series of bailouts & catastrophic failures from the private sector). But no, the real problem, certainly over the last thirty years, is the lack of formidable opposition to the Republican party or push back (to offer viable alternatives other than the diktats of the American oligarchy) … the problem, essentially, is the GOP’s wingman, the Democratic party.
Neither party will even debate economic policy in public anymore. It’s that bad. Both parties plan on running on sixty-year-old culture wars and identity politics this November. Nothing like a draft Supreme Court ruling that could have been written by a minister, from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, right out of the seventeenth century, to insight national despair and division.
Who benefits, certainly not Americans… and I’m not even certain the two-party system or its billionaire owners benefit anymore. The donor class has used these tried-and-true tactics on the American people for so long, it’s readily transparent.
How does it go?
Fool me once? Fool me twice?
I wonder, how many times King George fooled the American colonists before they revolted? How many times did the French people get the shaft before they marched on Versailles?
Which brings us to Bill Clinton, who had to the grand vision to co-opt and triangulate Republican economic policies, and to abandon the New Deal and Great Society. A legacy we are living with to this very day. Bill signed onto Reaganomics hook, line, and sinker. The Clintons advanced neoliberalism (aka libertarian economic policy) to the next level. Only a Democrat could have gotten away with destroying labor, unions and embracing a globalist, free trade agenda on that scale (and to the complete deteriment of the American people, the economy, and the tax base).
And then, there was the great opportunist, Obama, who ran as a socialist; and once safely in office, pivoted to Wall Street bailouts, corporate welfare – in the form of the ACA, more job killing free trade, did not really stop endless war, and doubled down on neoliberalism and trickle-down. Ronald Reagan, the Clintons, & ironically, Big Oil, never had a greater champion. Obama had all the oportunities. A major crisis, the 2008 Wall St disaster… he could have remade the nation, as no one since FDR. Instead, America received more billionaires, concentration, monopoly, and Wall Street.
Which brings us to our current President… faced with multiple crises, Biden could use the DPA, and more emergency measures, from any number of angles, to rebuild the nation and remake the economy. Like Obama, Biden ran as a progressive, and once safely in office, he abandoned the entire project, his campaign, Build Back Better. Instead, it appears that the Dems gambled on containing & controlling the virus, and a surfeit of low paying, gig jobs that would somehow make it all better. Like the economy or the jobs market was all that great before the pandemic. Thirty-three percent of American labor doesn’t even earn a living wage. That’s 33%! Welcome to monopsony, neoliberalism, and robber baron rule Mr. POTUS! And Biden’s poll numbers reflect his and the Democratic party’s failure to do anything, other than continue to co-opt right-wing, GOP economic policies.
It gets even nastier for democracy and the American people. In the ultimate betrayal, Dems have grown really soft on the January 6th attack - and ongoing coup – launched and managed by GOP leadership. Any GOP leadership prosecutions? Nope, not a one. In fact, the Speaker of the House was just saying this week how she missed the old GOP. Despite hoping to run on abortion, the Speaker of the House and other Demo elites have been in Texas campaigning for an anti-abortion candidate. Nice.
And when the Dem leaders aren’t campaigning for anti-abortion candidates, they are busy destroying progressive candidates. There’s something very wrong about this party; something very manipulative. They champion progressive polices during elections and turn their nose up at their base of support, the American people (you know, gays, labor, minorities, women and the youth), once in power. Dems control both houses of congress and the presidency.
Repeat: Dems control both houses of congress and the presidency.
If the GOP had a similar lock on power, presently, Mitch McConnell would have the entire GOP caucus barking – and singing the national anthem, in perfect harmony - like trained seals. Dems want to, allegedly, achieve something for their base of support -- like federal codification of abortion or voting rights -- and there’s always a far-right, democrat politician to conveniently gum up the process (or party heads, like the POTUS, insist upon bipartisanship or obscure Senate rules to all but ensure the progressive agenda is crushed).
The reality, Dems have no interest in helping their base. The Dems only have interest in retaining power, cashing in, and making their billionaire donors happy (not necessarily in that order). And given Dems abject failure on the economy -- thank you Clintons and fresh water school economics -- and, lately, attempting to lead the nation into yet another forever war, the SCOTUS draft on abortion was a godsend. No, not to do right and correct the problem, but rather, to profit – just like the GOP – on the politics of division and potentially rally their base for November.
How does it go?
Fool me three times? At this point if we are fooled three times, by the failed Dem Establishment, we are flirting with Einstein’s definition of insanity. That is, voting for the same lying, manipulative party, repeatedly, and expecting a different outcome.
Why does voting for, essentially, a right-wing party, the Dems, increasingly feel like a hostage situation, a biennial shakedown? Nice country, or was a nice country, but it could get a lot, lot worse, if you - American voter - place those republicans back in power? That appears to be the Demo mantra, every two years. But notice, nothing ever really improves, for labor, minorities, and women. In fact, Dem elites love to blame and sneer at their own voters, as the source of the country's woes. Billionaires, on the other hand, only gain more and more power.
And never debated, never questioned… because there’s always highly triggering culture wars, identity politics, and unresolved social issues on the front burner… the failed neoliberal economy and the latest and greatest, the new endless war. Meanwhile, the billionaires, day traders in congress, and the oligarchy get richer, and richer, and richer off an entirely rigged system, while Americans face unprecedented consumer price gouging and lousy job opportunities.
Americans, collectively, after forty years of Clintonian & Reagan economic policies, maybe suffering from a combination of PTSD and Stockholm Syndrome (a fancy term for being in a highly abusive relationship with the Democratic party).
So what to do?
The first thing to do is for Americans to take the emotion out of future elections and seek remedies and reforms, because if both parties are good at anything, it’s playing on emotions and more specifically, exploiting the fear card. Both parties, Dem and GOP, thrive on emotions, fear, and manipulation. And here, it would be good to take a moment and give the GOP some credit. It took forty years for them to take over governor’s mansion after governor’s mansion, state legislature after state legislature, and about a decade or less for McConnell to stack the Supreme Court.
In short, it took forty years for the GOP, complicit Dems, and billionaries to turn this country on its head and destroy the middle class… progressives need to prepare themselves, it’s going to take some time to clean this mess up. The mess being minority - white male - rule.
Some of the ideas that immediately come to mind, involving a multi-pronged strategy:
Don’t be a rubber stamp for either party, especially establishment Dems. Only vote for true progressives. And if there’s no progressives, don’t vote. When voter participation drops, the fraud that is two-party system will be revealed. The government is rigged, the economy is rigged: do not abet this corruption further by supporting the failed duopoly. The youth get it, they know the current arrangement is a sham, and it certainly isn’t working for them.
Like Republicans, vote in the midterms, vote in local elections, but again, only if true progressive candidates are offered.
Most important, create a third party or parties. It won’t be easy; it will take time. And there’ll be a ton of arguments from Dems on how it will place the GOP in power (Republicans also face the possibility of a third party challenger). But I can assure you, it will not get better, America, until we have a healthy multi-party democracy. (One of the reasons, a key reason, why Canada is as progressive as it is: third parties and a healthy multi-party system.)
The country desperately needs structural economic and political reforms: economically, major antitrust enforcement and serious and strong federal regulations and regulatory bodies. Billionaire, market and Wall St rule has been a catastrophe. On the political side, America needs: term limits at all levels and branches of government; the elimination of the electoral college; SCOTUS – now revealed as nothing more than politicians – needs to be popularly elected; and, as for the US Senate, it would be best to abolish it and go unicameral… but if it must exist, it needs to be reapportioned based upon population, period. Support candidates that will fight for like and similar structural reforms at the state level.
It's time to elect the chairman and the board of governors for the Federal Reserve. The FED is the most powerful branch of government, the majority of Americans rarely hear of, and it's time to bring the Federal Reserve out of the shadows. Screams about an independent FED are identical to the cries for an independent SCOTUS… are just that, the ravings of insiders that exploit theses institutions. You guessed it, those who scream loudest are the predators at the top & their mouthpieces. If you believe SCOTUS is political, rest assured your friendly neighborhood FED chair is equally political.
In all instances, vote for champions of democracy and the popular will. There may even be that rare libertarian and particularly, a civil-libertarian canadidate that is worth voting for.
Outside the political arena, support labor, organized labor, and unions. Support a full suite of benefits for all workers and a living wage. Support an economic bill of rights, and guaranteed employment for anyone and everyone who wants to work. Support always Medicare For All.
Another means to rectify our current failed government stems from the Declaration of Independence, which states that the American government derives its power from the consent of the American people; and when our government no longer functions and serves in this manner, it is the right of the American people to insist upon a new government. That, my friends, is the fail-safe. My guess is the majority of Americans no longer feel our current government serves them or their interests. The DOI is much more than a political manifesto, it’s enshrined in America’s code of law. Progressive groups and lawyers should be looking at this document carefully as a means of leverage to seek reforms, and if absolutely necessary, the creation of a new government of, by, and for the people.
The goal, ultimately, is to end the duopoly’s - and their oligarchical ownership’s - reign of terror. The goal is to end the tyranny of a government entirely captured by the billionaire class, not unlike monarchy.
Know this: GOP rule, in the short run, will be miserable. But fascism, ultimately, implodes. Freedom is in the heart of all Americans, and the GOP, at its heart, is an insurrectionist party that has very little to offer but division and hate. Its rule will not last, unless Americans allow Establishment Dems to continue to prop up the GOP, via a cacophony of failures and the adoption of GOP economic policies. We all know Reaganomics, Clintonism, neoliberalism, globalization – and oligarchy – are abject failures. These are extremist ideologies, and a ruling body, based upon greed.
Americans are surrounded by forty years of economic failure, and thirty trillion in national debt, accumulated directly as a result of the dominate laissez-faire economic ideology championed by both political parties. Whereby greed is both the ends and the means. It’s bad, really bad. We cannot afford to let it grow worse. We need to watch out for our children, and we need to insist upon change & reforms for future generations.
So really, for the disenfranchised American people & progressives, what’s to fear but the continuation of a failed duopoly… and a highly abusive relationship with the Dem establishment? Once we recognize establishment Dems exactly for who they are, an impediment to real progressive change, we realize our continued support defeats our very own interests.
It’s time to take democracy to the next level.
Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2022
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