There are occasions when I get fired up. I don’t do this often, as what comes with it is willingness to be on the receiving end of invective, brickbats and worse. Admittedly, this time it was pol-speak by Governor Romney that set off my fireworks, when in his Fourth of July speech in Wolfboro, NH, he called for return to a nation where the people are sovereign and the government the servant. The audience cheered wildly and I wondered whether they had any idea what this abysmally conceived statement really means. So far as I know, sovereignty applies only to states and nations. But the opposition has a good sense of the power of psycho-babble and when you combine it with rivers of money you can win elections hands down. You can place unqualified people in legislatures by the hundreds. You can buy their total allegiance.
Insofar as “government is a servant” is concerned, Governor Romney, as a participant in the corporate world, is as aware as any billionaire or corporation of the horde of lobbyists who are engaged in styling government service to serve their own interests. They pay them. They can even persuade the government to take the nation into war. Dead soldiers mean little to them. It’s simply part of the cost of doing business, and not even their cost. The Government already serves the people in myriad ways, and that is as it should be. But Governor Romney has quite different ideas of the government’s role as a servant than he spouts on the campaign trail.
The massive, non-traceable spending by private individuals and corporations during this election year as a result of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision leads inevitably to the conclusion that the buying of politicians ensures a future payoff to those same entities. Their money funds highly developed propaganda machines operated by professionals like Karl Rove and Dick Armey wherein the principals remain out of the limelight but feed uncounted millions into the Political Action Committees that discover and nurture subvertible candidates and finance them to election.
Of course, this is not new in politics. But the presently employed methods are brilliant, overt and blatant. French philosopher Jean-Jaques Rousseau, born 300 years ago, shaper of national destinies, wrote: “Most social order is a fraud perpetrated by the rich on the poor to preserve their privileges.”
With great wealth comes the irresistible urge to wield power. There is an egocentricity accompanying accumulation of wealth that breeds the notion that the wealthy know better and government should stay out of the way. The United States, with its 400 plus multi-billionaires playing conductor, has found itself fast tracking back to the glory days when the oligarchs owned everything, including the government, and the people, rendered powerless, lived week to week on slim earnings.
The working man’s opinion about the wealthy, heard many a time, is “more power to them” (be careful what you wish for), “I can take care of myself. Get Government off my back, etc.” Unaware that he is helping them along, to his own disadvantage. An example might help. Much is made of rising productivity by the American worker. In the first quarter of 2012 productivity rose by 5.9 %. Labor costs went down by 4.2 %. Who got a raise? Nobody. Wages remained flatlined and even went downhill a bit. All the benefit of improved productivity was manifested in profit which went to owners and shareholders. What happened to fairness? Why don't workers benefit from improved productivity?
The argument goes that eventually all wealth finds its way into philanthropy and charity. For example the hundred billion dollar inheritance of the four Sam Walton (founder of Walmart) offspring will eventually fund charitable foundations if the example set by the mother, Helen, is followed.
But philanthropy and charity are selective. They are needed, and they are part of the fabric of the grand experiment which is democracy. But there is zero possibility that the complete job could be done in that manner. So anyone who believes that the nation should revert to the time of the oligarchs is badly misinformed. Government is needed for fairness..... Government performed by legislators who are free of obeisance to the wealthy few that sincerely believe that in their hands everything will run better.
“Return the nation to where the people are sovereign and the government is servant.” The opposition is counting on pliable, detached voters to put them fully in charge this November. Hundreds of millions of dollars in glitzy advertising, slogans that sound good but mean nothing, disregard for the truth whenever convenient. Some lies are breathlessly outrageous. Joe Walsh, a Tea Party congressman from Illinois, brays that the sixteen trillion dollar debt corresponds to a million dollars for every American, when it is really $50,000. In the aggregate, trickery will do the job.
Maybe, just maybe, this is the year to wise up. The year the people finally tell the oligarchs “We’re on to you”....... the year the government is once again “of the people, by the people and for.the people.” Candidly though, there are good reasons to believe it won’t happen.
A previous article, archived here, “How We Got Here and Where We Are Headed.” Sept. 2, 2011, dwells on the same subject, addressing the return of the oligarchy. A year later, it appears they are right on track.
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