We are past the portal now and well into our new world, which isn’t new at all. Corporatism goes by many names, the oldest being feudalism. It’s a natural regression to the mean when we cease to be constantly vigilant: a few who have accumulated wealth and power presume to know that they “earned” it, and for that reason believe themselves to have superior wisdom. From there it’s a quick succession from superior wisdom to superior essence, from a big house to a big house on a hill to a gated community.
From that insulated viewpoint, all of us become rabble, outsiders, sometimes glimpsed at through the window of a limousine. Somehow their eggs are on their plate in the morning, somehow their garbage is carted off, but in the meantime they are going on about the important business of amassing more wealth. In their lexicon, which their pet economists are trained to repeat, it is called “creating jobs.”
In fact, didn’t I just hear this from Obama? Didn’t he even say that economists had told him if he kept the Bush tax cuts in place, that our employment picture would improve? (AP restricted story: Yes, he did! He said that “Economists predict higher job growth in 2011-2012 if tax deal passed!” Yes, we can!)*
The best expression of how unregulated and untaxed economies function is the board game MONOPOLY. There are strategies at play that can help, but the important life lesson to take from the game is this: once a player reaches a certain critical mass of wealth, it takes on a life of it own, and it builds on itself. And the “economic driver” on the board and in real life and is a set of dice.
In corporate world, post Citizens United, we are all of us going to be second class citizens. As I awoke this Christmas morning, as my mind began to focus, I found myself wondering if us white folks are going to be very good in the roles we used to assign to non-whites.
Will we accept our Wal-Mart jobs with good grace? Will we accept that most medical conditions just can’t be dealt with on Wal-Mart income? Will we easily give up this high-falutin’ notion that education will improve our lot in life?
My suspicion is that us white folk will not be very good at being black folk, or Hispanics or whatever other color we look down upon. I fear we will turn hateful, and having been taught that there are none to hate above us, will turn our hatred outward and downward.
This is the function of the Tea Parties. They are a product of the public relations industry – no doubt the idea sprung up in a Hill and Knowlton office in DC, or some other such place. They are a political device, but also serve for misdirection. They take our discontent, which is real and reasonable, and direct it away from the real cause of the problems.
Welcome to corporate world. Merry Christmas to all.
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*[Note to self: Economists don’t know much about the past or the present (what’s a cause and what’s an effect and all of that), and so restrict themselves to the future.]
Piece of Mindful 
I figured I could come here for an uplifting Christmas message.
a few, like myself, who have accumulated political and historical knowledge with a left-wing bent presume to know that they “have learned” it, and for that reason believe themselves to have superior wisdom. From there it’s a quick succession from superior wisdom to superior essence…
I recast that for you.
You express an anxiety in this post about becoming a second class citizen. Our material well being and attendant political sophistication are at historic highs. I suppose we will eventually hit some kind of sharp resource shortage that will throw things into chaos, but until then the human world is pretty good compared to the past. Your gloom strikes me as more a defense mechanism.
My suspicion is that us white folk will not be very good at being black folk, or Hispanics or whatever other color we look down upon.
You are weird about racial matters. What did you say below–that you welcome other races coming to this country? Seems to me you carry some self loathing about your race, your ethnicity, as if the other is “better”. This is not a good long term strategy, since the other’s goal is to replace you, not mix. As long as there are white folk, they will be themselves and live amongst themselves, largely, as has been and always will be, as do most major ethnicities the world over past, present, future.
I lament the Left hasn’t put any energy into a positive vocabulary about Whiteness. We’ve just got this “hate whitey” attitude from the Left, and the Right has the weirdness of White Nationalism.
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Apparently, you are unaware that Mark claims to be of Czech and Irish descent, which completely explains his self-loathing.
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Ah Fred, I wanted to being some non-racist warmth into your existence … people who don’t celebrate Christmas are busy killing each other, while we white folk are busy killing anyone who comes within sword reach. But we mean well.
And if indeed I had come to realize my own superior essence, I would kill you, and be justified. As it is, I let you live, as your existence is not my business, and my “essence” is quite un-superior.
Our material well being and attendant political sophistication are hardly at all at historic highs. That period of well-being has passed, wages have been stagnant now for 30+ years, unemployment, measured consistently, is at depression era levels. (We changed the way we measure unemployment over the last 30 years too.) Manufacturing jobs have been exported to places where unions are less troublesome, so that unions here are dwindling. You did this to us, Fred. But your intentions were good. You were simply blinded by ideology.
But I’m not gloomy – far from it. I love my life – I just don’t have any need to sugar coat reality. I’m lucky to have a good life, white male in a society dominated by white males, and all, but I don’t have to scratch very deep to find unemployment, foreclosures, lost hope and reduction to mere survival. You either. So spend a little time scratching Fred. It’s right there for you to discover.
And I have no self-loathing – I am white, Czech-Irish, as BF notes below. I could be any color – race is a relatively recent surface phenomenon in our evolution, and has no significance. I love the cacophony of cultures that I witness everywhere I go. Others no more want to replace me than me them. They, if not burdened with the sociopath gene, simply want to live well and happy.
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Silly me, I thought we were supposed to hate government. What ever happened to “chop at the top,” that short-lived, (Clinton) first-term proverb that vanished even before Ross Perot? Oh, the good ole’ days. Did somebody say baseball? Happy, happy!
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