The End of Democracy

 “Never give a sucker an even break!”

“There’s a sucker born every minute!”

“The rich get richer and the poor get poorer!”

“Nice place you got here. Too bad if something was to happen to it!”

“We’ve been trying to notify you your extended warranty is about to expire.”

“If you want to be rich you have to work harder!”

“Greed is good. We need more greed!”

“Survival of the fittest!”

“If you need insulin to stay alive, It’s going to cost $960 a month.”

“No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.” - H.L. Menken

These are the mottos, the bywords, of capitalism.

All through my school years they taught me about the wonderfulness of capitalism, contrasted with the awful horrors of socialism.

Now at 78 years old, and seeing the end of democracy in our country, brought on by capitalists who value money more than people, I believe I was filled and fooled by propaganda.

I was fooled by the time in which I grew up, when the country was benefiting from FDR’s New Deal. They told me it was capitalism, but they were wrong. Then it was highly taxed and tightly regulated capitalism, with a lot of socialism thrown in to keep the country from embracing Russian style Communism.

Social Security, Rural electrification programs, unemployment insurance, Government work programs, and free high schools were all part of the socialist additions to capitalism to ameliorate the brutality of Darwinian “dog eat dog” market forces.

Capitalists were held in check seventy years ago with marginal tax rates above 90% and strict anti monopoly laws to prevent corporations from gaining too much power over the people. Unions were given the right to organize and collectively bargain with employers, which raised wages to a level with which one person could raise a family.

We now approach the end of the capitalist cycle, where a few of the most avaricious people gather most of the money, and the rest of the country descends into abject poverty. It has happened in scores of other countries to our south, and now it is our turn. Where hope fades, democracy dies.

Leaders of both Democratic and Republican parties have abandoned the working class, and are actively threatening Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, and any other programs that might benefit any but the elite rich. 

In order to prevent the mass of people from rising up and killing the rich people, the government will by necessity have to become more militantly aggressive and authoritarian. 

A huge part of the problem is schools have been “dumbed down” so that supposedly educated people are no longer capable of sorting facts from fiction. The elite rich have taken over radio and TV and much of “social media” and now there is a constant stream of “alternative facts” and outright lies. Reagan got rid of that old rule years ago that required broadcast facilities to put out “fair and balanced” news.

I astounds me to know that about half of our population is convinced that vaccinations are “bad” things. Do schools even mention such names as Jenner, Salk, Sabin, Cox, or Pasteur any more? To produce such abysmal ignorance, our school system must have seriously missed the boat somehow. It makes me wonder if it was intentional.

It looks to me as if we have four more years of government stasis, in which millions more will become discouraged, despondent, and enraged. 

To see our future, we just need to look to Guatemala, or El Salvador. Or Peru, or Venezuela, or Bolivia.  We made those countries the way they are. Every time the people try to take power, we try to find a military general we can push in there to smash down the populist rebellion with soldiers. 

Our chickens may be on their way home to roost.