CommentsCORRUPTION WATCH-Although the Orange Buffoon suffers from a couple diagnosable personality disorders with episodes of paranoia, Donald Trump did not cause our problems. If Trump-a-Doodle and his shenanigans should disappear overnight, nothing would change. “The fault, Dear Brutus, is not in our (reality TV) stars, but, in ourselves….”Julius Caesar (I, ii, 140-141).
Trump is like Pandora, except the lid to the box of American racism was partially open before he came along. While white racism had become kind of out of fashion, the Dems made certain that it was thriving with its Identity Politics. Obama had been warned that driving blue-collar whites deeper into poverty would lead to political backlash and bring racism center stage. Americans in 2009 were not significantly different from Americans in the 1930s during the Great Depression. Back then, FDR was smart enough not to call poor white Americans “Deplorables” as he championed the cause of almost every other segment of American society.
In the early 2000s, George Bush tried to ward off the GOP’s return to racism by warning that bigotry towards Hispanics was both un-American and politically unwise.Right-wing White Christians, however, were a source of strength for the GOP, although party leaders feared that a big-tent GOP would alienate the Evangelicals, a group the GOP had been courting since they were called the Silent Majority.
Both the Dems and the GOP have turned American life into “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” (Macbeth, Act 6, Scene 5) In other words, both spin idiotic lies of division that turn America against itself. In Greek and Roman times, the term was Divide et Impera, Divide and Conquer, but who is doing the dividing now?
Whether it has been the GOP or the Dems in power, America has steadily become more corrupt with an increasing amount of wealth flowing to the top 1%. Both political parties represent the same power center – Wall Street. Both parties use the same tool to keep America divided -- racism (along with sexism, ethnocentrism, genderism, etc.). The result has been the same for amajority of Americans – a slide into poverty.
We Were Warned, but Hating is More Fun
A year ago, MIT economist Peter Temin wrote in his book, The Vanishing Middle Class, that this division in American society was turning us into a third world country. But Prof. Temin did not explain the role thatcorruptionism plays in transferring wealth to the top 1%. Racism is the distraction; corruptionism is the mechanism used to steal our wealth.
The Creation of the American Myth That Everything Will Improve
In the post WW II decade between 1947 and 1958, average family income increased by about two-thirds from $3,000 in 1947 to $5,100. (In 2018 dollars that would be an increase from $26,117.94 to $44,400.49.) It became ingrained into our subconscious that we would always be getting richer every day, and if we did not feel richer, it was because of “them,” not the corrupt politicos and crooked judges who let Wall Street rob us blind.
The rule of thumb was that housing should not exceed 25% of income, but for today’s Millennials, housing costs average 47%. In other words, the major component of living, one’s home, now consumes almost double the amount it did back in the 1950s. While Obama was President, 90% of all productivity gains went to the top 1%, housing costs skyrocketed, and the opioid crisis arose. Meanwhile, Americans continued their obsession with Identity Politics.
Of course, bigotry is a real factor – because the 1% makes it a factor. Killing young Black males is good for business. While people were focused on the murder of Trayvon Martin and the acquittal of his murderer, people didn’t have time to stop the corruptionism which has been robbing us all. Now, we are focused on the murder of Stephon Clark because how can we ignore the fact that guns have replaced the lynch-rope? Wall Street, state governors, city councilmembersdo not really care about these deaths as long as we, the people, keep fighting among ourselves.
There Is a Way out of this Nightmare
We have an exit. We need to shun both the Dem’s and the GOP’s racist agendas!
Except for the 1%, Americans believe in the inalienable rights of every individual, including Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. Wall Street knows that our inalienable rights constitute the biggest threat to its hegemony over us. People who believe in individual rights work on improving the quality of life for their families and for those around them.
People who cherish inalienable rights realize the horrid injustices of judges who railroad people into prison to advance their careers. When we see other human beings as individuals, we understand the evil that supports a public policy to destroy poor people’s homes so that billionaires can make more money. If LA still had all the rent-controlled housing which has been destroyed since Garcetti was elected CD 13 councilmember, we would have no homeless problem.
While we have been consumed with the racism of White Supremacists and Identity Politics, we have become steadily poorer. Many police departments operate with a “shoot first ask questions later” approach because the same billionaires who get the city to give them millions of dollars for their special projects also set the policy for police departments. The last thing the 1% wants is for the rest of us to recognize the actual enemy.As long as we are consumed with White Supremacy and Identity Politics, Wall Street can continue to rob us by lootingcity treasuries, gentrifying our neighborhoods or sending us to prison on trumped up charges.
We have the choice to return to our founding values, the individual’s inalienable rights where race, religion, ethnicity, sex, ageand gender are all irrelevant. Martin Luther King was the most concise voice we have heard on this subject: it’s the content of our character that counts.
(Richard Lee Abrams is a Los Angeles attorney and a CityWatch contributor. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Abrams views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
