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[The Facilitatrix]

You know what, folks? The sky is falling.

The Bush administration is merely the culmination of a strategy that’s been undermining our free, open, and self-determining society for years, and pushing most of us into a cesspool while a few live in splendor.

All these years of letting the market regulate itself has led us here: an environment so raped and pillaged that to reverse the climate change—which is fast leading from over warming to water shortages to food shortages to famine to wars to death and chaos on a level we need to watch The Road Warrior to picture.

We may not see the worst of it, but our children or grandchildren will, and it ain’t gonna be pretty. Only a few will be exempt from the effects.

Welcome to our world

What we have right now are airlines flying with unsafe aircraft, because a politicized FAA didn’t want to squelch business growth by making the airlines maintain their fleet properly. We have mine disasters and vaunted “clean coal.” We have profiteering in unmonitored student loans.  We have an FCC that protects media conglomerates, not the airwaves.  We have Bizarro-world taxation and environmental standards. But none of this hurts the few, and much of it benefits them further.

We have an educational system that is the laughingstock of the world’s unsympathetic and a tragedy to our friends in the world, friends who remember the shining society the US was building and reaching, with secondary education that prepared children to become functioning adults and higher education available to any who were willing to pay the price in effort and intellectual growth, not devastating, life-long debt. This strengthens those few, turning social and economic gaps into chasms.

We have a “justice” system that slaps the hands of corporate malefactors while it methodically pits race against race, to keep the underclasses struggling just to survive, so they won’t have the strength to fight the system that controls injustice. The few nod approvingly.

The few, the arrogant

We have a superclass of the few that has for decades methodically worked toward the massive gap we have between their wealth and the rest of us, based, I can only imagine, on pathological needs for money and power, because they sure as hell can’t eat any better now than they did in 1965.

We have a “shadow market” of the few operating free from even minimal regulation and that benefits from the petty greed of players in the stock market, because investors’ grandiose schemes for profit and distress at loss are merely tools for the real profit gained by the shadow puppeteers.

We have a society of the rest of us in which those recently disenfranchised by deregulation and free markets are those who in generations past  disenfranchised other races and ethnicities. And they’re still reeling from the loss, so much so that their bitterness—yes, their bitterness—is aimed at people who had nothing to do with disenfranchising them.

But the superclass has had its minions tell the white former middle class over and over that it’s the blacks, the Mexicans, the liberals, the Jews, the terrorists, the gays, the atheists—everyone but those actually responsible for it—who took away their jobs and their way of life.

How’d they do it? And who helped?

The superclass knows that if they tell us up is down and right is wrong long enough and often enough, they’ll wear down the weakest of us, the most disillusioned of us, the most fearful of us, and the angriest of us, so we’ll lash out at others and each other, rather than at them.  We’ve been turned so topsy-turvy that we focus on what they tell us are threats to our “way of life” and can’t see outside of the tunnel they’ve built to see the builders themselves.

Their minions are the middle managers, the stockbrokers, the investor-players, the lobbyists, and the legislators, who buy into the superclass’s vision and do their dirty work for them, dreaming their own grand dreams. The minions think that by doing their masters’ bidding and playing their game, they’ll get a piece of the pie.  But even though it’s a very, very big pie, only very, very few get to enjoy it.

So, wake up, little minions! Wake up, Condoleezza and Colin and Alberto and Alphonso, and really, Harriet and Karen and Lurita. Because the guys in charge have absolutely no intention of sharing the pie with you. Blacks, Mexicans, and women need not apply to the superclass, but you can work for them. Oh, and Johnny Yoo? Nice work on the memos. We’ll call you if we need anything else done. You are not one of them, and you never can or will be. You are the pie makers. You steal from your own to make the pie, but you don’t get to take it home.

Bush and Cheney and O’Neill and Rove, along with some select, moving-and-shaking (and correctly born, educated, and baptized) senators (sorry, not you, Joe L.) enjoy the pie, but no congressmen (Really, the grunts? I think not!). And of course, the business moguls who share the beds of of the politicos in the superclass win with them, and they gobble up the pie and get fatter than even Croesus could have imagined.

They’re not going to give anything back

Unless those of us who are on to what the superclass has done to us rise up—and I mean that in its classical, revolutionary sense—nothing will ever get better for anyone but them. And unless we shove the faces of all of those minion-enablers into the reality that they can’t eat that pie—which they were never intended to share—they’re going to keep on helping those few who have done the world more harm than any war, any despot, any plague, or any disaster.

So anything they tell us? More smoke and mirrors to keep us from screaming out the truth and taking back our education, our health, our utilities, our infrastructure, our transportation, our communications, our media, and anything else that has been deregulated or allowed to be “free marketed” into its current state. And we’ve got to regulate the hell out of everything, and tax the bastards within an inch of their lives. Then at least we can stop them where they now stand and maybe even get something back.

Who will win?

But you know what? No matter what we do to the superclass—short of incarcerating the lot of them in Pelican Bay, looting their villas, or building some guillotines—they will always have more money than they rest of us can imagine. Just accept that now. It shouldn’t stop us from doing what we need to do, though.

We can restore our freedoms. We can stop playing their games, using their oil, swallowing their pabulum, and blaming fellow victims. But we’re going to have to fight for it, and we’re going to have to convince their minions that facilitating the puppeteers is in no one’s interest but the puppeteers themselves.

So take up metaphorical arms and do what we need done to save us all.  Winning an election isn’t going to make things magically better.  But it’s a necessary first step toward unraveling our knots and cutting the puppets’ strings. Just don’t expect the superclass to give anything back without a dirty, ugly, bloody fight.

(I posted this this morning at TPM, but if you blinked, you missed it.)

[neoboho]

Great post, Facilitatrix...

But it seems bigger than a "Bush Legacy."  But you're being very subversive: I like that!

[seashell]

I'm already a member of your choir, but I too support subversive.  Better to be a Democratic subvert than a Republican pervert!

[The Facilitatrix]

But it seems bigger than a "Bush Legacy."

Yeah, I know.  But sometimes it's all about the headline.

When I posted this at TPM, I didn't realize just how quickly they cycle through readers' posts.  I haven't paid much attention to them since the changeover, because I couldn't find any organizing principle to use for reading them, other than the "hot off the keyboard" factor.

It was kind of an experiment—posting it, not writing it.  And it wasn't a successful one there, though the two comments I got were nice ones (one even required some thought) and five people bothered to recommend it.

So I looked for a "sexy" headline, and I even thought of something like "Can Clinton do a better job at fixing our society than Obama?" but that would have been silly.

Of course, when looking for my post later (and not being able to find it, until I went to my list of current comments—not my blog), I read a few that were current, and some had only one sentence and the promise of a link to something they didn't provide.

I'm already a member of your choir, but I too support subversive.

That's a problem for me, too, because I don't know how to reach the congregation.  As subversive as I know some of the things I link together are, I think that there are enough recognizable "truths" that could resonate with some of the minion class—especially if they don't yet realize how they've enabled their society's disintegration.

But thanks for reading and commenting.  It felt somewhat, well, purgative to write it.

Solidarity, brethren and cistern!

[Carol Gee]

. . . The Bush administration is merely the culmination of a strategy . . .  while a few live in splendor.
All these years of letting the market regulate itself has led us here. . .
. . .  a politicized FAA didn’t want to squelch business growth by making the airlines maintain their fleet properly. We have mine disasters and vaunted “clean coal.” We have profiteering in unmonitored student loans.  We have an FCC that protects media conglomerates, not the airwaves. . . But none of this hurts the few, and much of it benefits them further. . .

We have a superclass of the few that has for decades methodically worked toward the massive gap we have between their wealth and the rest of us . . .
We have a “shadow market” of the few operating free from even minimal regulation . . .
We have a society of the rest of us in which those recently disenfranchised by deregulation and free markets . . .

. . . the business moguls who share the beds of of the politicos in the superclass win with them, and they gobble up the pie and get fatter . . .
So anything they tell us? More smoke and mirrors to keep us from screaming out the truth and taking back our education, our health, our utilities, our infrastructure, our transportation, our communications, our media, and anything else that has been deregulated or allowed to be “free marketed” into its current state. And we’ve got to regulate the hell out of everything, and tax the bastards within an inch of their lives. Then at least we can stop them where they now stand and maybe even get something back.

. . . Winning an election isn’t going to make things magically better.  But it’s a necessary first step toward unraveling our knots and cutting the puppets’ strings. Just don’t expect the superclass to give anything back without a dirty, ugly, bloody fight.

Facilitatrix, I took the liberty to condense and "bold" your post to the points that stand out the most for me: 

What seems to be reality is that the U.S. has almost become a true oligarchy.  And that was the charge against Russia a few years after the cold war ended.  So I can understand the bond between Putin and Bush "looking into each others' eyes."

I also remember that deregulation did not start with the current administration.  Ronald Reagan, our beloved befogged hero, started us down that perilous path.  And, in a way, NAFTA was another step in that direction.

Regressive taxation is poorly understood by its victims. Charlie Gibson didn't have a clue when he asked about the capital gains tax during the most recent Democratic debate.  Between the current tax codes for individuals and corporations plus corporate subsidies they Have it "made in the shade."  I heard recently that 60+% of corporations pay no taxes at all.  Indeed it will be a dirty, ugly, bloody fight.

Great writing!  I am so glad you posted it here for us to chew on at leisure.

[neoboho]

Carol, I could be wrong but didn't just Bush look into Putin's eyes?  I suspect it wasn't reciprocated - Putin had a reputation in the KGB for refusing to look at blank documents.

But that's not why I'm posting.  I read something interesting from a French economist, Michel Husson: A Structural Crises of Capitalism.  http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041708G.shtml

His emphasis certainly seems to be the growing chasm between we the people and the corporate elite. 

[Carol Gee]

Carol, I could be wrong but didn't just Bush look into Putin's eyes?  I suspect it wasn't reciprocated - Putin had a reputation in the KGB for refusing to look at blank documents.

But that's not why I'm posting.  I read something interesting from a French economist, Michel Husson: A Structural Crises of Capitalism.  http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041708G.shtml

His emphasis certainly seems to be the growing chasm between we the people and the corporate elite. 

neoboho, I should have put one of these after    my facetious crack about joint gazing.  I would guess that it was G.W. (Blank Docs  ) Bush who thought it was mutual.
Thanks for the link.  Someone coined the term "corporatocracy," which seems apt.

[Hcberkowitz]

While I don't think it ever occurred to anyone in the interminable TPMcafe I-P wars, the Israelis were understandably cautious about having him pay a state visit. After all, what is said to have happened to then the last time they talked to a Bush in the desert?

[The Facilitatrix]

But that's not why I'm posting.  I read something interesting from a French economist, Michel Husson: A Structural Crises of Capitalism.  http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041708G.shtml

His emphasis certainly seems to be the growing chasm between we the people and the corporate elite. 

Thanks, boho.  I'll read that with interest.  It'll probably be something that uses documentation, unlike me in this post.  And that's unusual for me, because I'm all about the scholarship.

But it seems that everything I've read and heard for months has brought me to a—and note I write "a"—root cause for our problems in the corporate elite, the corporatocracy, the superclass, or the greedy bastards, all names for the same guys.  It was an internalized synthesis that poured out of me and would have been really taxing to document.  And I listen to way too much NPR and read way too much random stuff to remember exactly where I've heard what.

I think the thing that triggered it most was when some guy on Bill Moyers (and please forgive my short-term memory problems; that's the trouble with years of taking therapeutic, prescribed medications rather than enjoyable, illicit ones) posited that Reagan just really didn't like all of us who didn't think like him, and so he started on an organized quest to make life miserable for anyone who didn't think like him, but he didn't put it that way.  (Maybe Reagan thought that we'd see it as tough love and come around to his way of thinking.  I'm sure that worked for all the mentally ill who got booted out of state hospitals and onto the streets when Reagan was CA's governor.  Ah, happy days . . .  )

What seems to be reality is that the U.S. has almost become a true oligarchy.  And that was the charge against Russia a few years after the cold war ended.  So I can understand the bond between Putin and Bush "looking into each others' eyes."

I also remember that deregulation did not start with the current administration.  Ronald Reagan, our beloved befogged hero, started us down that perilous path.  And, in a way, NAFTA was another step in that direction.

Oligarchy—yeah, that's it, Carol.  Even if they need a figurehead president to justify all the dreadful policies, the few are still behind it all and the policies get made no matter what, as you note with NAFTA and Clinton, neither of which had to become as bad as they have.  But when there's a purported free-for-all that's in actuality only a free-for-few, get a president in there who keeps saying how good all of this is for us, and you're going to get people who think that they just didn't have what it takes to make it in the free market.  So, yes, it's their fault they're poor.  McCain's right (dammit!).

The corporatocracy (I'd forgotten about that handy epithet) is just too damned good at manipulating the common man and woman (even if we're well educated) into doubting ourselves.  Because if that doubt is there for merely a moment, that's enough time for them to take more from us.  And I believe we doubt ourselves because we're not all sociopaths, which takes us back to another great thread here.

And about Bush and Putin, Bush looked into Putin's "soul."  Man, if that happened to me, I'd take one of those Silkwood showers and down some holy water.  (Where's the emoticon for shuddering?)

So thanks for giving a link to my post in your blogs.  If it makes someone think a step further than they did before reading it, I've accomplished what I wanted.

[Hcberkowitz]

Oligarchy—yeah, that's it, Carol.  Even if they need a figurehead president to justify all the dreadful policies, the few are still behind it all and the policies get made no matter what, as you note with NAFTA and Clinton, neither of which had to become as bad as they have.  But when there's a purported free-for-all that's in actuality only a free-for-few, get a president in there who keeps saying how good all of this is for us, and you're going to get people who think that they just didn't have what it takes to make it in the free market.  So, yes, it's their fault they're poor.  McCain's right (dammit!).

I'm sadly reminded of the most mismatched appointment of a Director of Central Intelligence, Adm. "Red" Raborn.  Raborn was an excellent engineer and engineering manager, known for running the development of the first U.S. submarine-launched ballistic missile system, under budget and ahead of schedule. Before he went to Langley, no one considered that he had zero exposure to international relations.

One of the more memorable stories came after he was being briefed on Bolivia, and told it was governed by an oligarchy.  When the briefers left, he turned to his executive assistant and said that he wanted to learn more, and could he get the biographical file on that "Bolivian guy"? 

"Sir, what Bolivian guy"

"He's named Ollie Garky, right?"

[PseudoCyAnts]

Just a Little More of The Bush Legacy:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/_EUNCYqfJcg&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/_EUNCYqfJcg&rel=1</a>

Gee, thanks Dubya...

[Carol Gee]

Quoting my South by Southwest post of a few days ago, what you see is text only, as I did not know how to replicate my original Blogger link codes. The original post has lots of linked citations for the "increase" and "decrease sections" as well as others.  My post is a good resource for "Bush Legacy" arguments, because of those links.

Monday, April 21, 2008
Check this out -- 8 years of Bush

Bush administration will be leaving quite a legacy -- A letter to the editor caught my eye this morning. I am quoting the entire letter, and following the letter with links to background information on a number of Mr. Kelly's claims:

   

Fort Worth Star-Telegram (TX)
    2008-04-21
    Section: Opinions
    Edition: Tarrant
    Page: B12

    FOCUS ON ... And after nearly eight years ...
    Star-Telegram

    According to the government's own figures, the following things have increased during the Bush administration's tenure: The number of uninsured, unemployed and underemployed; Americans in poverty; CEO salaries; pollution of our air and water; opium production in Afghanistan; the national debt; nuclear proliferation; and home foreclosures.

    The following have decreased:

    The value of the dollar; the amount of taxes paid by the largest companies; your income adjusted for inflation; your rights as an American; jobs; retention of military personnel; military induction standards; and America's standing in the world, morally and economically.

    This administration would have you believe that its actions are the reason we haven't experienced a terrorist attack since 2001. (Yes, terrorists are out there, but they're not hiding under every rock, as the administration would have you believe.)

    Since 2001, more Americans have drowned in bathtub accidents than have been killed worldwide in terrorist attacks.

    Since 2001, nearly 300,000 people in this country have died in traffic accidents.

    If you believe that this administration is the reason we haven't been attacked since 2001, I'd seriously suggest that you make an appointment with a good neurologist.

    — Stephen Kelly, Arlington

Bit by bit increases:

    * Number of uninsured -- U.S. Census Bureau: 44.8 million (15.3 percent) in 2005 to 47 million (15.8 percent) in 2006.

    * Number of unemployed and underemployed -- Bureau of Labor Statistics: Unemployment rates IV-2007 = 4.8%; March 2008 - 5.1%. For the year 2000, "The economy grew for the ninth consecutive year in 2000, with the unemployment rate falling to 4.0 percent, its lowest level in more than three decades."

    * Americans in poverty -- 2000 vs. current, from U.S. Census Bureau: Rate of poverty, families in 2000 = 8.7%; in 2006 = 9.8%.

    * CEO salaries -- The ratio of executive salaries to worker pay was highest in 2000, went down for a time, but has turned upward again. However, more than ever before, it pays to be the top executive in the company.

    * Pollution of air and water -- Voters can expect improvements to the environment with a new president.

    * Opium production in Afghanistan -- ". . . the IMF said opium production in Afghanistan had spiraled to 8,200 tons in 2007 from 185 tons in 2001"

    * U.S. national debt -- Current debt: $9,007,653,372,262.48 ; year 2000 debt: $5,674,178,209,886.86.

    * Nuclear proliferation -- In 2000 the talk was all about the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty; by 2008 the list had changed. Iraq did not have a nuclear program and Iran and North Korea have talked about nuclear arms. All the other nuclear states are holding on.

    * Home [mortgage] foreclosures -- In January 2008 the foreclosure rate was up by 57% over the previous January. In October foreclosures were up 94% over October, 2006. The housing bubble that began in 2001 has burst.

Bit by bit decreases:

    * The value of the dollar -- The value of the dollar has declined 40% in the last six years.

    * The amount of taxes paid by the largest companies -- Over the three-year period, the average effective rate for all 275 [Fortune 500] companies dropped by a fifth, from 21.4 percent in 2001 to 17.2 percent in 2002-2003. Almost a third paid no taxes. . . earning $102 billion in pretax profits.

    * Your income adjusted for inflation -- Average US income in 2005 remained below the 2000 peak (adjusted for inflation) . . . the top 0.25% taxpayer group (those making more than $1 million) "reaped almost 47 percent of the total income gains in 2005, compared with 2000." . . . 2000 is a considered a base year by analysts . . . is that . . . income listed on tax returns grew every year after World War II, with a single one-year exception, until 2001."

    * Your rights as an American -- have declined markedly. Here is an example of American Civil Liberties Union testimony.

    * Jobs -- Total number of American manufacturing jobs in 2000: 17,263,000. Total number of American manufacturing jobs in 2006: 14,197,000. Number of American manufacturing jobs lost between 2000 and 2006: 3,066,000. [Bureau of Labor Statistics.]
      Yearly average number of new private sector jobs created from 1992-2000: 1.76 million. Yearly average number of new private sector jobs created from 2001-2008:
      369,000. [Bureau of Labor Statistics.]

    * Retention of military personnel -- The stress of repeated deployments . . . show in the declining quality of Army recruits, retention of midlevel officers, desertions and other factors such as suicide, the Army's top general said Tuesday (2/19/08)

    * Military induction standards -- [General] Casey said it hasn't met its target for recruits with high school diplomas. The Army wants 90% of recruits to have diplomas; this year, records show, only 79% do. Further, it has accepted more soldiers who require waivers for felony convictions.

    * America's standing in the world, morally and economically -- Glenn Greenwald's July 2007 essay calls it a "tragic collapse" To quote:

The new comprehensive worldwide Pew poll of public opinion conclusively disproves both of those views. The polling data demonstrates that while America's standing in the world is dangerously low on every continent in the world (the sole exception being Christian nations in Africa), pervasive anti-American sentiment has emerged only in the last six years. Prior to the Bush administration, America was respected and admired in most of the world, its values a source of inspiration, the ideals it espoused a source of widespread respect. Those are just facts.

Eight years of Bush was very well summarized in this letter to the editor. And the author was right on target in all his claims. Thank goodness there are only 273 more Bush days in office.

[The Facilitatrix]

Just a Little More of The Bush Legacy

Thanks for the (depressing) stats.

My post is a good resource for "Bush Legacy" arguments, because of those links.

Very thorough, also very depressing.  It's astonishing how much harm can occur in a mere eight years.  It probably took more than a century for things to get commensurately worse 500 years ago.

Thanks for the link to your original, Carol.

[Carol Gee]

Facilitatrix, sorry to "bum you out."
My post today is about The Four Mikes and the Two Roberts and national security.  It is not quite as global, and ends on a nice bit of sarcasm that I found.