I’ve been on a virtual listening tour since the election of Donald Trump. It was evident rather quickly that we were all conned in subtle ways that are disturbing. I’ve spoken to Left Wing Progressives, Center Left Progressives, Moderates, Right Wing Republicans, Center Right Republicans, TEA Party Republicans, Communists, Anarchists, and everyone in between.
I spent most of the time listening. I did this at Starbucks, at Democratic meetings, at one TEA Party event, online, by email, at community festivals, and in places where one should not have political dialogues. There are times I bit my tongue because I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Most times I heard manufactured polarization, even between establishment Democrats and Progressive Democrats.
Last evening I went out to the polls in Kingwood Texas in support of candidates that would represent new blood on the school board. I had a half-hour conversation with one of the leaders of the TEA Party in this town — Kingwood likely has the most powerful TEA Party in the country. Ted Cruz and all the major politicians they support do their rounds out here several times a year. As per my modus operandi, she spoke for the first fifteen minutes or so. Like most on the Right, all I heard was the talking points and the caricaturing of Liberals. Ironically, what I heard on the Progressive side was caricaturing of the Right but mostly a fight within, the same establishment vs. Bernie-not-a-Democrat unwarranted fight.
After letting folks freewheel, I asked a simple question. “Forget about ideology. What do you want for you and your family.” The answer was first and foremost economic. Those with kids wanted good schools for their children and the possibility of an affordable college education. Those near retirement wanted a pension that is reliable. Many felt they were spinning their wheels as they worked hard just to get by in everyday living. There were many other responses, but you get the picture.
When asked why none of them are able to realize their desires, they pointed fingers at some group, some sub-group, some race, etc. What was ironic is they seemed to blame their everyday fellow citizens more so than the puppeteers, the corporate state. On the Right many genuinely believe minorities and undocumented immigrants are bilking the government they pay for with their hard work. On the Left, many believe that all of those on the Right are racist, selfish Bible-thumping fanatics. Neither of these absolutes is true, but the puppeteers ensure to cauterized those stereotypes in the psyche of the respective camps. We are all just cogs in the game.
Many Americans are racists. Some are homophobes. Too many are sexists. A growing number are xenophobic. Misogyny still reigns. Americans are humans with all the frailty humanity brings. We will not fix these defect within our lifetime. We must work on them continuously, however.
Our puppeteers depend on Americans expending their energies on our defects. Why? In doing so, we keep our eyes off of that which affects our personal economies, the corporate state. If we are not watching and clipping their wings, their extractive nature continue to pilfer us all.
These masters of deception are members of every party, organization, and group. Some do not even realize they are agents. An establishment Democrat, Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell, wrote the Powell Manifesto, the map that defined the path to corrupt every institution from schools, to media, to research organizations. The Heritage Foundation and other Republican-leaning Conservative think tanks are responsible for creating the false justification for policies they support to follow the aforementioned path. For all practical purposes, they have been successful. It is for that reason that the very few continue to prosper by taking all the spoils of our composite labor and intellect.
The puppeteers know no race, sex, orientation, religious affiliation, or any other attribute. They are their own class. While Christians fight Muslims, while races fight among each other, while those of different ideologies fight among each other, the puppeteers of all religions, sexual orientations, race, and ideologies have no problem breaking bread as they insight us and watch us for sport. Don’t be fooled, Oprah, Bill Gates, Donald Trump, the King of Saudi Arabia, Carlos Slim, and those of that class sees us as commodities to be formed and manipulated as needed. And so far we obliged.
We can learn one thing from our upper-class masters if we are ever to recover that which was stolen from the masses in a systemic and legal manner by those who ensured that reality. Create alliances on issues that we share in common, our personal economics. We do not have to like each other to work together. We do not have to respect each other’s ideology to work on a common cause.
And what is our common cause? Making sure we have an economy in which most Americans can succeed by first realizing that the enemy to that reality is the corporate state, the plutocracy. How do we get there? We first make the case to those who would listen that we are all being played. The majority will accept that tenet. We then entertain a conversation where we ask all sides to put out numbers that would make their lives better. We then move to compromise on numbers, not ideologies. Yes, numbers may be ideologically based, but the compromises are on numbers. This method gives us the unity of cause to smash the plutocracy.
The biggest fear of the plutocracy is the uniting of the barrios, the ghettos, and Appalachia. Stereotypical? Yes. But the realization of that type of unity is what will get our country back from the choke hold of the plutocracy.