America is a predator nation--an empire that lives off the lifeblood of other nations and also off the lifeblood of its own working people. As such, the same fate awaits our predatory empire as befell the other great predatory empires in history, including the British, the French, the Spanish, the Dutch and, of course of course, the Romans.
America has seven percent of the world's population and consumes twenty-five percent of the world's energy. For what purpose? In order to advance the cause of freedom and civilization throughout the rest of the world? Nah, mostly in order to buy cheap crap at the mall and drive giant vehicles and insure that our bright shiny objects are more expensive than the bright shiny objects owned by the Jones's.
We have exported our manufacturing jobs in order to minimize our labor costs. Any jobs that remain that require actual labor (in construction or meat processing for instance) we reserve for illegal aliens, again for the purpose of minimizing labor costs (low wages, no benefits). Working people in America the Predatory make less and less when compared to what our working-class parents made, and the gap between rich and poor widens every year. But no need to worry about that, because we must all unite around the three G's (god, guns, and gays).
Better to listen to some idiot demagogue somewhere (Beck, Palin, et al) than think too much about how our horizon of economic opportunity shrinks. Better to worry about the lifestyles of others than to fight against the plutocrats who own us heart, soul, and ass.
We are in thrall to an oligarchy that uses our petty differences to separate us from one another and thereby control and oppress us. We are slaves and whores to Wall Street and bankers and credit card companies and multinationals everywhere. We foul our own nest while the rich spend their time in luxury and ease.
The Romans had a term for this, "panem et circenses". Bread and circuses. Give the people fast food and cheap entertainment and they'll leave the power-brokers alone to rape and pillage and enslave the rest of the world. We get reality television and they get wealth and power and sufficient private security to live the rest of their lives in a brilliant bubble of bling.
What a shallow, disappointing people we are. What fools and sycophants. We deserve everything that's about to happen to us, in particular the coming Republican takeover of congress. If you love the Great Recession--and hate that socialistic, secret-Muslim terrorist Obama (by the way that's a contradiction in terms, but never let logic interfere with prejudice, because then it's no longer prejudice)--then you're really gonna love what Boehner and Wall Street have in store for us (as Rushbo would say 'bend over and grab 'em').
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Kerry Lauerman
Joan Walsh
Salon.com
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