The Gods of Power and Money Are Back…

Well, actually, they never went away.  

A lot of people seem to be incredibly surprised by current capers by certain billionaire(s) (especially the guy with the chainsaw), and how/why so many corporations and other billionaires are backing these capers with all their might.  Well, my first response is, "They don't want the chainsaw to come for them."  

So I am going back to the past, about 9 years ago, to an old blog post I wrote called "Gods and Demi-Gods":  about how money and power are the real gods of America. Not only does it currently seem that they still reign, but now it's on steroids. So I've updated it:

• The first thing to understand is the term oligarchy: "a small group of very powerful people that controls a government or society." (Cambridge English Dictionary)  Generally these people are very wealthy and own corporations.  Currently, there are 13 billionaires in our current administration's cabinet, which isn't exactly attuned to the problems of a country in which the majority - 60% - are barely making enough to live on.  
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• Here are some of the rules of an oligarchy: 

• ALL corporations must make constant profits:  the modern economic doctrine - "maximizing shareholder value" - says that a corporation has no purpose but to make profits for its shareholders. This means that employer/employee loyalty and customer service/satisfaction are both irrelevant.  Pensions and/or health benefits can and must be cut whenever it's expedient to the bottom line. Jobs must be outsourced to the lowest bidder, taxes must be avoided by offshoring or secret, perpetual trusts, and whenever possible, lobbying and promoting certain politicians.  
• NOTE:  The fact that unemployed people do not buy much other than food is ignored.  Also ignored is that the United States is no longer the preferred customer of many corporations. Tesla's largest manufacturing plant and latest market is in China.

• Everything must be privatized, i.e., put into the hands of corporations and the wealthy.  At the same time, the corporations are no longer national, they are global, in order to maximize shareholder value (see above).   Government - on any level - is an impediment to profit, so it must be made as small and neutralized as possible, except when needed to bail out the corporations (see below).  (Only profits are privatized, losses are passed on to the public.)
• NOTE:  I am constantly amazed at how, in one of the most successful propaganda campaigns in history, our government (a democracy, where the government is "we, the people") has been presented as a dangerous waste of resources, while the "private sector" would be much more efficient. Sure, the corporations will make a lot more money, but it will hurt the hell out of most of us who are not wealthy.  Once the Postal Service (which is in the US Constitution) is privatized, then the cost of shipping will go sky-high.  They are trying to eliminate the Department of Education:  setting up public schools was one of the first things that every community prior to today did. And who is going to monitor air traffic, build the bridges, provide health alerts, weather alerts, disaster relief... (oh, that's right, these are all being cut even as I'm writing this...)

• Corporate profits must be maintained, at all costs, including military. Eisenhower recognized the beginnings of this in his Military Industrial Complex Speech.  Since the end of the Cold War, there has almost always been an economic rather than political reason why troops are sent where they are, why outrage is expressed over certain international incidents and not over others.  (This is why, for example, the entire international community joined the United States to invade Iraq in 1990-91's First Gulf War, a/k/a the 710 War, but everyone stood on the sidelines and watched as 800,000 people were slaughtered in the Rwandan Genocide of 1994.)  And many aspects of war - supplies, security, etc. - are now routinely privatized to corporations which make a hefty profit with almost no oversight, including Bechtel (which was accused of  war profiteering), Halliburton, and Blackwater (which was brought before Congress in 2007 for "employee misdeeds," among other things).  
• NOTE 1: In the run-up to the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded a $7 billion contract for which 'unusually' only Halliburton was allowed to bid (Wikipedia - Halliburton)  It might not have hurt that Dick Cheney had been Chairman and CEO from 1995-2000.    
• NOTE 2:  The current war, of course, is the war on immigrants.  This has caused an increase in spending on detention facilities, ICE employees, etc.  The current Big Beautiful Budget has $45 billion for immigration detention and related services, which would significantly increase ICE's budget for detention. And the private prison industry (in which Tom Homan, the current border czar, has investments) is salivating over future detainees - who become slave labor for whoever needs them.  

• Weapons industries must also make constant profits, and sales must be constant, and thus the NRA preaches the complete and total ownership of any firearm of any kind by anyone at any time.  No license, no training, and in many places, no age limit.  In some states, blind people can carry guns (looking at you, Iowa!, and sadly, I'm not kidding). That's why each new shooting must be propagandized in whatever way that will increase sales:

1. there are crazy people out there with guns, buy more guns now;
2. the terrorists / immigrants are coming to kill you, buy more guns now;
3. the government is coming to take away your guns, buy more guns now. 

• Also, to ensure constant profits for the weapons industry, (plus keep the complaints down about how life is going for everyone), our entertainment and news media must be saturated with ever-increasing levels of threats and violence. BTW, never forget the very important, very underestimated product placement. Every prop / weapon / outfit / drink you see on any screen is there in order to sell one to you.

• NOTE 1:  If you don't believe that media has any effect on people's behavior, then why do corporations spend billions on advertising?  If the constant barrage of news feeds, hour-long TV show, binge-watching television shows, and movies, or unlimited video games has no effect on our minds and behavior, then why should corporations pay millions for a 30-second ad spot?  Why do politicians and super-PACs do the same?  Are they all stupid?  

• NOTE 2:  If you don't believe that violence in media has increased, watch an episode of Gunsmoke on RetroTV some time, and note how seldom Matt Dillon (or even the bad guys) used a gun.  Some day count the number of weapons on display in previews during the morning news.  (The average child will see 8,000 murders on television before finishing elementary school:  Link).  

• NOTE 3:  The quantity of violence not only has increased, but, as the public becomes more jaded, it has become more and more perverse.  On the news, "When it bleeds, it leads!"  Literally.  As for entertainment, in the 1980s, Law and Order SVU was considered fairly hard-core, with story-lines of children being abused and murdered, women and children being raped, tortured, etc.  Not any more. Criminal Minds, Dexter, Hannibal, and other shows upped the ante with on-screen cannibalism, eye-gougings, etc.  Back on "Game of Thrones" human beings were castrated and flayed alive. Live, to-the-death gladiatorial contests cannot be far behind.  (But it's all in jest, they but do poison in jest, no harm in the world...)

When money and power are gods, and corporations are their high priests, there are real world consequences.  And one of those is that the poor - collectively and individually - are sinners, and must be punished by any means at the disposal of the powerful.  The results are:

Propaganda:  The poor are "losers", "moochers", "lazy", "worthless", "stupid". Social Security and Medicare - both fully taxpayer funded, i.e., paid by us - are called "entitlements", which implies that they haven't been earned, but are something we moochers wrongly feel "entitled" to. (Damn straight I feel "entitled" to Social Security - I paid into it for 40 years!)  

        The Truth:

• The truth is, 90% of the economy in this country is done by the people called "the working class" and/or the "middle class".  These are the people who do the actual work in factories, schools, restaurants, grocery stores, any store, who are construction workers, electricians, plumbers, landscapers, teachers, janitors, who pick up the garbage, repair everything from lamps to cars to rockets, etc., and who buy most of the goods, pay almost all the taxes, and keep this country actually working.  
• NOTE:  Again, unemployed people don't buy very much except food and the  gasoline needed to try to get a job.

• The top 10%, which hold most of our country's wealth, spend a lot of money, but for relatively few goods, because what they buy is often maniacally expensive. On purpose. After all, how else are we going to know they're rich if they don't have that $6 million yacht (middle range, actually) or that $499,999 Birkin bag? Or a rocket to take you on a trip to outer space?  And they rarely "shop local".  I remember a very wealthy lady in a small town in South Dakota who wanted to donate art to the library and rather than buy anything from one of the local artists, bought some artwork from New York City and had it installed.  It was not appreciated.  They avoid taxes by offshoring or secret, perpetual trusts, and leave it all to their children, who do the same.  

The most successful and constant propaganda story in history:  "You can't give poor people money or aid of any kind, because they'll waste it on trivial stuff (food, clothing, drink, etc.).  So you have to incentivize the poor by denying them any social services or tax breaks. They just need to work harder. Meanwhile, the rich are incentivized by giving them endless tax breaks, if not eliminate their taxes completely."  

And give them government grants - which they promptly invest in themselves and their trusts.  But of course, this goes back to Victorian times and their version of Catch 22:  "there are the deserving poor (who would never dream of asking for a handout, even if they were starving) and the undeserving poor who ask for handouts, because they are starving, and thus don't deserve it..."  People really need to read more Dickens...

Political restrictions:  Between gerrymandering, voting restrictions, Citizens United, lobbyists, etc., the powerful have done an excellent job of ensuring that the votes/interests/representation of the working class and poor are rendered irrelevant to the political process.  (13 billionaires in one administration...) My own congress people respond to my e-mails and letters with form letters.   

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The consumer society.  When money and power are gods, individual human life has no meaning other than to make money and consume goods and services, and nothing else. Allegiance must be mindless, generated by carefully crafted advertising, propaganda, and sound-bites. Mental processes must be carefully controlled by endless social media and other distractions, so that no one ever considers that there might more to life than making money, shopping, sports, and/or the latest entertainment craze.  Considering that the average video on Tik-Tok is under a minute, it's amazing any of us have any ability to concentrate at all.

But fear counts above all.  No one must ever question why - living in the richest, most privileged, most free society on earth, the "home of the free and the brave" why people are so afraid, all the time, everywhere.  And like the people in Orwell's "1984", they must never notice that the object of fear constantly changes.  In my lifetime I have watched the enemy - THE ONE WHO WILL DESTROY US AT ALL COSTS - change from Communist Russia to the Axis of Evil (some combination of China/Russia/Iran/Iraq/North Korea, it changed with the President at the time) to Osama bin Laden to Saddam Hussein to Radical Islamic Terrorism, with a pretty constant drumbeat of fear and horror of blacks, the Black Panthers, drugs, hippies, urban thugs, illegal immigrants, illegal immigrant children, immigrants of any kind, legal refugees, anyone wearing a turban, and anyone with dark skin.  Deep breath.  And, of course, LGBQT+, and the ultimate horror, a transgender person using a public bathroom.  

Speaking of how propaganda works, to many politicians and their followers these days, Putin is now a hero, a strong promotor of Christian and family values... This would have been inconceivable up until twenty years ago. And I am stunned and disgusted by how Nazi salutes and catchphrases have been rehabilitated, to the point where Texas Republican Congressman Keith Self quoted Joseph Goebbels - ‘It is the absolute right of the state to supervise the formation of public opinion,’ - at a Congressional subcommittee hearing. (LINK)

• NOTE:  So far, America is still here. So far…

Meanwhile, here are the facts:

• Money and power are abstractions, i.e., fictions, a belief system rather than a reality, to which we daily sacrifice real human beings, not to mention real air, real water, real food, real life.  It's really all about greed.

• No matter how much money and power is worshiped, acquired, accumulated, fought for, praised, and sacrificed to, life will never be 100% safe, and 100% of all people will all still die. Including the wealthiest of the 1%.  The gods of money and power, the church of celebrity, sports and entertainment, the priesthood of politicians, lobbyists and televangelists, none of them will save any human being from that fate.  

This is the truth about the gods that America - or at least a certain portion of America - has chosen.  Like any pagan deities, they require regular human sacrifice.  And they are getting it.