the new royalty

i have always believed that the history of western society is anchored in the history of the struggle of the common man against the royalty. revolutions happened when the proletariat and bourgeoisie banded together because there came a time when they BOTH realized they were being screwed by the royalty. the proletariat always knew/know that they are getting the shaft, but the bourgeoisie, because they were somewhat better off, did not; but when they fnally realized it...ba da boom, ba da bing, heads rolled and down went the king. now that is simplified but it is accurate. if you look at the english revolution in 1066, the american war for independence in the latter part of the 1700's and the french revolution right afterwards and then look at the russian revolution of the early 1900's you will see that one thing in common: the people knew that the royalty, be they kings or czars, were doing none of the work and taking most of the profits, so to speak.

well, now the royalty is, for the most part, a thing of the past but they have been replaced by the new boss, the major corporations. they are the new royalty, they now control the finances and the resources of nations. they are now the ones who want us to do the work while they make the money. our founding fathers saw this danger on the horizon and tried to warn us but not enough listened then and hardly any are listening now.

thomas jefferson said in 1816, that he hoped to "CRUSH IN ITS BIRTH THE ARISTOCRACY OF OUR MONEYED CORPORATIONS, WHICH DARE ALREADY TO CHALLENGE OUR GOVERNMENT TO TRIAL OF STRENGTH AND DID DEFIANCE TO THE LAWS OF OUR COUNTRY." wow, huh? had we listened to t.j., we would not have had a bail-out of goldman sachs or aig or bank of america or general motors, etc, etc. we wouldn't have creeps like daschle working as a lobbyist for united healthcare while he advises the government on healthcare reform.

and, thanks to the right wing, the supreme court is poised to lift the ban on corporate financing of political campaigns. the origin of the ban goes back to 1896 when republican william mckinley defeated william jennings byrant. byrant was far and away the better man for the job, but thanks to corporate money, mckinley out spent him 10-to-1. mckinley's political advisor, mark hanna(think karl rove), said it best, "there are two things important in politics. the first is money and i can't remember what the second one is."

if the ban is lifted, then corporate america will elect almost every politician at every level, state and national. we would then become the UNITED STATES OF CORPORATE AMERICA. we already have a taste of what that would be like; wars in foreign countries where they just happen to have natural resourses that corporations want (iraqi oil) or are where they would like to build pipelines (afghanistan), bail-outs of the banks who stole the money in the first place, bailouts of giant insurance companies, bail-outs of all those who devised devious ways to scam consumers, give tax cuts to the rich and lessen services for the rest of us.

my only hope is that, one day, the american people will pull their collective heads out of their collective asses and realize that the country they have is not the country they thought they had. that is the fear of many of the corporations and their lackeys in government. that is why american troops have been and are being trained to put down civil unrest right here in america. that is also why we are constantly pitted against one another; black vs. white, brown vs. yellow, liberal vs. conservative; us vs. them (whoever "them" are). that is why we demonize other countries and other religions. it is why we have the fake war on drugs, which is really a war on civil liberties and has nothing to do with drugs...if it did it would surely include nicotine and alcohol which are the main killers but, guess what?, they are marketed by, are you ready, corporations.

but my hopes are dim and my vision of the coming age is dark. i, personally, will survive because i know how to make it outside of the system, always have and always will but my children and my grandchildren are fucked and are going to see their standard of living go down and down.

we have been sold down the proverbial river and one day in some coming decade, revolution will happen here again and the streets will run red with blood and the bankers, the oil men, the polluters and the insurance honchos will be dragged out of their gilded offices and estates and be hanged from lamp posts and the people will cheer and my only regret is that i probably won't be alive to see it.