Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Let Them Eat Cake

I’ve been thinking about the French and Russian revolutions lately. The world has largely given up its actual monarchies, or reduced them to cartoon forms. In some places, Scandinavia and Britain, we continue to have monarchies, but mostly they lack any of the attributes, i.e., power over the people, that drove events like revolutions. So, one could conclude, I guess, that revolutions of the bloody sort, as in the French and Russian varieties, are a thing of the past.
But two sets of information keep flowing at me, causing me to wonder about that supposition.
Set One: The banks, the health insurers, and the other super-monied people continue to act like Marie Antoinette—“Let them eat cake”. The entire financial system in this country, and in other nations, has created a class of super-rich who are in most important ways, our royalty. We have no kings or queens, I guess, but lots of dukes, barons, et al who rule our lives in ways large and small. Mostly, they extract money from us and then hoard it, or use it in ways designed to piss off those of us who are not in their little world. That most of them are republican/conservative goes without saying, but their politics is not their most important attribute, since democrats seem to offer homage to them almost as much as republicans. We have learned from the bank-and insurance industry bailouts that both political parties are willing to serve up public monies to this class, without expecting much in return. Too big to fail is their mantra.
Set Two: A very large part of the US population is highly annoyed, one might even call them enraged at what they see occurring. The fake tea parties organized by monied republicans, while faux grass roots events, have surfaced genuine anger. Currently, that anger is directed mostly at democrats in general and President Obama in particular. The focus of the angry people on the Dems is mainly because of Fox News, and the right-wing politicos like Sarah Palin (who has only one actual belief—“make me rich and powerful”). But at some point, I assume the angry people may begin to get the point that the rich people and the political whores with whom they are aligned, are their real enemies. They are the ones who are making their lives miserable, by rigging the system such that they continue to suck money out of the global system for the sole purpose of making themselves rich. Greed, completely unrestrained, keeps driving that group of very rich folks.
So, if that ever happens, if the angry people ever begin to understand, we may get to observe the 21st century version of the Russian revolution, this one directed at the very rich financial barons and dukes and their right wing political allies, by the heavily armed army of pissed off Americans. It’s that second amendment thing coming home to roost. Watch for it on the six o’clock news.

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