[Vision2020] Politics and privilege

[Joan Opyr]

Thanks for your observations, Tom.  According to Kevin Phillips, and again, 
this is from American Dynasty, p. 44-45:

"It had been against navy regulations in 1942 to place eighteen-year-old 
George Bush in flight training, and the Los Angeles Times found a similar 
bending of the rules twenty-six years later.  George W. did not qualify for 
either a direct commission or flight training.  Tom Hail, the historian of 
the Texas National Guard, explained that direct commissions were 'for 
doctors only, mostly because we needed extra flight surgeons.'  The air 
force flight-instruction program was also a favor, because such expensive 
training would not normally be given to a green candidate who had shown no 
professional commitment."

You know what burns my butt?  A flame about three feet high, but apart from 
that, it's people in unearned positions of privilege and power.  I'd hate 
George Bush's politics even if he were a self-made man, but I dislike him 
personally because I dislike nepotism.  I'm an idealist; I really believe in 
American democracy.  I believe in its evolution from a small group of white 
male property owners, freeing themselves from the yoke of the English 
monarchy, into a system of near universal enfranchisement.  I think that 
dynastic political families are antithetical to democracy.  I think that 
untaxed inherited wealth -- and I'm not talking about the family farm here, 
but about massive, multi-generational fortunes -- creates a de facto 
aristocracy that, once entrenched, won't be shifted from power until we have 
a second American Revolution.

Conservative pundits like George Will and Tucker Carlson argue that of 
course the richest one percent of Americans should get the largest tax 
breaks because they pay most tax.  That's fair, right?  But they don't pay 
the most tax.  You and I do.  We're the ones propping up Medicare and Social 
Security and the 500 billion dollar budget deficit, and it'll be our kids 
who struggle to pay those debts off.  The reason they'll be struggling is 
because their 15-dollar-an-hour jobs will have moved to Mexico and China 
where they can be done by the desperate for fifty cents.  The rich will get 
richer, the poor will get poorer, and soon, we'll find that we no longer 
have a first world economy.  We'll find that we're on the debt-ridden 
outskirts of a gated enclave, inside of which are the well-connected and the 
born-lucky, who let in just enough highly paid sports stars and 
boob-flashing pop singers to make us think that maybe, just maybe, Horatio 
Alger stories still happen for real.

The solution?  I don't have all of it, but I think I've got part.  Educate 
yourself.  Register to vote.  Get involved in politics, not just on the 
state and federal levels, but locally.  This isn't a Democrat or a 
Republican thing.  It's a participation thing; it's a fighting apathy thing.

You still have a democracy: use it or lose it.  Or, as Mae West said to the 
Bishop, "Wake up.  You're getting screwed."

Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment

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