Where’s the outrage?

America is exactly where corporatists want it, its people are either so busy with their two, low paying jobs each, their drug addictions, their alcoholism, their obesity, their conspiracy theories, their religions, their couches and televisions, and general low information. This is what you call a society either checked out or completely demoralized and hopeless. And how can one NOT be hopeless?

Our economy has become financialized and run by a handful of financial firms, no longer is power in the hands of those that work factories and produce wealth. The only unions left are neutered public employee unions. There are no factories to shut down. This situation is a dream to those whom exploit that average American.

Our political class, no matter how well intentioned, are dependent on campaign contributions by private interests. We don’t have publicly financed elections. These “donations” buy influence and the average politician ISN’T well intentioned, whether at the local level or the national level. For most, they aspire to the next highest office and are willing to completely renounce any rhetoric they relied on to bamboozle their constituents the minute it serves them. Their job once in office is to “dial for dollars,” to go down the list of donors, with hat in hand, and sell you and me out. These freaks get off and foam at the mouth, like rabid dogs, denouncing, as Lindsey Graham, AOC, and Rubio do, anyone their corporate benefactors tell them to. Most of these politicians are simply wind up dolls without a free thought save getting reelected or getting to a higher office, and the way to do it is ensure that bloated, useless, and hidden government contracts are continuously given to unaccounted private sector firms.

This is where the current administration’s focus is, to use the money allocated for providing Americans basic social services, and either privatize those agencies completely, with small budgets, or eliminate them all together Their costs reduce what government money is available to be given to corporate interests. If corporations didn’t have huge tax breaks or weren’t subsidized by government contracts, they might actually collapse. This is why defense contractors fear the idea of peace breaking out in Ukraine. If it does, their shareholders will demand another armed conflict somewhere else. Peace isn’t profitable to them.

American propaganda continuously harps on the importance of a free market yet actually taking a risk is business’s biggest fear. There is no way they will ever consider reindustrializing our nation until they get guarantees that ensure American workers make the same or lower wages than a Vietnamese or Indonesian factory worker. This is an argument for direct intervention in the market by our federal government by establishing state owned industries and five year plans. Why not? Last time I checked, it’s working pretty good in China. Their people are zipping around in inexpensive electric cars and high speed rail. American’s have one rusty train (Amtrak) and are driving beat down Hondas. Rather than vilify China, why not learn from them?

We don’t need giant, polluting, steel mills, we could use assembly lines creating the things we need. We could have a rebirth of public hospitals, a national health care system, public doctors, public taxis, public trains, public everything. The only thing stopping us are old school vested interests and a supine political class. I salute China’s rise, they should enjoy it while they can. There is a cost to heavy industry. It rapes the environment, pollutes the earth, causes sickness, burns its workers out, and causes political unrest if its workers aren’t properly compensated for their labor. It can’t last forever. I am glad our air is cleaner than when I grew up and heavy industry has basically been shut down. Three Mile Island, the Love Canal, DDT, depleted uranium, coal mining, above ground nuclear testing, and Bhopal are all evidence of the consequence of heavy industry.

Getting there requires a change in the American mindset, consumerism needs to go. Is it any wonder that China has banned American pop culture? I would too. Pop culture is a sewer that glorifies violence, promiscuity, and vanity, all to manipulate society. Why are our children getting tattoos in their teens? Why does one get lambasted when advocating for modesty? What kind of world are we handing to our youth? Why are literacy rates in the trash? What happens when you have a society dominated by people who can barely read?

This is where fascism comes parading in, in all its glory. In Nazi Germany, Leni Riefenstahl and her photography worked to convince the average German that they weren’t poor, weren’t demoralized, they weren’t old, they weren’t displaced, they weren’t unemployed, and rather than simply be alienated, were actually an important part of a mythological line of supermen. This is what Pete Hegseth offers Caucasian men. Pete, with his nifty American flag kerchief in his breast pocket, his 6 foot frame, and awesome hair promises the average American man the hope that what was once a given, white privilege, will return. This is what white men want, they don’t want to work, they want a free ride. If white American men wanted to actually work, they’d be in the trench we often drive by while on city streets. These trenches, to a man, are dug by what appears to me as Hispanic workers. The men working their assess off and happy to do so are Hispanic. The men and women dying in blazing sun in the Central Valley, picking bell peppers, are Hispanic. The workers getting injured on construction crews are Hispanic. Drive by any job site, it is almost 99% Hispanic men doing the framing, concrete work, plumbing, and electrical. I’d be willing to bet these are second generation Latinos. Their parents may have illegally migrated here, seeking a better life. This is what the white man resents. They consider these jobs as “theirs.”

This is what Fascists promise, to boot these workers out and return to an age where African-Americans would tip their hats at white people, drink at separate fountains, and sit at the back of the bus. Where Hispanic men and woman were portrayed as cartoonish characters like Ricky Recardo or Speedy Gonzalez rather than actual people and who have as much right to the protection of the U.S. Constitution as Caucasians. Fascists promise complete delusional thinking and Fascists are precisely what has taken over the White House. We may never recover.