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BushCo is just a transitory failed right wing coup. The problem of tyranny, and the thus-far unsuccessful resistance to it, is systemic and hard-wired into the very basic assumptions of America, geared as it is to reward the rich for being rich and subjugate everybody else to assist in achieving that objective.
Have a look through Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States." Unlike the fairy tale American creation myth we learned in school, the entire book is the story of class warfare waged by the ruling elites against everyone else, and their use of concentrated wealth and power to shape governments and laws to their liking. Which translates into legal license to cage or steal the remaining 5 percent of everything that they don't already own, in tireless pursuit of the capitalist manifesto that there's never such a thing as enough.
And that's a given; we all live with the results of total victory by the ruling class every day. But the interesting parts of the story involve the various movements that arose throughout American history against the ruling class. Some were sheer vandalism and violence for the hell of it; some organized, armed insurrections; some large-scale refusals to pay rent to absentee slumlords; some direct actions in which the people attacked the property of various elites and burned their houses and factories down. People back 150 years and more were seriously pissed off at the way their concept of America had been perverted by the rich, and were willing to risk their lives in an effort to simply be allowed a living wage and non-lethal working conditions.
This idea of worker empowerment was, of course, soundly rejected by the ruling class, who used the law (which they had written) and the military (which had mainly served to increase their aggregated wealth through war profiteering) and the federal government (which they had paid for) to eliminate any workers or movements that dared to contest the status quo.
You'd never know it, but there used to be a very active, well-organized labor movement in this country. This was back before everybody bought the ruling class' propaganda that labor unions were corrupt and only served the union's upper crust (which, although hyped far beyond reality, does have a grain of truth) and that the boss was their only real friend. Politicized labor movements existed well before the Revolution, and lasted well into the 1970s, before the Reagan "revolutionaries" decided that this workers' rights nonsense was getting in the way of profits and had to be killed once and for all.
And so a long litany of adverse court decisions (no surprise, since the ruling class wrote the laws), unsuccessful strikes (with the federal government first promoting the use of scabs, then using HB-1 workers permits), and union busting (packaged and sold by the elites as an affirmation of the rights of the individual against the tyranny of creeping socialism), all combined to rob the non-rich of the single most effective means to creep even slightly up the socioeconomic ladder.
And what's the result? A public unremarkable except for epic levels of ignorance, apathy and disillusionment. A narcotized public too worn out working obscene hours, trying to pay the bills, and have a life to do much but watch a little TV, which further inflicts on them the values of the ruling class, till they don't know what the hell to do. Organizing is anti-American, because pop culture tells them so. If they were educated in the public school system within the last 40 years, they probably lack most critical thinking and problem solving skills that even the most impoverished New Zealander has to spare. They bought into the "debt = upward mobility" bullshit so they owe too much money to take a part-time job and return to college for a skills upgrade. In short, this guy (or woman) is thoroughly fucked, and there's no way out except bankruptcy or suicide.
And people wonder why anti-depressants are all the rage in America, and why upwards of 150 million of us have to self-medicate every day with alcohol or drugs, illegal or prescription, to handle all that great American wonderfulness.
BushCo tyranny will end sometime soon, either by impeachment or by the 2008 elections. Stupid ideologues aren't capable of keeping all the lies straight, all the destruction secret, all the corruption hidden. Despite continuous cover by our useless conventional media, they're screwing up so bad and so publicly that even CNN occasionally reports on the scandal du jour. Just before another hour of in-depth Imus analysis and a brief recap of the Anna Nicole story.
But the systemic tyranny of the rich, and the uncontested power they wield over the other 98 percent of the world's people, will outlast BushCo. It'll certainly outlast me. And, sickeningly, it will probably outlast my beautiful baby grand daughter, who deserves much better than the dismal charade of democracy that we'll leave her. We should have done better. We've always had the chance. We've always lacked the will or the courage or the white hot rage necessary to act instead of bitch.
Mea culpa.
wp
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