Name Your Gods

Some years ago I started to talk more openly to working people about their jobs. It was as I expected. They were being hammered and screwed, and further up in the system than I anticipated. A UPS driver told me they had taken everything away from him they could and that the new hires were getting nothing. I talked to guys working for a once locally-owned lawn care company which had been bought by a big national operation.

They were treated like slaves, with an MBA cracking the whip over them daily. Their jobs were in immediate peril if they didn't bring in the cash. If you think this is necessary you're wrong. It's a choice we made by electing Republicans, who will predictably cut taxes on the wealthy, deregulate everything, throw money at defense and destroy social services. Their subtle rules changes over time favored consolidation of capital.

And when they openly swing for the fences we get something like CITIZENS UNITED. Cutting taxes on wealthy people encourages them not to create jobs. With high marginal tax rates they will start and invest in businesses so as not to pay taxes on the money. I have a small business. I am way more likely to spend money on the business than on myself. It's pre-tax money. And the people who most hate regulation are crooks. 

Regulations are rules which promote fair play and efficiency and help capture social costs. Deregulate baseball. The rich teams go on a roll and the sport implodes. This is the Republican model, boom and bust. On defense theirs is a Maginot approach, with feel-good militarization operating at the level of common sense of human sacrifice, which is what it entails when activated, an offering to their gods of war in propitiation. 

Or maybe other gods. Ask your Republican representatives which gods, exactly, and also which gods it is who hate feeding children. I want names. The names of their gods who love the rich and despise everyone else. The names of their gods who love war and hate peace. The names of their gods who live in gated communities and play golf and whose well-paid lawyers wipe their corporate asses when they shit themselves. 

Behold, maybe these are their gods, the lawyer-nanny gods of inherited wealth and easy money and privilege, or any gods who reassure them that they are worthy, and better than us, and that lower golf scores are possible. Their gods are lesser than themselves. Their gods are their servants. They are their own gods, in a way. This is not what I was brought up with but, hey, it's a new dawn and their new day.