The Audacity of Hoping
Dunkirk NY – I had a completely different post in my head earlier today and over the last few days, and then just before lunch today I read the news on the Supreme Court’s decision on Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission. I do not generally write about matters political, but to me, the ramifications of this decision are so far-reaching, that in the deepest recesses of my mind I fear that this post may be one of the last I might ever be able to write without fear of political reprisal.
The combination of Scott Brown’s Senate victory in MA combined with this Supreme Court decision paves the way for this country to be overtaken by corporate interests in a politically-bought coup d’etat. I am willing to venture that inside of 50 years, national and international corporations, with the power the Supreme Court has handed them today, will have bought enough Senators, Congressmen, a President, and through their purchased President, a compliant Supreme Court, to be effectively running this country. The virulent residual hatred and suspicion of diverse and free thought that motivates the Tea Party constituency in this country is perfect fodder for corporations to easily manipulate. Conservative intellectuals will do the best they can to spin the “freedom and liberty/First Amendment” aspect of this decision, but the facts on the ground will eventually reveal the truth – that this decision robs the American people of their democratic freedoms. Companies with billions and billions of dollars at their disposal are ready to fund candidates who will appeal to the most base instincts in the electorate, and then manipulate them to vote in favor of every law or regulation they deem necessary to keep corporate America reaping in ever larger profits at the expense of the same poor slobs who voted for their puppet candidates.
We are about to reap the nasty fruits of our inattention over the past 60 years to the little things in American life and culture that kept the internal fabric of this country strong. In every aspect of our cultural life, we have allowed the small to be swallowed up and eaten by the large. We no longer eat in local diners; we eat at Denny’s and Perkin’s. We no longer get coffee from local coffeehouses; we get it from Starbuck’s. We no longer get our hamburgers from a local beachside grill; we get them from McDonald’s. We no longer buy our medicines from a local pharmacist; we go to Duane Reade. We no longer buy our goods from the local hardware; we go to Wal-Mart. We no longer have Little Theatres and community theatre; we have LORT houses and corporate Broadway. The Supreme Court has now insured that corporate America will be free to spend the money to buy more and more politicians and sweep away any political opposition to its agenda as it continues to incorporate all of the American landscape.
Why can this be done? Why will this happen? Because Americans, as a citizenry, are flat-out stupid. And why are they so stupid? Because the corporate American educational system has seen to it that they are taught to be stupid (so as to be better factory workers), and because the American entertainment industry – in which, as actors and creative people we are all involved – will, for the sake of profit, continue to feed the American people mind-numbing pablum and intellectual garbage (and actors, directors and writers will continue to write and act in and direct and produce this dreck. We are willing, active stooges in all this). I would not be as concerned as I am if I believed that Americans were, by and large, intelligent, perceptive people, and that they had the clarity of thought to be able to see through the deceptions and lies spun to them daily by the likes of Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Bank of America and Exxon Mobil. But they are not. Scott Brown’s election is a shining example of Americans’ propensity to act against their own best interests merely out of spite and frustration. The clusterfuck laughingly called the health care “debate” is another example of corporate America’s ability to totally obfuscate an issue and take advantage of the average American’s stupidity to make them think that health care is a bad idea. The situation is so bad that Americans literally believe that corporations have their best interests more at heart than their own government, despite the fact that corporate America is engaging in yet another jobless recovery and, in full view of the American people, thumbing their noses at them. The American people now believe that their government “of the people, by the people, and for the people” is their enemy. They will worship at the feet of anyone who appears to sell them back the myth of the American Dream, and you can bet that corporate American will have no trouble finding willing, vainglorious individuals who want to be that savior, peddling that myth in exchange for their thirty pieces of silver, their tiny share of the illusion of power, and their personal vanity.
Progressive liberalism will soon be a thing of the past. In perhaps as few as ten years, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities will not exist, downsized in the name of “fiscal responsibility.” Right-wing thought will be heavily funded and emboldened to infiltrate organizations at all levels. Enemies will be identified and purged. The rhetoric is already in place and being broadcast daily at Fox News, and people are picking it up in the streets. Because they will have the power to buy politicians and effectively control the government and make the laws, eventually the pretense of “fair and balanced” media will melt away. Journalists will be totally neutered, because their corporations will not have the money to buy enough influence to buck the trend. Universities will become nothing but corporate training grounds in the same manner that high schools became factory training grounds when American had manufacturing. There will be very little art, and art deemed deviant will be purged. Opposition voices will find all avenues of getting their message across blocked. The internet will have been bought by large corporations either outright or through advertising, and tiered-access systems will be put in place, essentially blocking free access. Through the power of their purchased lawmakers, every idea which does not profit the corporations will be censored, and every law which does not serve the interests of the corporations or hinders their doing business will be eliminated.
Mr. Obama will go into the history books as the last President ever elected by “the people.” He will be a one-term President. The stolen election of 2000 was only the barest hint of what will happen in the coming years. You can almost feel the saliva of corporate America drooling over the landscape it is now preparing to rape and pillage, thanks to the Supreme Court. To legally treat corporations as if they were actual people, and to apply the First Amendment to legally-created entities, means that we have, as a culture, acquiesced to the notion that we are not individual people at all – we are all nothing but the extensions of corporations. A year ago, we may have been audacious enough to hope. Today, it should be clear that the audacity of hoping was severely misplaced. Welcome, everyone, to the full-blown coming-out party of the United States of Corporate America. -twl
