Big Brother is Watching

64 Pages·2011·1.84 MB·English

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INSIDE: TAX THE RICH! ● PORTRAITS OF GREED
● THE NEW DEVIL’S ISLAND ● EDUCATION AT
GUNPOINT ● DEATH SQUADS V. DEMOCRACY
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Smile!
(Big Brother is Watching)
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ISSUE 52 JANUARY 2011
THE COVER
3. BRAVE NEW DYSTOPIA Chris Hedges
7. HAPPY NEW YEAR, 2030 David Michael Green
11. THE ‘TOTAL CONTROL SOCIETY’ IS HERE John W. Wh itehead
EEddiittoorr:: TToonnyy SSuuttttoonn
THE ECONOMY
([email protected])
15. TAX THE RICH! Michael I. Niman
To subscribe,
19. THE FEW, THE PROUD, THE FILTHY RICH Alan Maas
send an email to:
[email protected] 23. PORTRAITS OF GREED Sam Pizzigati
(Write subscribe in the
28. THE UK’S ODIOUS DEBT George Monbiot
subject line)
THE REST
30. THE TECHNO‒FANTASIES OF EVO MORALES Chellis Glendinning
34. WHY ARE WARS NOT REPORTED HONESTLY? John Pilger
37. THE TORTURERS REVISITED Paul Balles
39. EX‒SPOOKS V. ASSANGE Sherwood Ross
41. DEATH SQUADS V. DEMOCRACY Michael Keefer
45. LITERARY OUTSIDER Philip Kraske
47. BERLIN, 1934 Fred Reed
49. MEDIA HIT OF THE YEAR Danny Schechter
45. EDUCATION AT GUNPOINT Ramzy Baroud
57. AVOIDING THE NEW DEVIL’S ISLAND William Blum
Opinions expressed in The ColdType Reader are not necessarily those of the editor or publisher
2 TheREADER | January 2011
COVER STORY / 1
Brave New Dystopia
Chris Hedges warns of a future that is moving quickly
to a state of repressive corporate totalitarianism
The two greatest visions of a fu- we fi nd ourselves transported from Brave We have been
ture dystopia were George Or- New World to 1984. The state, crippled by gradually
well’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s massive defi cits, endless war and corporate disempowered by
Brave New World. The debate, malfeasance, is sliding toward bankruptcy. a corporate state
between those who watched our descent It is time for Big Brother to take over from that, as Huxley
towards corporate totalitarianism, was who Huxley’s feelies, the orgy-porgy and the foresaw, seduced
was right. Would we be, as Orwell wrote, centrifugal bumble-puppy. We are moving and manipulated
dominated by a repressive surveillance and from a society where we are skillfully ma- us through sensual
security state that used crude and violent nipulated by lies and illusions to one where gratifi cation,
forms of control? Or would we be, as Hux- we are overtly controlled. cheap mass-
ley envisioned, entranced by entertainment Orwell warned of a world where books produced goods,
and spectacle, captivated by technology and were banned. Huxley warned of a world boundless credit,
seduced by profl igate consumption to where no one wanted to read books. political theater
embrace our own oppression? It Orwell warned of a state of per- and amusement
turns out Orwell and Huxley manent war and fear. Huxley
were both right. Huxley saw warned of a culture diverted
the fi rst stage of our enslave- by mindless pleasure. Orwell
ment. Orwell saw the sec- warned of a state where ev-
ond. ery conversation and thought
We have been gradually was monitored and dissent
disempowered by a corpo- was brutally punished. Huxley
rate state that, as Huxley fore- warned of a state where a popu-
saw, seduced and manipulated us lation, preoccupied by trivia and
through sensual gratifi cation, cheap gossip, no longer cared about truth or
mass-produced goods, boundless credit, information. Orwell saw us frightened into
political theater and amusement. While we submission. Huxley saw us seduced into
were entertained, the regulations that once submission. But Huxley, we are discovering,
kept predatory corporate power in check was merely the prelude to Orwell. Huxley
were dismantled, the laws that once pro- understood the process by which we would
tected us were rewritten and we were impov- be complicit in our own enslavement. Or-
erished. Now that credit is drying up, good well understood the enslavement. Now that
jobs for the working class are gone forever the corporate coup is over, we stand naked
and mass-produced goods are unaffordable, and defenseless. We are beginning to under-
January 2011 | TheREADER 3
COVER STORY / 1
We busy ourselves stand, as Karl Marx knew, that unfettered society, devours us from the inside out. It
buying products and unregulated capitalism is a brutal and owes no allegiance to us or the nation. It
that promise revolutionary force that exploits human be- feasts upon our carcass.
to change our ings and the natural world until exhaustion The corporate state does not fi nd its ex-
lives, make us or collapse. pression in a demagogue or charismatic
more beautiful, “The Party seeks power entirely for its leader. It is defi ned by the anonymity and
confi dent or own sake,” Orwell wrote in 1984. “We are facelessness of the corporation. Corpora-
successful as not interested in the good of others; we are tions, who hire attractive spokespeople like
we are steadily interested solely in power. Not wealth or Barack Obama, control the uses of science,
stripped of rights, luxury or long life or happiness: only pow- technology, education and mass communi-
money er, pure power. What pure power means you cation. They control the messages in movies
and infl uence will understand presently. We are different and television. And, as in Brave New World,
from all the oligarchies of the past, in that they use these tools of communication to
we know what we are doing. All the oth- bolster tyranny. Our systems of mass com-
ers, even those who resembled ourselves, munication, as Wolin writes, “block out,
were cowards and hypocrites. The German eliminate whatever might introduce quali-
Nazis and the Russian Communists came fi cation, ambiguity, or dialogue, anything
very close to us in their methods, but they that might weaken or complicate the holis-
never had the courage to recognize their tic force of their creation, to its total impres-
own motives. They pretended, perhaps they sion.”
even believed, that they had seized power
unwillingly and for a limited time, and that Irrelevant cranks
just round the corner there lay a paradise The result is a monochromatic system of
where human beings would be free and information. Celebrity courtiers, masquer-
equal. We are not like that. We know that ading as journalists, experts and specialists,
no one ever seizes power with the intention identify our problems and patiently explain
of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it the parameters. All those who argue outside
is an end. One does not establish a dictator- the imposed parameters are dismissed as ir-
ship in order to safeguard a revolution; one relevant cranks, extremists or members of
makes the revolution in order to establish a radical left. Prescient social critics, from
the dictatorship. The object of persecution Ralph Nader to Noam Chomsky, are ban-
is persecution. The object of torture is tor- ished. Acceptable opinions have a range of
ture. The object of power is power.” A to B. The culture, under the tutelage of
The political philosopher Sheldon Wo- these corporate courtiers, becomes, as Hux-
lin uses the term “inverted totalitarianism” ley noted, a world of cheerful conformity, as
in his book Democracy Incorporated to de- well as an endless and fi nally fatal optimism.
scribe our political system. It is a term that We busy ourselves buying products that
would make sense to Huxley. In inverted promise to change our lives, make us more
totalitarianism, the sophisticated technolo- beautiful, confi dent or successful as we are
gies of corporate control, intimidation and steadily stripped of rights, money and infl u-
mass manipulation, which far surpass those ence. All messages we receive through these
employed by previous totalitarian states, are systems of communication, whether on the
effectively masked by the glitter, noise and nightly news or talk shows like “Oprah,”
abundance of a consumer society. Political promise a brighter, happier tomorrow. And
participation and civil liberties are gradually this, as Wolin points out, is “the same ide-
surrendered. The corporation state, hiding ology that invites corporate executives to
behind the smokescreen of the public rela- exaggerate profi ts and conceal losses, but
tions industry, the entertainment industry always with a sunny face.” We have been
and the tawdry materialism of a consumer entranced, as Wolin writes, by “continuous
4 TheREADER | January 2011
COVER STORY / 1
technological advances” that “encourage to face some very unpleasant truths. The The few who raise
elaborate fantasies of individual prowess, good-paying jobs are not coming back. The voices of dissent,
eternal youthfulness, beauty through sur- largest defi cits in human history mean that who refuse to
gery, actions measured in nanoseconds: we are trapped in a debt peonage system engage in the
a dream-laden culture of ever-expanding that will be used by the corporate state to corporate happy
control and possibility, whose denizens are eradicate the last vestiges of social protec- talk, are derided
prone to fantasies because the vast majority tion for citizens, including Social Security. by the corporate
have imagination but little scientifi c knowl- The state has devolved from a capitalist de- establishment
edge.” mocracy to neo-feudalism. And when these as freaks
Our manufacturing base has been dis- truths become apparent, anger will replace
mantled. Speculators and swindlers have the corporate-imposed cheerful conformity.
looted the US Treasury and stolen billions The bleakness of our post-industrial pock-
from small shareholders who had set aside ets, where some 40 million Americans live
money for retirement or college. Civil liber- in a state of poverty and tens of millions in
ties, including habeas corpus and protec- a category called “near poverty,” coupled
tion from warrantless wiretapping, have with the lack of credit to save families from
been taken away. Basic services, including foreclosures, bank repossessions and bank-
public education and health care, have been ruptcy from medical bills, means that in-
handed over to the corporations to exploit verted totalitarianism will no longer work.
for profi t. The few who raise voices of dis- We increasingly live in Orwell’s Oceania,
sent, who refuse to engage in the corporate not Huxley’s The World State. Osama bin
happy talk, are derided by the corporate es- Laden plays the role assumed by Emmanuel
tablishment as freaks. Goldstein in “1984.” Goldstein, in the novel,
Attitudes and temperament have been is the public face of terror. His evil machina-
cleverly engineered by the corporate state, tions and clandestine acts of violence domi-
as with Huxley’s pliant characters in Brave nate the nightly news. Goldstein’s image
New World. The book’s protagonist, Bernard appears each day on Oceania’s television
Marx, turns in frustration to his girlfriend screens as part of the nation’s “Two Minutes
Lenina: of Hate” daily ritual. And without the inter-
“Don’t you wish you were free, Lenina?” vention of the state, Goldstein, like bin Lad-
he asks. en, will kill you. All excesses are justifi ed in
“I don’t know that you mean. I am free, the titanic fi ght against evil personifi ed.
free to have the most wonderful time. Ev- The psychological torture of Pvt. Bradley
erybody’s happy nowadays.” Manning – who has now been imprisoned
He laughed, “Yes, ‘Everybody’s happy for seven months without being convict-
nowadays.’ We have been giving the chil- ed of any crime – mirrors the breaking of
dren that at fi ve. But wouldn’t you like to be the dissident Winston Smith at the end of
free to be happy in some other way, Lenina? “1984.” Manning is being held as a “maxi-
In your own way, for example; not in every- mum custody detainee” in the brig at Ma-
body else’s way.” rine Corps Base Quantico, in Virginia. He
“I don’t know what you mean,” she re- spends 23 of every 24 hours alone. He is
peated. denied exercise. He cannot have a pillow or
sheets for his bed. Army doctors have been
Crumbling facade plying him with antidepressants. The crud-
The façade is crumbling. And as more and er forms of torture of the Gestapo have been
more people realize that they have been replaced with refi ned Orwellian techniques,
used and robbed, we will move swiftly largely developed by government psycholo-
from Huxley’s Brave New World to Orwell’s gists, to turn dissidents like Manning into
1984. The public, at some point, will have vegetables. We break souls as well as bod-
January 2011 | TheREADER 5
COVER STORY / 1
The draconian ies. It is more effective. Now we can all be constantly urge us to report suspicious ac-
security measures taken to Orwell’s dreaded Room 101 to be- tivity. The enemy is everywhere.
used to cripple come compliant and harmless. These “spe- Those who do not comply with the dic-
protests at the cial administrative measures” are regularly tates of the war on terror, a war which, as
G-20 gatherings imposed on our dissidents, including Syed Orwell noted, is endless, are brutally si-
in Pittsburgh Fahad Hashmi, who was imprisoned under lenced. The draconian security measures
and Toronto similar conditions for three years before used to cripple protests at the G-20 gather-
were wildly going to trial. The techniques have psycho- ings in Pittsburgh and Toronto were wildly
disproportionate logically maimed thousands of detainees in disproportionate for the level of street ac-
for the level of our black sites around the globe. They are tivity. But they sent a clear message – DO
street activity. But the staple form of control in our maximum NOT TRY THIS. The FBI’s targeting of an-
they sent a clear security prisons where the corporate state tiwar and Palestinian activists, which in
message – DO makes war on our most politically astute late September saw agents raid homes in
NOT TRY THIS underclass – African-Americans. It all pres- Minneapolis and Chicago, is a harbinger of
ages the shift from Huxley to Orwell. what is to come for all who dare defy the
“Never again will you be capable of ordi- state’s offi cial Newspeak. The agents – our
nary human feeling,” Winston Smith’s tor- Thought Police – seized phones, comput-
turer tells him in 1984. “Everything will be ers, documents and other personal belong-
dead inside you. Never again will you be ca- ings. Subpoenas to appear before a grand
pable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, jury have since been served on 26 people.
or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or in- The subpoenas cite federal law prohibiting
tegrity. You will be hollow. We shall squeeze “providing material support or resources to
you empty and then we shall fi ll you with designated foreign terrorist organizations.”
ourselves.” Terror, even for those who have nothing to
do with terror, becomes the blunt instru-
Era of oppression ment used by Big Brother to protect us from
The noose is tightening. The era of amuse- ourselves.
ment is being replaced by the era of repres- “Do you begin to see, then, what kind of
sion. Tens of millions of citizens have had world we are creating?” Orwell wrote. “It is
their e-mails and phone records turned the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic
over to the government. We are the most Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A
monitored and spied-on citizenry in human world of fear and treachery and torment,
history. Many of us have our daily routine a world of trampling and being trampled
caught on dozens of security cameras. Our upon, a world which will grow not less but
proclivities and habits are recorded on the more merciless as it refi nes itself.” CT
Internet. Our profi les are electronically
generated. Our bodies are patted down at Chris Hedges is a senior fellow at The
airports and fi lmed by scanners. And pub- Nation Institute. His newest book is “Death
lic service announcements, car inspection of the Liberal Class,” an excerpt from which
stickers, and public transportation posters appeared recently at www.coldtype.net

READ THE BEST OF TOM ENGELHARDT
http://coldtype.net/tom.html
6 TheREADER | January 2011
COVER STORY / 2
Happy New Year, 2030
David Michael Green delivers a message from
your boss 25 years hence
Good Morning, Worker Bees! Hap- before you think it, anyhow, because our No one dares
py New Year! American Stasi Service is so powerful and rock the boat, lest
And what a year it promises omnipresent. If you were stupid enough to the mere scrap
to be, too! We have lots of hard even utter the ‘R’ word, your well-trained of an allowance
work in store for you. More than ever! child or spouse will have you turned in we grant you in
Now that our two-generation-long pro- before you fi nish your sentence, and we’ll exchange for your
gram of economic restructuring has fi nally have you in chains thirty seconds later. Try labors were to
made it to full fruition, I feel it only right building a revolutionary movement under vanish in a puff
and proper to celebrate our achievement those conditions, pal. of smoke
with you by recapitulating the events of this Even if you could, we have some very nas-
greatest historical process in our country’s ty riot police ready to go if we see you on the
history. streets without proper authorization. These
Normally, of course, plutocrats such as cops actually are no different than you
myself would be loath to reveal suucchh –– tthheeyy’’rree jjuusstt ggiven a slightly big-
secrets to those whom we exploitt ggeerr ffoooodd rraattiion than the rest of
so thoroughly. If this was the yyoouu pprroolleess. We fi nd that one
late eighteenth century, per- ccaann ggeett human beings to
haps you’d even rise up and ddoo aallmmoost anything using
sweep us away in some sort of tthheessee ccoonditions. And, be
revolution. aassssuurreedd,, we do.
Alas, that is hardly a con- OOff ccoouurse, revolution is
cern anymore, for at least a half- tthhee ffuurrtthheesst thing from your
dozen good reasons. mmiinndd aannyyhhoow, because we’ve
For one thing, we’ve made ssuurree ttuurrnneedd wwoorrsshhiipp of the existing
that all of you are stuck in a sttaattee ooff ppeerr-- ccllaassss ssttrruuccttuurree iinnttoo tthhiiss society’s religion,
petual economic precariousnesss ((aatt bbeesstt)).. aanndd wwee’’vvee mmaaddee qquuiittee ffeervent little parish-
This has made you as docile as llambbs. NNo iioners off you allll, hhaven’t we? Some fools
one dares rock the boat, lest the mere scrap doubted this could be done, but we knew
of an allowance we grant you in exchange back in the 70s that if one could twist Jesus
for your labors were to vanish in a puff of the socialist – who talks in bold print about
smoke. We hold you hostage and demand money-changers and camels going through
your acquiescence. You give it to us. eyes of needles – into a champion of greedy
Second, we know everything you think capitalism, one could sell anything. And we
January 2011 | TheREADER 7
COVER STORY / 2
Coupled to the did.We’ve also supplemented your excel- a modicum of relief for the poor. It wasn’t
new plutocrat- lent cultural programming with some very Sweden, I assure you (not that you’d know
serving orthodoxy potent pharmaceuticals to keep you nice what I mean by that anyhow), but it was a
of the Purchased and docile. You have much to be angry and big change from our glory days.
Party we added depressed about, but your happy pills keep Even worse, these liberal bastards ad-
a hallucinatory you properly focused. We like that. vanced an egalitarian ethos which sold the
hagiography of Finally, we don’t worry about you con- public on the idea that everyone should
Ronald J. Christ, ducting some sort of revolution, because share in the benefi ts of economic growth,
The Patron Saint we’ve made sure that you’ve never even and that banana-republic-style concentra-
of Tax Giveaways heard of such a concept. You have the worst tion of wealth in the hands of a few oli-
education that we could possibly imagine, garchs was not healthy for society at large,
and trust me, our imaginations are quite not healthy for democracy, and not healthy
fertile. You’ve never heard of revolutions, or for 99 percent of the nation. That’s a dan-
economic classes, or slave revolts or labor gerous set of ideas. Next stop is commu-
unions or any other such claptrap. If you’ve nism, buddy.
never heard of it before, it’s almost impos- So we decided that enough was enough,
sible for you to conceive of it on your own. and we came up with a plan.
By erasing history we have restarted history. The fi rst step was to capture one of the
And this time it’s going to play out in a lot only two viable political parties in America.
more controlled fashion than it did even That wasn’t exactly diffi cult. The Repub-
last time. licans were already halfway there. All that
was left was to buy-off the old-school mod-
Incapable of response erates who had come to terms with the New
And so my dear sheeple, no, as a matter of Deal and crush any of those who couldn’t
fact, I don’t worry about divulging the truth be bought. This process was begun in the
to you about what we’ve done these last fi f- 1980s and accelerated in the subsequent
ty years. You won’t understand it any more two decades, to the point where by 2010 the
than you understand what I’m saying now. concept of a moderate Republican more or
And even if you did, you are completely in- less only existed as some bizarre notional
capable of mounting any sort of response to idea anymore, like string theory in physics.
the pitiless and intractable system we have Coupled to the new plutocrat-serving ortho-
created. Even if you could, we would crush doxy of the Purchased Party we added a hal-
you instantly, grind you into hamburger, lucinatory hagiography of Ronald J. Christ,
and feed you to our pet piranha. The Patron Saint of Tax Giveaways. All had
So, here’s what happened. to give praise to The Lord Gumby, and all
We (by which I mean us nice folks in the did, yea, for generations hence.
owning class) suffered through fi fty years It was also important to capture the oth-
of the New Deal-inspired liberal America. It er party as well (not to mention maintain-
sucked. Instead of having nearly all the na- ing the absence of any viable third or fourth
tional wealth concentrated into the hands of choices), and this was likewise duly accom-
the few of us, as had been the case for at least plished. It was slightly tougher to take over
the century or so since America’s industrial the party of FDR and LBJ, but in the end not
revolution, we possessed only most of it. really so hard. The trick was to fi nd some
Unthinkable! Traitors like both Roosevelts, dolled-up whores with lots of charisma and
Kennedy and Johnson enacted progressive let them do the work. There was this guy
policies that resulted in a vast diminish- named Clinton, and another called Obama,
ment of our concentration of wealth, that who played their parts quite skillfully.
created a massive middle class for the fi rst Many devoted Democrats loved these DI-
time in American history, and that provided NOs, though they couldn’t exactly say why.
8 TheREADER | January 2011
COVER STORY / 2
Didn’t matter in the end. By the time we supposedly possessed of a liberal bias, we Hating a
were fi nished, voters could choose between got them to self-censor what pathetically government that
the Party of Wall Street or the Other Party of little authentic reporting there had ever you simultaneously
Wall Street. Guess which one they picked? once been in that domain. adore when it dons
Our assault on your wallets – and, in- It was also necessary to get people to military uniforms
deed, even upon your health and longevity hate government (except when we didn’t and slaughters
– was as sophisticated in its execution as it want them to, of course), so that they could foreigners is
was thorough in its strategy. That’s why we never see it as a solution to the obvious manifestly absurd,
understood from the beginning that it was problems that beset them individually and of course, but
necessary to control the cognitive landscape collectively. Hating a government that you you’d be surprised
of the country at the same time we were simultaneously adore when it dons mili- how illogical
driving effective electoral choice down to tary uniforms and slaughters foreigners is people can be,
zero. People had to understand – albeit, not manifestly absurd, of course, but you’d be especially when
consciously – that there were no choices at surprised how illogical people can be, espe- you incentivize
all, and that any apparent ones they might cially when you incentivize stupidity with stupidity with som
perceive were inherently lacking in legiti- some little carrot here or some little stick
macy and therefore dangerous to adopt. there. Anyhow, if you say that “government
There were many implications to this im- is the enemy” enough times – despite the
perative. To start with, there had to be some fact that you’re always talking about the
pseudo-intellectual air cover for the sacking joys and wonders of democracy, which is,
of the body politic. We thus created ‘think’ um, a system in which people pick their
tanks like the Heritage Foundation or the government – the public will indeed grow to
American Enterprise Institute, and funded hate their own government. Better yet, just
them lavishly. We would have told them in case some fool was still left somewhere,
precisely what their studies were to con- running around talking about regulation or
clude, but in fact we never needed to. They taxing rich people or single-payer health
knew their purpose in life, and they knew care, all you have to do is shout “Big govern-
who signed their paychecks. ment!” and you’ve shot it down completely.
A new media also had to be created, and Needless to say, we did.
we were spectacularly successful at this.
Right-wing ranters on the radio had enor- Fear helps
mous appeal to those who hadn’t yet been Incessant fear can also be quite handy when
dumbed down enough not to be angry, but it comes to quietly looting 300 million peo-
were suffi ciently idiotic not to know the ple, so we made sure there was plenty of
source of their consternation. To those we that. Fear of evil foreign leaders was always
added a network of television and radio handy. Never mind that they had almost al-
outlets that were supposedly mainstream ways been on the CIA’s payroll for decades.
and dispassionate, but in fact were driving Never mind that we secretly did business
a corporate agenda from top to bottom, and with them at the same time the government
were joined at the hip with the Republican was publicly demonizing them and impos-
Party. Those of you who are old enough ing embargos and sanctions for other folks.
will remember this as Fox News. Today, of Never mind that these bogeymen were pa-
course, we just call it the Daily Instruction thetic, two-bit, local-yokel bully boys com-
Network. In any case, another crucial aspect pared to a Hitler, Stalin or Mao. No matter.
to this process was the pressure that these If you say it loud enough and often enough,
outlets placed upon the so-called main- everybody falls into line pretty quickly. Plus,
stream media to conform to the corporat- it’s easy to instantly smash any naysayers to
ism. Along with the ceaseless pull of profi t, bits just by questioning their patriotism.
and the constant battering of the media as Brown people also make pretty good di-
January 2011 | TheREADER 9
COVER STORY / 2
By packing all your versionary demons. Or anyone else who’s smashed unions, but even the pensions that
jobs off to Mexico, a bit different. Women. Muslims. Gays. Im- union workers had earned over the span of
and then China migrants. The homeless. Whatever. All we entire lifetimes. You didn’t say a word as we
and India, and later basically had to do was make them lower let infrastructure crumble and defunded
Africa, we put you in stature than you all and then trash them education. We told you that none of that
fi rmly under the endlessly. Not only did that make you feel stuff could be afforded anymore. It never
heavy jackboot gratifi ed, having someone you could stand occurred to you to ask why millionaires and
of economic over and piss down on, it also kept you billionaires and corporations essentially no
insecurity from noticing the sea of oligarchical urine longer paid taxes. Or why it was necessary
in which you were yourself drowning at that for your country to spend a sum equal to
very same moment. Very effective stuff. Pub- that of every other country in the world –
lic manipulation for fun and profi t. Psych combined – on a massive military that es-
101. Easy and amusing. You can’t imagine sentially had no enemies.
the laughs we had. You went for it. All. And every time we
From there it was generally just a matter gave you a chance to say no at the ballot
of incessant squeezing. We sold you a ridic- box, you instead begged us for more.
ulously counterintuitive bunch of bullshit And so we cut and we chopped, and we
about the joys of ‘free trade’. You went for it, slashed and we burned. Mostly, though, we
and we made obscene amounts of money by just looted and pillaged.
shrinking labor costs down to nothing and With your help, of course. Thanks for
pocketing the difference in profi ts. More that. It was so much cleaner and quicker
importantly, by packing all your jobs off to and more thorough that way.
Mexico, and then China and India, and later All in all, I think you would have to agree
Africa, we put you fi rmly under the heavy that we came up with a pretty successful
jackboot of economic insecurity. That’s a little program for taking the money that
dividend that has never stopped paying off used to be in your pockets and sticking it
very handsomely, ever since. in ours.
That is, you would have to agree had we
Tax cuts – ours, not yours not rendered you too ignorant, too brain-
Once we had you sinking economically, we washed, too frightened, too prejudiced, too
could sell you on whatever supposed rem- distracted, too sick, too doped up and too
edy du jour we decided to hawk next. Tax dead to notice.
cuts, which actually ultimately increased Sorry about all that.
your taxes and cut ours, seemed like a life- We just wanted your money.
boat to a struggling middle class. In fact, Thanks, Fool. CT
they produced massive defi cits, which we
could then use to sell you on the necessity David Michael Green is a professor of
of slashing your meager safety net programs political science at Hofstra University in New
like Social Security and Medicare. We also York. More of his work can be found at his
got you to line up behind us as we not only website, www.regressiveantidote.net.

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10 TheREADER | January 2011