The United States entertainingly crumbles — into corporate-sponsored narcissism

© 2019 Peter Free

 

22 January 2019

 

 

Remember when . . .

 

. . . effective American leaders tried to avoid wars and government shutdowns?

 

Not anymore.

 

Why is that?

 

 

Leading with the ass — a punning metaphor

 

Former governor, Judd Gregg, recently pointed out that American political leadership ineffectually caters to its responsibility-avoiding "populist" bases:

 

 

The nation has devolved into leaderless confusion as to how to manage a self-inflicted chaos.

 

The chaos has its roots in asking the people to govern, rather than having the people’s elected representatives govern.

 

Populist movements are not responsible because they can simply make demands without shouldering the burden of carrying those demands out.

 

Unbridled populism fails unless it is given direction, order and coherence from good leadership.

 

Without such leadership, both our nations [— Brexit Britain and the United States —] appear destined to continue their saunter towards this form of government by self-inflicted anarchy . . . .

 

© 2019 Judd Gregg, Sauntering into anarchy, The Hill (21 January 2019)

 

 

Ergo, the government-shutting quarrel over a wall versus not-wall, as if our two political parties actually disagreed that border control is necessary.

 

 

Extraction rather than service

 

Michael Howard indirectly addressed Judd's point about backassward leading.

 

He explains how the public allows itself to become distracted by propagandized non-essentials. Like the false "wall versus not wall" equivalence.

 

Corporatism's feints prevent us from recognizing its robberies:

 

 

[O]ur corporate masters get fatter off wealth, not that they create, but rather fish out of the economy using rent-seeking tactics and horde in offshore tax havens.

 

We the People, of course, must remain in blissful ignorance of these realities, lest we all immigrate to Canada or, better yet, come together and form a common front against corporate power and its marionettes on Capitol Hill.

 

Hence the identity politics game, in which all sides happily participate, egged on by the corporate media.

 

Subsidizing the rich, kicking working people into the gutter, destroying the planet and starting wars for all kinds of ulterior motives . . . aren't likely to mobilize voters.

 

[Voting motivation] require[s] diversionary issues: guns, gay marriage, abortion, immigration, gender, patriarchy, white privilege, racism, statues, sexual misconduct, pronouns, Jesus, etc.

 

While we squabble about whether this or that building ought to be renamed, the ruling class is picking our pockets and using the money to populate Congress with loyal servants.

 

© Michael Howard, The Corruption of the American Republic, American Herald Tribune (20 January 2019)

 

 

Who's most to blame for our serfish predicament?

 

Sheep?

 

Or the Power Guys who pull their leashes?

 

Jesus, I imagine, would weep. Though even He might have difficulty saying for whom.

 

 

The moral? — A narcissistic culture like ours is not going to survive

 

I look abroad for signs of community-responsible intelligence.