REFLECTIONS: THINGS AREN'T MUCH DIFFERENT TODAY

"American historian, Beard said, the rich must, in their own interest, either control the government directly or control the laws by which government operates. Beard applied this general idea to the Constitution, by studying the economic backgrounds and political ideas of the fifty-five men who gathered in Philadelphia in 1787 to draw up the American Constitution. He found that a majority of them were lawyers by profession, that most of them were men of wealth, in land, slaves, manufacturing, or shipping, that half of them had money loaned out at interest, and that forty of the fifty-five held government bonds, according to the records of the Treasury Department. Thus, Beard found that most of the makers of the Constitution had some direct economic interest in establishing a strong federal government: the manufacturers needed protective tariffs; the moneylenders wanted to stop the use of paper money to pay off debts; the land speculators wanted protection as they invaded Indian lands; slave owners needed federal security against slave revolts and runaways; bondholders wanted a government able to raise money by nationwide taxation, to pay off those bonds... Four groups, Beard noted, were not represented in the Constitutional Convention: slaves, indentured servants, women, men without property. And so the Constitution did not reflect the interests of those groups". A People's History of the United States 1492-Present by Howard Zinn page 83 Watching politicians, corporate leaders, the military and media talking heads lie, flip-flop, prevaricate, double speak and obfuscate the issues of the day, we might think this is a new phenomenon. Not so. Under modern democracy the politicians, educators, media and religious leaders have always lied, always sought to dupe the masses whom they look down upon and have always done whatever they thought they could get away with including murder to get what they wanted. America 's political environment as seen in the current election cycle is demonstrating to the world just how disingenuous, corrupt and rigged the political process can be and how candidates easily fall in line and acquiesce to the immorality and sleaze built into and endemic to the system. We live in an era where the masses are programmed to be stupid. Stupidity has nothing to do with innate intelligence. Stupid comes from the root word stupor meaning to be in a daze, unconscious, a state of extreme apathy. This aptly describes much of the public. Yes, we can get hyped for sports, or to revel and party but for serious things, where our future, our safety and a sense of vision for ourselves and country are concerned we are not up to snuff.   The ruling class, the shot callers and decision makers are definitely trying to make us stupid. Are we so out of it, so comatose and apathetic we will quietly acquiesce and go along with their plans to dumb us down even further? The ruling elites have no respect for the masses. They call them the rabble, useless and worse. And their puppets in politics, the mass media, and business follow their cue and treat the masses with no respect. They go to great lengths to insult their intelligence in furtherance of the elite's nefarious agenda.                     The one thing that has remained constant is: the poor and working class hold no check or influence in public, national or international policy. "Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organised groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. The wealthy few move policy, while the average citizen has little power. When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organised interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the political system, even when fairly large majorities favour policy change, they generally do not get it. Modern society do enjoy many features central to democratic governance, such as regular elections, freedom of speech and association and a widespread (if still contested) franchise. But the truth is that if policymaking is dominated by powerful business organisations and a small number of affluent people, then the claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened. Modern democracy is essentially an oligarchy not a democracy. If you are reading this and saying tell me something I don't already know, then the question to you is what are you doing in light of this reality? This question is necessary, because in the past there were countless rebellions, riots, strikes, shut downs and other forms of resistance to ruling class exploitation and control from colonial times to the modern era. The question is what are you/we going to do about the present situation? Are you one of the millions who doesn't vote or even keep up with current events? Are you a reformer seeking to bring about true justice and inclusivity in a corrupt divided society? Are you seeking to enter headlong into the burning and collapsing house that is modern democracy? Or are you trying to figure out how to survive the immanent collapse and build a morally viable and humane community of like-minded people who know we can do and be better?