COUP D’ETAT, U.S.A.
“We are Wall Street: It’s our job to make money. Whether it’s a commodity, stock, bond, or some hypothetical piece of paper, it doesn’t matter. We would trade baseball cards if it were profitable….Go ahead and take us down, but you’re only going to hurt yourselves. What’s going to happen when we can’t find jobs on the Street anymore? Guess what: we’re going to take yours….We aren’t dinosaurs. We are smarter and more vicious than that, and we are going to survive.”
E-mail circulating on Wall Street, reported in FINANCIAL TIMES
Resembling sophisticated Huns or Vandals, the barons of industry and finance sneer about doing “God’s work” as they sit like Smaug the dragon atop mountains of plunder, and smugly acquire more at everyone else’s expense. Having grown accustomed to getting their way, all the way, under the last presidential administration, they have no intention of sharing or compromising now. Barack Obama, to any impartial observer, is not a socialist. He would be a “liberal Republican” by definition forty years ago, when there really were such things. He has tried vainly to compromise with current Republicans, who have moved far to the right of the canonized Ronald Reagan, and now prefer to obliterate the national government, rather than make any deals with Democrats. Centering in Wisconsin but extending nation-wide, the filthy rich are using the 2010 election to pull off a coup d’etat. This way they have no need to compromise. The servants of the corporate elite, egged on by the Tea Party, have staged their takeover in broad daylight, for everyone to see. Though not clever, it is bold, and it is happening, right now, in the good old land of liberty.
While the Tea Party Republicans ran for election promising more jobs, as soon as they took over they moved rapidly to shut down all opposition. Pausing only briefly to issue what corporate tax breaks they could (first things first, right?) they declared an emergency, which they claimed required drastic action to avoid total disaster. First on the list of hardship measures: to destroy public employee unions. Private company unions being already decimated, the attack would eliminate a major source of opposition to corporate supremacy. Then corporations, already given full citizenship by the Supreme Court, can use limitless funds to swamp any further opposition in a tsunami of propaganda. The servants of corporate oligarchy are then free to take advantage of whatever government machinery serves their purpose, and dismantle what might get in the way of profits. Of course, no one is forced to believe all that corporate “free speech”. But big business is awfully good at sales pitches. If it can spread its message without concerted, effective response from the opposition, there is no opposition. There will be no doubt about who rules. This is the goal of a coup.
Scott Walker did not take office in Wisconsin. He took control, CEO fashion. And typically, a CEO does not ask the underlings what they might think of policy. He tells them what he wants, and if he does not get it, he makes changes. This is the principle reason why, in a democracy, government cannot be run like a business. Walker, serving the corporate elite, has to trash the democracy. Furthermore, it is obvious that when people awaken to actually understand how adversely they will be affected by these Tea Party actions, Walker and his cronies will be sent packing. Hence the coup. If Walker can pull it off, his future in politics is rosy. If he is rebuffed, he will have proven himself a solid team player, and will prosper nonetheless.
The coup in Wisconsin has roused considerable organized opposition, from many who work for a living. This opposition has spread around the country, and many Americans who were content to live and let live have awakened to resist a real threat. A sense of worker solidarity has been revived, for the first time in quite a while, and it is being transmitted at electric speed, everywhere. If this solidarity can endure, it could be strong enough to turn back the coup—this time. But working people dare not succumb to complacency. The servants of greed will never stop attacking.
The coup in Wisconsin, and elsewhere, should leave no doubt that class warfare is ongoing, even though the working class did not start it. The corporate class will never stop seeking absolute power, and only consistent solidarity among the workers can prevent the upper class from having it. The ultra-rich will cooperate, will share, if they must, to the benefit of workers and the wealthy--all but those totally consumed by greed. But it is up to those of us not in that upper class to make them cooperate and share. The alternative, sadly, is some kind of servitude, with its accompanying penury. Eternal vigilance still being the price of liberty, we must keep watch for wherever our liberty is threatened. Sometimes the enemy is foreign. This time the threat is homegrown.
