The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> Lifestryles of the Rich

Lifestryles of the Rich
Posted by pancho (Moderator) - Sunday, February 22 2009, 22:19:18 (CET)
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Certain events in cultural history seem to mark the points at which society begins a shift in a direction that may have profound effects years or decades later. Sometimes you can see the hand of government behind the first moves. I remember an uneasy feeling in the early 80s when articles began to appear about the “might” of Iraq’s armed forces...that Iraq had the “third largest army” of the hemisphere, or some such exaggerated claim. There must be a reason, I thought, why Iraq and Arabs are replacing Russians as villains in all media. A steady drum beat about the “danger” to the world of Saddam Hussein built until the public was convinced their very lives depended on getting this “other Hitler”.

Likewise the teevee show “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” was wildly popular at around the same time. In each episode the public was allowed to press its runny nose against the etched glass of mansions and yachts to see and imagine incredible and wasteful wealth that was beyond vulgar....and yet it provided the closest look and feel of a luxury we all knew we would never taste...but instead of enraging people or forcing them to ask just where all this wealth came from, people were lulled and mollified as if they’d spent a week in a luxury suite on Khashogi’s palatial yacht, or any one of his fabled mansions.

This recent worry that banks who say they screwed up but in reality made tons of money before they declared an emergency on themselves, is another instance of the people who hold political power yielding to the blandishments of the super rich. We gave them billions we actually thought they were going to loan back to us...so we could pay them AGAIN through the interest on our OWN money...only they didn’t loan anybody anything but used the money to fill their depleted vaults and then hold onto it. The sensible thing to do, is to reward those who hadn’t brought things to such a pass; us, and with our own money (taxes)... to give the money to the people in debt, not the banks who fucked up. The money would have been used to pay off the debts that were supposedly driving banks under....everyone would have been happy...those in debt and the banks which would have gotten the money in the end anyway...only after it passing through our hands first....not theirs, and alleviating our grief, not just those of the bankers.

What’s most baffling is that political power supposedly rests in the hands of the people, who are the ones in debt, who earn less and less each year...and not in the hands of the bankers, who earn more and more. Yet we little people identify our well being with theirs...our fate is tied up with theirs, they tell us. How have we been convinced that any aspiring politician who tells us that our needs come first, that we are the backbone and not banks, that WE are “too big to fail” is thought of as a quack....or communist...or radical who wants “socialism”. Why don’t we vote our own self-interest rather than that of the lords of finance? Most likely because we really do believe that their welfare must come first...that if they go under we can’t be far behind.

Why trickle-down...why not trickle-up? It turns out that a rising tide doesn’t lift all boats...as Reaganomics told us....a rising and then swelling tide swamps most of our frail boats while leaving the massive yachts bobbing merrily at anchor. And they won’t throw us a line either.

Heaven....eternal life...the belief that we’re going to meet up again one day for an eternity of equality and plenty and no pain, with Bob and Mary and little Egbert sitting around a glorious living room for ever and ever...that’s part of it. For decades leading up to the breaking point known as the French Revolution the peasants of France, deliriously Catholic believed it too...until life became unbearable and suicide still frowned up... a way to get to everlasting hell if you thought you would simply be relieved of your pains in life...with no way out the French finally cared more for life on earth than what was promised them after death.

We too are wrapped up in visions of a better life on a cloud...and so we treat our frustrations as “tests” to see if we get a front row seat in heaven. If there was no belief in heaven, if we believed that this life, this consciousness was all we would ever have, I wonder if we would be more insistent on fairness and equality in life....not after death. The growth of the Jesus movement seems to coincide with the worsening of personal security and happiness....things are just bad enough that people find solace in the thought that life isn’t forever, that this miserable existence can be tolerated some more because of the glorious eternity waiting for every one of us...if we will only believe in it.

When things are too good research shows that religious fervor dies down...when times are tough people look to God and heaven more...maybe when things are really bad, they reject heaven and begin to overthrow the existing order, which isn’t God-made but decreed by the rich and powerful. The shameful part is that this takes place in a democracy where we could, in theory at least, vote for representatives such as ourselves, and not the super-rich we now seem to prefer. Our Constitution has built within it the means for peaceful and profound changes...there’s no need to mount the barricades. That’s its everlasting genius and also the reason the wealthy want to tear it to shreds.



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