Americans Continue Living in Denial

Evidence continues to amass that Americans are either dumbed down, myopic, or simply living in denial about their situation in history and in this world. Most likely, it is a combination of all three. Where is Hunter Thompson when we need his shrewd analytical abilities the most?

For instance, John Kerry and George W. Bush are two opposite sides of the same equation. The election of one will not substantially end the politicies of the other. Both will continue the consolidation of the War for Iraq’s Resources. Both favor the corporate control of government and the media. Both through marriage or birth have connection to fortunes of hundreds of millions of dollars, and their investment opportunities and lifestyles put them completely out of touch with the realities of working class and poor people. An election of either George W. Bush or John Kerry in 2004 will more or less continue the status quo.

Americans are in denial in other ways that are equally significant in impacts on their well-being. Americans continue to elect politicians who come straight from the corporate/media/military complex. Most congresspersons are millionaires, who favor anything that subsidizes Big Business. Our government for many years has instituted policies that provide tax favors to the Rich and to Big Business — the entire tax system is tilted to create an appearance of fairness, while the key concept, taxable income, is skewed hopelessly in favor of the monied. So, while the Rich and Big Business sometimes claim they are taxed at high rates (per taxable income), the reality is that so many loopholes and writeoffs and credits and subsidies are provided by the government that taxable income is sometimes non-existent at all! And gross assets or gross income are completely unrelated in reality to taxable income. Meanwhile, the working poor benefit from few writeoffs and loopholes and credits, and thus compared with gross wealth the working class is taxed at much, much higher rates that the rich.

Americans tend to be deliberately blind as to the ramifications of outsourcing jobs to foreign nations and foreign workers. President Bush claims this will help the American people, but has not bothered to explain how. Certainly the business moguls will benefit, and perhaps there will be a trickle down affect. But the working class watch Big Business move jobs and facilities and banking and operations offshore and overseas and hardly take time to contemplate the long-term ramifications of an America which has lost its manufacturing base, has degraded its primary school and other education systems, and will some day wonder why other nations have shot ahead in productivity and have a rising standard of living while America’s will soon begin to slide downwards, perhaps irrevocably.

Americans are in denial about America’s historic role in the world as well. Americans perceive themselves much more favorably than we are perceived even by our allies. Americans live in denial, and as we lose friends and make countless enemies, we also allow the American government to lay a framework for repressive control of our civilian population. The day will come when competitive striving for world resources by a growing human population will intimately affect America’s population. By that time, the Patriot Acts, in succession, will have created a police state that will make those past ones of East Germany, China, and North Korea look like child’s play. Americans will begin to question their government, but it will probably be too late. And a lot of American’s will belatedly learn that the government planned well for these realities, as they find themselves in detainment camps with no attorneys, no rights, no freedom and no power to change the situation. The corporations will fend for themselves, and will no longer value American lives and American freedom. In the end, world corporations and the world’s rich will cling together to protect themselves and their own perceived interests, and any lower class American or member of ANY nationality who believes truly in freedom and justice and fraternity will be a troublesome pest who deserves death or detainment.

Americans are in denial of these realities, though the perceptive few can see the patterns emerging, and some of which described herein are longstanding.

Solutions? Reign in the corporate/media/military complex now before total control is had by the Cheneys and Rumsfelds and Bush’ of this world, alogn with their foreign counterparts. Kerry is part of the problem, not the solution.