The nationwide die-ins following recent grand jury decisions may well be what’s to come, once people realize we all, white and black, liberal and conservative, Democrat and Republican, are being screwed alike by the wealthy and powerful elite.
The poorest in our society are lashing out at a system that oppresses them — instinctively at stores, malls and transportation systems — not just cops as the agents of control. What’s happening here may be about more than race. It may be realization that the system doesn’t care about any of us.
Our repressive economy, which increasingly gives more to the top and takes more from everyone else, is not going to change by itself. Once we understand that, there may be some hope of a populist turnaround. First, we need to accept responsibility for what the capitalist system has become. Then we must be fed up enough with the status quo to instigate and drive change by ourselves. Our elected officials are not going to do it because they survive and thrive by protecting the way things are.
Rigged rules and regulations are perpetuated by corrupt, self-serving, hypocrites in all three branches of government. That system will never care about improvements in democracy, economy, education, environment, health, human rights, immigration, infrastructure, jobs or anything else that stands in the way of corporate profits. We cannot have a just and healthy society based first and foremost on corporate profits, with an obscene percentage of wealth flowing to the top.
The fabric of our society is not being torn apart by cops and people in the streets but by the privileged few at the top, whose government lapdogs increase their power and sow the seeds of growing poverty and despair at every turn. The latest evidence is the congressional budget bill, supported by both parties and the president, once again allowing banks to deal in risky derivatives that ruined our country in 2008. Meanwhile, our watchdogs, the corporate news media, dutifully or unwittingly steer our attention to silly melodramas instead of the big problems not being solved for the common good.
But what can we do? Most of us are just trying to live our lives, largely oblivious or callously complacent, overeating unhealthful food, satisfied with mindless entertainment and desperately treading water or falling further behind. The economy is slowly coming back, but not for most of us.
First, we’ve got to recognize the way things are — but don’t have to be. Then we’ve got to care enough to do something about it ourselves. We’ve got to let specific corporate giants and their paid politicians know, through our votes, purchasing power, letters, social media and protests in the streets, that we demand change. This means paying attention to and questioning everything our so-called “leaders” are doing, calling them out at every turn, everywhere and all the time.
When we finally live up to the sacred responsibility our citizenship requires, things are going to change.
David Estey is a fine-arts painter in Belfast and a retired IRS regional manager of public affairs for five middle Atlantic states and Washington, D.C.