Progressive Ponderings: Politics as Theater

by Joe Mayer

Politics as theater has engulfed us lately. After a huge bailout to AIG, their company bonuses for employees have caused every committee on capital hill in any way connected to finance to hold a public hearing in order to present its congressional members the opportunity to vent faux outrage with the cameras rolling. You know it is all drama when it’s the only game in town that is completely bi-partisan.

Politics as smokescreen obscures the truth again. Yes, the bonuses are an affront to hurting Americans, but AIG and its bonus babies are just another symptom. By viciously attacking symptoms, the real causes of our economic meltdown, which are deep seated and historical and reach back at least three decades, are avoided.

Politics as scapegoating allows corruption, as it masquerades as faux empathy for the suffering masses. Power spanks the naughty child after nurturing its growth without discipline or accountability. Accountability is what politicians and their corporate sponsors — along with their mass media echoes — are trying to deflect. And, they’re succeeding!

An abbreviated history:

· “Government by the people” can’t solve problems; it IS the problem – according to the powerbrokers.

· Usury laws are eliminated allowing the financial industry freewheeling.

· Bankruptcy laws are changed to keep people in debt bondage to financial power.

· Tort law is disarmed to allow the corporate world to escape accountability for its harmful acts.

· Judicial action holds the corporation responsible to its owners only — not the community, not its workers, not the common good.

· The tax structure is changed to provide for obscene wealth accumulation, which always diminishes democracy.

· Campaign finance laws are changed so that wealth can establish its own faux democracy.

· Deregulation is promoted so that business can play the game without rules or accountability.

· Global trade agreements – GATT, WTO, NAFTA, etc. – are negotiated to export corporate rule on a global basis.

· A military/industrial/media/congressional cabal is sanctioned to eat up tax revenues and ravage social programs at home while protecting corporate expansion abroad.

· Government administrators are appointed to overturn previous mandates designed to protect the people, environment, and the common good in favor of the “growth” god.

· Election campaigns never mention any of the above; instead divisive issues are promoted – gay rights, immigration, sanctity of the flag, minority cultures – anything to distract from the corruption of government and the economy.

With all this history in place and the economy turned upside down, politicians and the media pundits blame the poor for seeking mortgages, the unions for demanding a living wage, Lynndie England for promoting torture, AIG for failing in Russian roulette better known as unrestricted “laissez faire,” and France for everything else.

A massive, far-reaching power grab has turned our “government of the people” into an insensitive, soulless monster controlled by self-dealing insiders incapable of understanding “common good.” The scapegoating, the smokescreens and the political theater are the deceptions used to achieve its narcissism. The cure involves overthrowing the systems that still view ordinary people as pawns to be played by the wealthy/powerful. Demanding full accountability from all avenues of power is the only way to save our democracy and our country.