“Rome’s liberties were not auctioned off in a day, but were bought slowly, gradually, furtively, little by little,” Mark Twain recalled being taught in school, while pondering by what process our own republic may turn into monarchy. It ought to be obvious by now that if we ever become a genuine police state, it will not arise from an authoritarian ideology necessarily, but as the end result of that insatiable greed for profit that has already affected every aspect of American life from health care to the way college students are forced into debt.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author, essayist and translator Charles Simic
serves up a second helping of scorn on this Holiday in which all of us genuflect to the American Dream and give profuse "thanks" for the privileges, health and wealth we all enjoy through the random happenstance of our being born in the good ol' U. S. of A. Writing for the
New York Review of Books' "Blog" section (think of Sotheby's Auction house with a take-out window), Simic's
"A Thieves Thanksgiving" shines a light on the folks in this country who really ought to be on their knees today giving thanks: first, those whose greed caused the Financial Crisis and subsequently, what has become known as the Great Recession:
What makes a career in white-collar crime so attractive is that there are so few risks anymore. Everyone knows about Wall Street bankers having their losses from various scams they concocted over the years covered by taxpayers. But now, even when bankers lose billions for their bank by making bad or reckless deals, or have to pay regulatory penalties, as Jamie Dimon, the current chairman, president, and chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase did earlier this year, they are more likely to get a 74 percent raise, as he did, than to lose their jobs.
Next on the list of those most thankful are the ones hidden in murky shadows who profited --and continue to profit--from our utterly failed (but extremely costly) ventures in Afghanistan and Iraq, all of which have chugged along mostly under the radar for the last thirteen years while Americans were distracted, trying to survive through unemployment and economic hardships.
[A]ccording to the Commission on Wartime Contracting, an independent, bipartisan legislative commission established to study wartime contracting, somewhere between $31 billion and $60 billion of US government money has been lost through contract waste and fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is now common knowledge that contractors were paid millions of dollars for projects that were never built, that the Defense Department gave more than $400 billion to companies that had previously been sanctioned in cases involving fraud, and that the beneficiaries of such past largesse have not only gotten fabulously wealthy, but continue to be invited to pursue lucrative business opportunities in the new homeland security–industrial complex.
And finally, the people we elected who let it all happen, because Simic's central point is that the days when public officials questioned or --(gasp!)--attempted to stop all this looting of the public trust
are but a distant memory:
The days when the subject could be raised are long gone. We now live in a country whose political system is too corrupt to defend itself from crooks. Should some senator or congressman have a sudden attack of conscience and blurt something out, “dark money” brings them to their senses and reminds them that their job is to facilitate the transfer of public funds into the pockets of the few and to not ask too many questions. Almost $4 billion was spent on this year’s midterm election and out of that $219 million on dark money, all with the blessing of the Supreme Court, which in 2010 Citizen’s United decision made bribing men and women running for office legal and turned politicians who could not be bought into an extinct species.
Of course, ordinary Americans do have a lot to be grateful for this Thanksgiving. We have a system of Labor Laws that provide at least a minimum level of protection for workers; we have Social Security and Medicare for when we get old; we have relatively clean air to breathe, clean water to drink and safe food thanks to the FDA and the EPA. We have a system of justice, civil and criminal that works most of the time (though not always). We have long stretches of highways, beautiful mountains and clean beaches, and we still have cheap gas and electricity compared to everyone else in the world. Most of that is because of the Democratic Party, but all of it stems from a fundamental belief that government ought to serve the interests of those governed. At one time that belief was shared by both political parties, only the means and methods differed.
The situation now is different--one of our two political parties is completely beholden to the interests of a tiny, uber-wealthy segment of the population, with absolutely no desire or interest in serving the "public good." Their policies are crafted to aide those who would loot the country and impoverish its citizens. The other party is divided between those who are fighting a rearguard action to preserve what remains, and those being co-opted by the lure of profit.
In the meantime, the thieves are giving thanks today.