The Richest, Most Powerful Nation

In the world.

We spent $672,879,000,000 on war-making in 2012 (we call it "Defense," and don't think about it). That may be why the Department of War became the Department of Defense--although there were bureaucratic reasons, as well. Anyway, we may be the most powerful militarily, but part of the reason for that is that we're somehow persuaded, year after year, to spend on "Defense" as much at least as the five next "most powerful" nations combined. But the most powerful nation cannot control the world.

It shouldn't try. We may be "the richest" nation, but we have a lot of poor people. Nevertheless, we'd rather spend money on military toys and warriors, than on helping to maintain people through unemployment insurance, who still cannot find jobs: there are far fewer jobs than job seekers.

Further, austerity's stupidity is causing disasters all over the world.

Tepid growth in the US compares to what austerity has done to nations like Greece and Spain--despite, in Spain's case, conservative fiscal policy--the result: Depression-level unemployment.

In the US, Republicans boast they forced Democrats to cut off the long-term unemployed. Dismissive phrases they use: "a way of life," "rip off artists," and unemployment is an "easy Street" where "fraud" is "rampant." Democrats are faced with a dilemma that doesn't trouble Republicans. Republicans don't believe in government, anyway, so there's no felt obligation to make it work for people--at least people who aren't CEO's or hedge fund artistes.

Democrats seek the money represented by wealthy and corporate interests, too, but they're torn: they tend to believe that government can be a force for good: FDR was their hero. If in order for government to work at all, the long-term unemployed have to be sacrificed, well, the greater good, some reason….

The bottom line is: the most uncompromising, well-funded side, appealing to a minority of ill-informed white people, gets to call the shots, setting the agenda.

Even the New York Times apparently assumes that Social Security and Medicare are going to have to be cut, despite a growing appeal among progressives for expansion, not contraction of Social Security, in response to the disappearance of private pensions, or fully funded public ones. The media attempt to eliminate any dialog about whether Social Security needs to be expanded, instead of contracted, despite the fact that it's self-funding and the payroll tax, is easily modified. It could be raised on the people paying too little, to make the tax no longer regressive; it subtracts a larger share from earnings below $115,000, than for those above that.

The GOP wages class warfare: progressives must fight back, like Senator Warren, not "go along" with elite greed. Americans should reject the elite's takeover, so reminiscent of the Roman Senators' monopoly of wealth in the Fifth Century.

What the Hell?

What the hell are people supposed to do, if they can't find a job, because they're still aren't enough of them, because…?

Republicans refuse to extend unemployment insurance for the long-term unemployed, and propose cutting $40 billion from the Food Stamps budget, as well as advocating cuts to most social programs, while advocating tax cuts for the wealthy. I'd call that class war.

Face it: the very wealthy, more or less the billionaire class, are using their money, judiciously, to insure that they control government, instead of vice-versa. The rest of us are just obstacles to be run over, with a torrent of dollars, made possible by Citizens United.

Democrats? They don't know what hit 'em. They whimper that not extending the long-term unemployment benefits is unwise, maybe even inhumane, but those at the fount of all Democratic Wisdom say: Democrats will try to pass additional legislation--from the Senate.

Who loses? All of us, even the billionaires, if they'd only see it. If you don't give people other choices, they'll have to turn to crime. They'll either hurt others, themselves, end up in prison, or usually both. The cost to society? Do we really want to spend even more on prisons than we do now? Do we want to put away more and more of the "free people" of these United States, which already has the highest rate of incarceration of any developed nation?

There are better solutions, like spending a little bit now to support the unemployed, and a lot more to create needed jobs. There is no magic to this: it's simply that a nation has to invest in itself if it's going to have a future. Siphoning off all the proceeds into the hands of so few--the .001%--almost guarantees decline.

That's where we're headed if these guys win. Maybe, with victories like Warren's and DiBlasio's, the tide could be turning, but there's always that counter-tide of money.

Only if a large enough enraged mass of people rebel against this absurd system, will it ever change. People have to realize how they're being ripped off, every minute. Finance is the largest siphon, of your money to theirs, but there are others in every sector, siphoning off to them the wealth people create. Almost all the increase in wealth since the financial collapse ended up in the hands of a very few extremely wealthy: even though everyone worked for it.

No one rebelled in Fifth Century Rome. Miscreants were randomly burned alive from public lampposts and the barbarians were invading--as well as defending them.

Rome fell, largely because an extremely wealthy class, the Senators, monopolized wealth, and then refused to pay for maintaining the Empire they ran and from which they'd profited so immensely. Most didn't survive the chaos of barbarian dominance in Europe.

Could that be a lesson, even to the billionaires, perhaps?

Religion in Politics

Religion plays a role in our politics, as it did in Fifth Century Rome, but then it was largely a monopoly after the early 500's. Any pagan practices had to be private, (there were still many, not only in the hinterlands, among peasants and serfs, but even in Rome, among the Senators who thought they ran things). The pagan god, Victory, in the Senate was removed, and only Christian rites were approved, or allowed publicly.

Now, religion is more diverse, but still, 'The Christians' believe they should have a monopoly, with a slight nod to Judaism. Jews, after all, have to be converted to Christianity for the Last Days to arrive.

Our new anointed is: Ted Cruz, or so he seems to act. His father, Raphael, after all is a well-known and outspoken evangelist. Some conservative Christians subscribe to a "dominionist" doctrine that advocates a theocratic state run by "believers," and their leaders, of course.

That's actually what The Church in Rome and Ravenna attempted to do in the fifth century. Maybe it's why Emperor Theodosius was denoted "the Great:" he capitulated to Church dominance. His legacy: Goths, Vandals and other heretical Germanic tribes overran his successors and their subjects.

The Church was unable to prevent the barbarian takeover, but was able to weight the game towards a barbarian tribe that converted to the Catholic (Universal, or official) Church--the Franks.

Pagans survived largely in the countryside--the word 'pagan' is derived from the word for peasant or villager.

Today, among the believers of Cruz-type Christianity, the greatest threat is not from pagans or heretics, but from Communists, Socialists or The State. They label Obama a Kenyan Socialist, or a Communist, it doesn't matter which.

Since only a minority, probably smaller than media hype tells us, adheres to extreme fundamentalist or evangelical Christianity, the Ted Cruz's of politics feel compelled to play obstructionist to any progressive change. Gay marriage, according to Raphael Cruz, is a government conspiracy; the Affordable Care Act is a conspiracy to take "our fortunes."

It isn't a stretch for his son, Senator Cruz, to mount a 21-hour filibuster aimed at defunding Obamacare. If saner heads hadn't prevailed, we could have had not only the days of government shutdown but a credit default that would have spelled doom for the most powerful asset the US still has: the US dollar as global reserve currency.

In Rome, the Church, with the reigning Emperor, staged the Adventus (installing holy relics), many times, in an attempt to magic the barbarians away. There were no saner heads to prevail.

Perhaps it's lucky that Wall Street conservatism is not particularly religious: evangelical or fundamentalist. It's unlucky that the establishment believes in other magic: austerity will reduce unemployment; yet it's demonstrated repeatedly that cutting government programs promotes joblessness, while raising taxes on the wealthy will promote prosperity.