A Nation of Suckers

What is a sucker?  A dupe. A person deceived.

W.C. Fields said something to the effect it is immoral to fail to take a sucker's money.

Since even before Ronald Reagan, the rich have run this country, have owned it, but with Reagan and since him, the Republican party has been a master of suckering those they control.

How do you account for the men you find at any bar in any city, even in Boston, but certainly in New Hampshire, men who are electricians, pilots, landscapers, small business owners, employees of large corporations, plumbers, cops, firemen, who may work at country clubs but are not members, who may own homes and cars, but only in partnership with the bank, and all these men are Republicans, if not declared, in sympathy, and they quote millionaires like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, even if they do not know who they are quoting, in vitriolic diatribes against government, taxes and the injustice of their money being taken from them, money they've worked hard for, given to the undeserving poor?

They quote with great mirth a Southern politician who says his dog ought to be given welfare because he qualifies: he's black, he can't read and does no work.

Republicans have used the resentment of the hard working middle class to their own advantage. Somehow, these men do not resent the rich their money, or the control the rich have seized.

A sign in a gas station office, a mock up of a 1040 income tax form: in the column on the right "Total income," and the next line down, "Tax owed," which is the same as the line above it: Total income.

So, it's out there. The government takes our money. 

But here's my question:  These Joe Sixpacks in the bar, they know the Republicans passed tax cuts for the really rich. But they do not connect the free ride for those rich with the money they think the government takes from them. 

When you ask them, "Don't you think you have to pay more taxes because the rich are paying less?" they look at you with uncomprehending stares.

No, it's the government we don't like.

We're okay with rich people. We may be rich ourselves some day and then what? We'll have to pay those big taxes.

Of course, they are digging a ditch; they'll never get rich.

But they cannot see that. They are under mind control, which is even worse than being under economic control.

They are so bamboozled, they cannot even work up a decent resentment and aim it in the proper direction.  They direct their most vehement vitriol at those people who speak the truth, who try to awaken them to the reality of their condition.

Nobody wants to be told they have been had, have been played for fools, and in that sense have been stupid, gullible, and in some part, because of that, they have suffered because of their own obtuseness.

They liked the illusion, the same way boys who going marching off to war like the flying flags, the cheering crowds and the girls throwing flowers. It's only later, and far away, they discover the reality of what they've gotten themselves into.