Reading Kathryn Schulz's New Yorker article "Food Fight" (10/1/18) alongside Jill Lepore's "These Truths," one striking thing is the truth in Faulkner's observation, "The past is not dead. It's not even past."
Fact is, we have never solved the vexing problems we started with on this continent; we simply agreed to workable compromises to ignore them, or set them aside, like a marriage in which the partners agree to simply live in separate rooms, have dinner with the kids, but in many other ways, lead separate lives.
We get together around the Thanksgiving table, have Christmas, go to family reunions, but as time goes on, we really can't stand each other.
We agree to not fight in the presence of the children or in front of our parents and friends, but underneath, there is more driving us apart than holding us together.
What Lepore clarifies is how much slavery was part of decisions which were made at the inception, and how it nearly destroyed the whole idea of a marriage between North and South, but, fact is, enough Northerners owned slaves, Benjamin Franklin notably, they agreed to dodge the slavery bullet every time it came up, and simply to ignore that problem.
But eventually, it came back to nearly destroy the nation.
The racism which under-girded slavery, however, never disappeared, smoldering deep inside the vital organs of the country.
Then there was the rural/urban divide, which has caused as many, if not more, problems than slavery. The solution seemed benign enough--have a Senate to be sure each geographic part of the country got equal say in federal rules, even if vast stretches of that geography contained few, if any, people. The founders and their progeny decided a country was not only its people, but its land, its acreage, and the rights to that land and its use.
And that, too has come back to bite US.
And then there was the contempt the founding and the ongoing ruling elite have for the unwashed masses, the common man. That got us the electoral college. In recent times at least, that meant minority Presidents, George W. Bush and Donald Trump, were handed power, when the humble masses chose Al Gore and Hillary Clinton.
The men with money, position and power were safe and could manipulate and control the masses.
Most recently abortion has been the driving force which has corrupted and distorted power. Throughout the Bible belt that has meant only one thing really matters: Evangelicals, fundamentalist Christians decided they would vote for Lucifer himself, if it meant abortion would be outlawed. They could take care of Lucifer later, but for now they needed him to stuff the Court with anti abortionists. Nothing else mattered.
Democrats failed to see this, and thought because the majority of citizens favored permitting abortion, this was an issue which would not hurt them. What they forgot is where that majority lies: concentrated in cities and the cities have been deprived of their power.
There are more people in Los Angeles who want abortion to be safe and legal than in both the Dakotas, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, but LA gets only 2 Senators and those empty states get 8. And the Senators control the Court whenever the President is a Republican.
It's a game, and the Republicans have manipulated the game.
They manipulate lots of games, because that's how rich men stay in power--they play games unseen. They get control of things and twist them to their own benefit.
All the conspiracy theories about Jews controlling this or that, about liberals conspiring to control the world with Black helicopters are 99% wrong.
What is true is that people in 400 families control this country.
And nobody yet has figured out how to stop them.
Fact is, we have never solved the vexing problems we started with on this continent; we simply agreed to workable compromises to ignore them, or set them aside, like a marriage in which the partners agree to simply live in separate rooms, have dinner with the kids, but in many other ways, lead separate lives.
We get together around the Thanksgiving table, have Christmas, go to family reunions, but as time goes on, we really can't stand each other.
We agree to not fight in the presence of the children or in front of our parents and friends, but underneath, there is more driving us apart than holding us together.
What Lepore clarifies is how much slavery was part of decisions which were made at the inception, and how it nearly destroyed the whole idea of a marriage between North and South, but, fact is, enough Northerners owned slaves, Benjamin Franklin notably, they agreed to dodge the slavery bullet every time it came up, and simply to ignore that problem.
But eventually, it came back to nearly destroy the nation.
The racism which under-girded slavery, however, never disappeared, smoldering deep inside the vital organs of the country.
Then there was the rural/urban divide, which has caused as many, if not more, problems than slavery. The solution seemed benign enough--have a Senate to be sure each geographic part of the country got equal say in federal rules, even if vast stretches of that geography contained few, if any, people. The founders and their progeny decided a country was not only its people, but its land, its acreage, and the rights to that land and its use.
And that, too has come back to bite US.
And then there was the contempt the founding and the ongoing ruling elite have for the unwashed masses, the common man. That got us the electoral college. In recent times at least, that meant minority Presidents, George W. Bush and Donald Trump, were handed power, when the humble masses chose Al Gore and Hillary Clinton.
The men with money, position and power were safe and could manipulate and control the masses.
Most recently abortion has been the driving force which has corrupted and distorted power. Throughout the Bible belt that has meant only one thing really matters: Evangelicals, fundamentalist Christians decided they would vote for Lucifer himself, if it meant abortion would be outlawed. They could take care of Lucifer later, but for now they needed him to stuff the Court with anti abortionists. Nothing else mattered.
 |
| Red is for empty; Blue has people |
Democrats failed to see this, and thought because the majority of citizens favored permitting abortion, this was an issue which would not hurt them. What they forgot is where that majority lies: concentrated in cities and the cities have been deprived of their power.
There are more people in Los Angeles who want abortion to be safe and legal than in both the Dakotas, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, but LA gets only 2 Senators and those empty states get 8. And the Senators control the Court whenever the President is a Republican.
 |
| Trump won Red; Clinton Blue |
It's a game, and the Republicans have manipulated the game.
They manipulate lots of games, because that's how rich men stay in power--they play games unseen. They get control of things and twist them to their own benefit.
All the conspiracy theories about Jews controlling this or that, about liberals conspiring to control the world with Black helicopters are 99% wrong.
What is true is that people in 400 families control this country.
And nobody yet has figured out how to stop them.
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