Say it ain't so DiFi

So California Senator Dianne Feinstein, aged 82, is looking like she is going to stand for re-election in 2018. Of course a lot can change between now and then. Political climate change, at 82, her health may change, but my feeling on this has nothing to do with those sorts of thing. It really comes down to this. California needs two true progressive senators. Senator Feinstein is not now and never has been a progressive. While it is true that she has sided with the progressives on some issues, but only when that was the party line. I can't recall any time she has stuck her neck out to stand up for individual rights (Patriot Act) or protecting the New Deal (Glass–Steagall). She is and always has been at best a Corporate Democrat with a dash of chicken hawk and at worst a Democrat in Name Only. She has stood by the party in most cases but she has not led the party. As most in government do, she has done a decent job of representing her campaign contributors. But she has done less decent job of representing the working people of California. I am not saying that she has been a terrible Senator, she has not been. Only that she has been less than we need, especially now. Please madam Senator, step aside and allow someone show will advance the interest of the people against the encroaching corporate monolith. The battle between democracy and feudalism is rapidly approaching. You are not up to the task, and I am not entirely sure which side you would be on. Tweet

Why am I writing this story again?

This is the third Christmas in a row that I have written about Barbara, the woman who stands outside the building where I work begging for money.  The first two times were Second and First.

She is thinner now, if that is possible, than the first time I wrote about her.  I have seen her with cuts and bruises, and broken bones.  She has disappeared for days at a time, only to return with stories of being in the hospital.  Sometimes it has been due to illness, and others due to the fragility of aging bones.  But still she clings to existence, such as it is.

She is the face of our steadily declining commitment to the least of us in our society.  She is also the future, if the right wing has their way.  She is no longer any use, so they have no qualms about tossing her onto the scrap heap.  When you and I are no longer of use to them, that is the future they envision for us too.  Of course they would rather we had the decency to just fucking die when we are no longer useful to them.

I know, you think I am exaggerating.  Then how do you explain that, when there are men and women like Barbara, just hanging on by a thread, and they want to cut every service that Barbara and people like her depend upon to survive, while at the same time giving tax breaks to those who want for nothing?

They would tell you (if they had the courage to speak their minds openly) that there is a natural order to things, and that you exist to serve your betters.  It is essentially the same line that you have heard in all class based societies.  If you stand up for yourself?  Then you are instigating class warfare.

It is much like the line used against black Americans during the civil rights movement.  They were expected to stand idly by while they were brutalized, lynched.  But should they stand up and resist, fight back, then they were instigating violence.

Now two years after I first wrote about her, Barbara is still barely surviving on whatever kind of pension she receives and what she gets begging on the streets.  She gave me a Christmas card again this year, thanking me for the help I give her.   I know she has others, like me, who help her out with a few dollars when they see her.  But still, that isn't enough, not even close.

Unless we change, she is not only the present, but the future.

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An observation

I was reading a article on the Daily Kos today, and while the entire article was worthwhile, there was one point it make that stuck in my mind more than the others.  The author said that the markets of today, rather than being vehicles for the creation of wealth, are now vehicles for the concentration of wealth.

That sounds very much like the feudalism of the middle ages.  A small oligarchy which produced nothing controlled most of the wealth.  Food and clothing was produced and consumed, but the society as a whole was stagnant.  Innovation of any sort was suspect as it had the potential of challenging either the interests of the ruling class or those of the church.  Literacy was the exception, rather than the norm, even among the ruling classes.

Which is exactly where we seem to be going.  The public school system is being systematically dismantled, science is being subjugated to ideology, the middle class is being driven to extinction, and ownership of essentially everything is slowly being concentrated into fewer and fewer hands.  Our own home grown version of the Taliban seeks to exercise their control over more and more aspect of our lives.

The Roman empire is crumbling, and the new nobility stands ready to resume their rightful station.

The new economic model

Anyone who is paying any attention know that the recent attacks on Planned Parenthood have nothing to do with abortion and the sanctity of human life.  Abortions are not the main purpose of Planned Parenthood.  The main purpose is women's health and birth control.  But taken in context will all of the other actions of the right, it makes perfect sense.

Let's try to summarize the current Republican agenda.

• Implement laws to make it harder for the poor to vote, as evidenced by a spate of voter suppression laws being passed in Republican controlled states.
• Under the guise of 'torte reform', make it harder for individuals to hold businesses accountable for their actions.
• Attack public education, stripping both primary and secondary education of funding, demonize underpaid teachers, resulting in less educational opportunity for all but the wealthy.
• De-fund organizations that provide birth control, and cancer screenings for women.
• Remove 'restrictive' regulations on business, like child labor laws, or those that protect worker safety, food safety, or the air you breath, the water you drink.
• Strip workers of their rights to collectively bargain.

 But if you think about it, this all makes sense.  In a feudalistic society, the purpose of the peasants are to supply labor and soldiers.  The value of women is to produce children and then hurry up and die so that your workers do not waste time caring for them in their old age.  The more children they produce, the cheaper your labor costs are.  And if you disenfranchise them, both by taking away their vote, and their rights to organize, they will not be able to do anything about it.

And if you have plenty of them, you don't have to worry if too many of them are poisoned on the job or die in the mines.  There are plenty more where they came from.

Of course, you will still need a tiny middle class.  Someone has to be the physicians and the engineers and scientists who take care of the needs of the landed gentry.  But you don't need many of them.  And knowing they could be tossed back into the pile of peasantry at any moment should make them easy to control.

This model has worked for the benefit of the ruling class in one form or another for thousands of years.  You think our little 200+ year experiment is viewed as anything except a fluke by those on the right?  Think again.  You have a front row seat to what has happened to other social experiments of the past, when the old guard decides that enough is enough.

Unless you decide to do something about it.