Perfect Illustration of the currant state of the USA.
Sad but true. This country, the one we’ve been crowing about for nearly 250 years as the shining example of the triumph of democratic achievement has one, tiny, little secret:
It was all a big fat fucking lie.
Created by rich white men, most of whom either owned slaves, had owned slaves, or would own slaves. They were almost certainly not the enlightened and completely altruistic heroes we’ve been told about. They regarded most women as property. Sure, some allowed themselves to lower themselves to the level of women and were duly rewarded when such women seemed to bloom under their care, guidance, and tutelage.
(Of course, what was really happening was they were allowing themselves to recognize the skills, value, and abilities that had always existed in these and all women.)
Is it any surprise then, that at the end of the day, this country, every scrap of it, has an incredible bias towards white men and rich white men in particular. This bias is so very fundamental as to be nearly invisible.
Make no mistake. These men created this country for the benefit of all. No doubt about that.
But in their hearts, the word “all” was synonymous with “white men” first and foremost. All others came a very distant second.
This is the unspoken fundamental truth that we’ve been in denial about since forever.
Not surprising, considering white men had been pretty much running things forever.
There was no reason to change.
Think about that.
Re-read all of the great, glorious, magical, documents associated with the birth of our country. See all the references to “men”. We’ve culture-corrected those references, in our own heads, to mean “people”. (After not a little pushing, shoving, bleeding, dying, killing, etc.)
But this does not change the intent and underlying world view shared by these great men. They envisioned a country filled with all sorts of entities; men, women, and others.
That’s how they saw people. Anyone not white belonged to the “other” category. These were entities that were “almost” people.
The simple and somewhat ugly truth, the truth that we’ve been denying, is that these men, the founders of our country, created a world where they, as the destined ruling class (that being white men) would thrive and prosper.
And they (most of them anyway) gave absolutely zero thought to anyone outside themselves.
Don’t misunderstand, they wanted only the very best for everyone. (Provided the quality and opportunities of their own personal lives were never impacted negatively.)
This is why our country is broken. It was broken from the beginning.
Can it be fixed?
There was a time when the answer was “Of course! The US can do anything!”
But that’s a lie. We’ve clearly demonstrated the profound ability to NOT be able to do anything, other than to make rich white men richer and more powerful.
We make it through the so-called civil rights movement. We thought gains were made. We thought the country was moving forward.
We thought it was working.
And at some levels, town, city, and state, it might have been.
But at the federal level, the rules still give all the power and opportunities to rich white men. Others need not apply.
The civil rights movement did nothing to eradicate the underlying hate, resentment, and outrage that afflicted so many white people. When they no longer felt welcome in the national conversation, they didn’t go away. They went silent and underground.
And they grew. Initially, via word of mouth and personal relationships. The internet age brought them all the tools they needed to connect, thrive, and most importantly, influence.
Still doubt the idea?
Take a look at the baby-man Cheeto “running” the country.
All of his perceived faults, the thinly veiled hate, the ignorance, the lies, the denial, the seemingly endless list of character flaws, are perfectly representative of the kind of person our founding fathers saw as the perfect leader: A rich white man.
They would have seen no problem with the Cheeto. They would have clucked their tongues at his boorishness and ignorance. But his fundamental right to be a leader would be a given.
And there’s obviously a great number of people who still feel that way. They see him as a leader…a great one.
We are truly and profoundly fucked as a country.
Until a majority of the people of this country understand the fundamental shortcomings of our leaders, how can we possibly begin to effect real change?
The only way forward is to fix everything from the ground up.
Not amendments, not presidential edicts, not shaming, not focus groups, not anything like that.
We have to start with one simple shared and committed concept: every human alive in this country has all the rights, opportunities, and responsibilities of every other human.
For real this time.
Once that is done, we get really radical.
We level the playing field for real.
For everyone.
We perform the herculean task of equally redistributing all real wealth.
All of it.
There’s about $98 trillion owned by US citizens.
There’s about 208 million adults in the US.
$98,000,000,000,000/ 208,000,000 = (roughly) $471,000 per adult.
That’s right, that’s how screwed up this whole thing is.
We start by taking it all away and actually distributing it evenly.
That’s where we start.
And if we actually do that, it will solve most, if not all of our countries issues.
Let’s get started.
