Judging by the past

Alexander Hamilton said, “A power over a man’s support is a power over his will.” The few who have the power over the “will of men” incite the raging inequality, division and political dysfunction gripping this country.  

Nomi Prins writes in the Washington Spectator, “Since the turn of the twentieth century, a small set of the same families has wielded disproportionate influence over our nation’s economy, policies, and politics. Today’s “Big-Six banks are mostly incarnations of the Big Six banks that existed a 100 years ago.”

The Nation magazine writes, “Tim Pawlenty, in his first two months as head of a lobbying association for financial companies that include Barclays and Wells Fargo, made more than double his  annual $120,000 salary as governor of Minnesota. The self described “Sam’s club Republican” earns over $1.8 million a year working largely on banking regulation.” Is it coincidence that banks have become 38 percent larger than they were before the crash in 2008? Or that the industry with the highest pay increases are banks?

From the MWDN “The high cost of leadership” May 28, 2014, “The industry with the biggest pay bump was banking. The median pay of a Wall Street CEO rose by 22 percent last year, on top of a 22 percent increase the year before.” The assets of the average citizen have not risen 38 percent nor are a majority of American’s salaries 22 percent higher than they were last year.

When it’s the supposed 47 percent of citizens not paying taxes, there’s a cry and a hue about these lazy, immoral takers bankrupting the government, but there’s not too much focus on the tax dodging corporations.  

The Washington Spectator reports, “Over the past two years, CEO’s at the National Restaurant Association’s 20 largest corporate affiliates were paid $662 million in full deductible performance pay. Had that compensation been taxed as salary, those 20 corporations would have paid the IRS an additional in $232 million.” 

Former Senator Mike Gravel who ran for president in 2000 although few knew, writes in his book “The Kingmakers," “the media echo chamber not only jeopardizes our security by hyping phony threats, it strangles our democracy by hyping favorite candidates” and “freedom of speech is not sacred in the echo chamber.” 

These are just some of the paymasters who tilt the balance of power in their favor by waging fierce partisanship on the outside, single handed control on the inside; all fueled by the lap dogs in the echo chamber. 

Patrick Henry said,  “I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experience, I know of no way of judging the future but by the past."

Judging by the past, the worst cruelties are yet to come. All possible through a populace duped because they’re not on the right side of the revolving door. The lives and fortunes of our nation is not a contest between Republican vs. Democrat. It’s the many versus the monied few, just as it has always been; entire populations can’t be born into monarchies or obscenely wealthy families.