Written by John Turner   

Timothy Egan in his column this morning about the imminent closing of the Jack London State Park in California provides an interesting sentence: “The above is a reason to hate contemporary politicians, who show all the creativity of Soviet-era dress designers.”

I have pretty consistently argued against hatred as a defensible emotion but I have to confess that the anger one feels about our current crop of political leaders is hard to suppress. I don’t want it to rise to hatred but I don’t think contempt is at all out of order.

The political/fiscal problems of the American people would, after all, be fairly easy to manage if we could remove just one element from the political mix. The element I speak of is obvious: the the influence the extremely wealthy exercise over the political system in defiance of the well-being of the great majority of the people.

It is becoming increasingly common to say that many politicians are owned by their financial backers, and I don’t think it’s an exaggerated charge. It’s virtually the only way to explain the absurd statements we hear everyday from prominent politicians. What else other than their bought status would cause them regularly to make pronouncements so obviously false that no sane, modestly informed person could believe them?

Reducing taxes on corporations will not lead to the creation of more jobs. The idea that it would is silly beyond belief. Yet we have an entire political party that indulges in this noisome proposition every single day.

Reducing the number of government positions will not stimulate the economy. When you destroy a salary, then a certain amount of money can’t be spent, and the products it might be spent on cannot be bought. Taking money out of the hands of people who have to spend most of it for the ingredients of comfortable life depresses the economy. That’s obvious. Yet it is incessantly denied.

Enacting policies which insure that a significant portion of the money laid out for health care ends up in the hands of insurance companies, will not reduce health care costs. How could it? Yet that’s what hundreds of politicians tell us repeatedly.

The Social Security system is not in crisis. The solution to any problems it may face several decades from now is clear, and would not impose hardships on anyone. All that would be required would be to extend the range of salaries out of which the social security tax is collected. The people that would affect are so wealthy they would barely notice it, and thereby a pillar of decent, civilized life in the nation would be guaranteed. But the politicians won’t even consider doing it. Why not?

The tax cuts enacted during the Bush administration caused a major hike in the deficit. The rates prior to those cuts were already quite low, compared to our own previous rates and those in other wealthy countries. What possible reason might there be for extending those cuts? Yet we have an entire party announcing that if the cuts are not extended, they will inflict financial collapse on the nation. Why would they do that?

The United States spends about as much money on military activities as the rest of the world put together. There is no power in existence that threatens the security of the United States. So why do we continue military spending at this profligate rate? It makes no sense whatsoever in terms of the actual needs of the American people.

There is only one answer to all these questions. Bought politicians are imposing burdens on the people in order to serve the interests of a tiny, military oriented, corporate plutocracy. This is the classic definition of corruption. For the past several decades the United States has been in the process of abandoning the practices of a democratic republic in order to provide corrupt gains for the few.

Why is the American democracy so weak as to allow this process to continue? The answer is that money can now purchase fairly complex propaganda programs which at the moment are overwhelming the critical intelligence of the people. It’s hard to say which is more blamable, the intellectual lethargy of the people or the ruthless greed of the plutocracy. But it’s not hard to see that they have worked together to transform the ideals of the nation. The anger we feel towards craven politicians for aiding the whole miserable process is understandable, and perhaps inevitable. But we shouldn’t get carried away by it. Politicians, for the most part, do what they are told by the powers that reward and punish most effectively. Right now, rewards and punishments are dished out more potently by the plutocracy than they are by the people.

If the people want a country supportive of their health and aspirations, they have to invigorate both the rewards and punishments they employ. If they can’t find the intelligence and courage to do that, then I guess you could say they deserve what’s coming to them. At that point, the anger -- and yes, even hatred -- we feel should be directed mostly at ourselves.