"I pledge allegiance to the flag ... " intones every first-grade kid, in unison and sincerity. When I was in the first grade, we faced the mortal crises of Pearl Harbor and fascism in Europe.
I was yet to learn history, to see that not all cowboys rode white horses and that not all Indians were murderous savages. I still had to realize that human servitude did not end with the abolition of slavery.
Even today I am still learning that racism has never reached the point where a white "listener" to stories of black hurt or denigration was not in the privileged position of just dodging the uncomfortable implications, dismissively. Such stories often become "unjustified accusations," or flipped around to be called "reverse racism."
We united to win World War II, and our national decisions to rebuild Germany and Japan into self-sustaining countries, spurred our own rebounding prosperity. But our position as King of the Mountain is eroding badly. The rich have gotten richer, the poor are getting poorer, and the gulf between "us" and "them" grows with the bitter dissension between Right and Left. It is almost like a civil war with the Right seceding.
What strikes me is how fervently the Right recites its formula as if it were the pledge to the flag, in lock-step unison, over and over, desecrating civil argument, denigrating the president, and disparaging any endeavor that is not privatized.
At present, the priority is to get rid of Obama, who is called everything but black, though that is the odor of everything that they do, in fact, dare to say, lies included.
Obama, following his instincts for cooperation and rationality, has seriously weakened his image by not playing their game as they try to make the country ungovernable. In the face of insult and insinuation, he turns the other cheek, inviting crucifixion.
Indeed, many on the Left see him as too allied with Wall Street and banker-type advisers. He named General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt to head his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, whose first act was to identify how even small business is harmed by too many complicated regulations.
Both GE and Warren Buffet's company have been favored with enough tax loopholes as to totally avoid corporate taxes. But middle of the road is invisible to myopic right wing extremists. It is not in their script.
On the other hand, they were mightily alarmed at the prospect of Elizabeth Warren heading the Consumer Protection Agency. She helped to create it after the abuse of exotic banking products helped to spark the financial crisis we all inherited from George W. Bush in 2008. Reform that helps everyday people is "stifling oppression" to the Tea Party.
Its creed is something like NO deficit spending, NO tax increases, NO public and ONLY privatize services, and NO restraints on the business ethics of wealthy interests that "create jobs." After the Republican history of creating deficits, I am reminded of how Jimmy Carter was once described as the victim of his own catastrophes.
In fact, there have been NO funded "wars" since Harry Truman. Tax breaks for corporations and the ultra-rich essentially created the deficits they decry. They're the pot calling the kettle black. It seems like the Tea Party types are bent on proving that government is no good, by obstructing and destroying its very usefulness. They know how to do that, so we should let them run it. Yeah, right _ right into the ground.
We hold the world record among industrialized nations of widening the gap between the few very prosperous citizens and the many at the bottom, hopelessly frozen out of their American dream.
A direct consequence is reflected in the U.S. having the highest rate of imprisonment. Our schools are not able to overcome the damage that poverty and social injustice do to children, whose performance in the march to citizenship lags as they mature in a climate of indignity and declining opportunity.
Freedom is increasingly the province of power, and the powerful naturally tend to use their advantage to bolster their own leverage and fortunes. And now, with the idea of "too big to fail," comes the fact that the government takes our money like no corporation ever could on its own, to bail business out _ Big Business.
Who does that speak for? Not for us, because business increasingly has the power to influence government and even to corrupt elections. The growth we are getting is the growth of wealth. That will only increase if the Tea Party gets its way.
William Masters can be reached at wmasters@thedailystar.com. The views expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect those of The Daily Star and its editorial board.
William Masters
Freedom should not belong to the rich alone
- William Masters
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Time for lawmakers who put needs of society first
Richard Lugar, after six terms as a Republican senator -- known for his middle of the road rationality and his foreign policy finesse -- has been ousted by a Tea Party extremist backed by outside right-wing funding.
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War not worth gambling with lives of soldiers
Are you not tired of our war in Afghanistan? It had a point, once, after 9/11. Bush couldn't distinguish his myopic personal agendas from the nation's needs and let Osama escape, dropping the ball entirely, causing many deaths.
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Titanic was a microcosm of U.S. economic disparity
Haunting reminders of the Titanic tragedy have wafted over us with the centenary of its sinking. The maiden voyage of an impressive, state of the art vessel, was a little like that of the Challenger space shuttle, at the cutting edge of developing technology. But the shuttle carried our pride in science and space exploration, not hundreds and hundreds of people.
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William Masters: Nation stands divided between 'us' and 'them'
In February, Trayvon Martin was shot dead as "suspicious" by a volunteer neighborhood watch man. The case has aroused community reaction in Sanford, Fla., and is still echoing across the country.
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A quarterback can't win the game alone
What is the relationship between democracy and wealth? Democracy is a political system, while wealth relates to economics. We have equal political rights, but we don't all have money. Extreme differences destroy the continuity of community solidarity.
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Playing Left Field: Some blur lines between laws of church and state
We have freedom of religion in this country. A clear separation between churches and governmental agencies is constitutionally mandated. Government power may not favor or advance a particular religion.
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Humans need to look at long-term impact on Earth
Global warming is real and we are smugly oblivious. I recall the USS Nautilus making a journey to the North Pole decades ago, and poking its conning tower dramatically up through the ice right at the pole itself, an arrival theretofore possible only by dog sled and arduous effort.
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Playing Left Field: Meaning of 'liberty' lost in GOP's translation
COLUMN BY WILLIAM MASTERS .... Now, during the Republican presidential primaries, we hear a lot about liberty. It is a leave-me-alone type of liberty, suggesting the license to do what one may choose in the sacred call of business activity. Much is sought in the name of freedom.
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Government no longer about power of people
In my time, the idea of conservatism has been turned upside down. Men in my family wore neckties even when just reading the paper at home.
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Americans should respect right to bear arms
Early one morning a while back, I answered a phone call from Wayne LaPierre, head of the NRA, warning that the sky is falling _ no worse: that the U.S. is participating in a U.N. treaty effort to deal with the irresponsible international transfers of small arms.
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Inequalities breed social dysfunction
In my most-recent column, I presented recent epidemiological evidence that the inequality built into a society underlies the sense many of us have that the country is going in the wrong direction.
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Inequalities breed discontent in our modern society
So many Americans feel a dispirited sense of complaint. The conservative ranks have gravitated to Tea Party anger, while more lately, a less-defined segment has turned out to "occupy" public areas for mutual support as the amorphous "99 percent" is filled with discontent about the elite 1 percent reaping the lion's share of wealth.
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Freedom should not belong to the rich alone
"I pledge allegiance to the flag ... " intones every first-grade kid, in unison and sincerity. When I was in the first grade, we faced the mortal crises of Pearl Harbor and fascism in Europe.
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There's no such thing as completely clean energy
Some local people cry "Drill, Baby, Drill," reminding us of our nation's need to be freed from dependency on foreign oil. And we are regularly treated to TV ads praising "clean coal" in generating electricity.
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Consider competence, congeniality when voting
NetSummary
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'People are scared, angry' that the country is going down the drain
There is a widespread discontent among most of us that the country is going down the drain. People are scared and angry. Too many people can find no work at all, and unemployment is not going down.
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'We are all dependent: Both upon the Earth, and on an economy'
If we don't change, change will bury us. That will be because of the changes we ourselves inflict so causally upon this one and only Earth.
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'Corporations are not people; they are tools that entrepreneurs use'
"Corporations are people, my friend," quipped Mitt Romney, in rebuttal to a crowd shouting that corporations should be a source of revenue instead of taxing people.
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Thoughts of a 'bleeding-heart' liberal
This is the beginning of a biweekly column, as The Daily Star strives to remain fair and balanced in relation to the opinions of the day.
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Time for lawmakers who put needs of society first
