Updrafts and the rebirth of ideology

I hope at least some of my visitors are Republicans, conservatives, or libertarians, and before I begin my rant, I'll attempt to establish a bit of credibility with you.

First, I am a professional journalist, with a degree in journalism, a career now about to enter its 42nd year, and somewhere around 20 years of experience teaching journalism to people of virtually all ages, 6-96.

Although we journalists purport to be "objective," in fact there is no such thing. No human being can completely separate him or herself from our beliefs, biases, experiences, observations, and learnings. All I can say about me, David Weir, is that I have tried to stay open-minded my whole life, often to the dismay of those around me.

For example, as a teenager, not yet able to vote, in 1964 I fervently supported Barry Goldwater, the conservative Republican who threatened to drop a nuclear bomb on Vietnam in order to end that irksome war. (He was defeated by LBJ in a landslide.)

Four years later, when I finally could cast a vote, I probably voted for some fringe leftist candidate like Eldridge Cleaver of the Peace and Freedom Party. (Needless to say, my vote was similarly meaningless that time around.)

I veered sharply left for a while and in the elections that followed, I usually supported independent candidates (who invariably lost), but as I aged, I started occasionally to vote for Democrats, because they seemed the lesser of two evils, or because the Republicans who were on the ballot were so horrible that their victory would lead to something, as the child of hard-working immigrants who counted every penny, that I feared above all else: Class Warfare.

Now, why did I fear this development? I was well-read in Marx, Engels, and the brilliant American progressives of the first half of the 20th century. And, therefore, I knew that provoking class warfare was the goal of many a radical, past and concurrently in the period I am discussing here.

But it was never a goal of mine. I liked certain aspects of Marxism, especially the ideas of equality and redistributing wealth unfairly inherited from the crimes of their fathers and grandfathers.

As I got even older, I started flirting with capitalism, finally, taking jobs that allowed me to experience the power of free markets, free trade, and wealth creation. On occasion, I found myself once again supporting certain Republicans over their Democratic opponents, especially when the former grasped the transforming potential of technology and globalization, while the latter tried to prevent the inevitable.

When Salon sent me to Washington in 1999, I was firmly committed to recruiting conservative and libertarian writers, and I did so with relish.

But, even during this, my second conservative period, I could never resolve the problem of our common, social externalities, especially our shared environmental responsibilities.

At heart, being true to myself, I am an environmentalist AND a journalist. I've considered all ideologies, stayed as open-minded as I am able to be, and played the role of my own worst devil's advocate before I publish anything at all.

***

Today, I read an article buried deep inside the New York Times, which triggered this rant. During the three-year period 2003-5, the most recent statistics available document that the richest one percent of Americans increased their household income 42.6%, or an average of $465,700 a year!

No other segment of the American class system experienced an income growth of more than 4.3% during that period; sadly, the poorest segment grew by only 1.3%.

I ask any of you who are true blue Republicans, how can you justify this obscene transfer of wealth upwards? This is not the Republicanism of my youth. This is the dictatorship of the super-rich, who are benefitting globally from the U.S. dominance since the end of the Cold War that you might as well call them heartless vacuum cleaners, sweeping up the hopes and dreams of all of the rest of us to a measure of greed that historically caused empires to fall.

You and I, mere ordinary Americans, are doomed to be swept away in a fury of hatred, I fear, as the rest of the world retaliates against the greatest transfer of wealth upwards in the history of humanity. It is not right. It is not moral. No religion can justify this.

Those of us able to exercise the franchise in this, the most powerful if nowhere near the most democratic of nations, need to sweep the evil Republican elite out of power and humiliate them, reducing them to such a marginal place in our political system that several new parties can emerge.

We, the true American people, don't want you any more! You have perverted everything dear to us. The next President must tax the rich, ruthlessly. Why?

Because they then will no longer have the resources to continue subverting what was once our imperfect democracy, but today, is the most hated, greedy, war-mongering class on earth...upper class Americans. Many are war criminals; the others are class enemies of you, me, and all other decent people.

I believe somewhere in the French Revolution, or perhaps in Alice in Wonderland, either of which is relevant here, the phrase "Off with their heads" was uttered. It's getting to be time for that, here in the supposedly land of the free.

Ask not for whom the bell tolls, Rich America. The bell tolls for thee.

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