Oligarchy Wins Again, Again and Again
— Oligarch Protection Units (OPUs) Have Become Too Strong!
America’s oligarchy has been around since inventions of the cotton gin, the railroad, model-T and space rockets. It even played a filthy role with slavery. New, improved and monster-like as ever, today’s modern oligarchy — America’s Oligarch Enrichment Project — has nurtured waves of political evil since JFK was shot.
It’s not only the wars, proxy wars, coups d’etat and economic deprivation cruelly unleashed around the globe— a never-ending cascade of millions killed, injured and displaced— oligarchy also created the deadly catastrophic condition of Climate Change. But let’s be real, call it what it actually is: Climate Chaos.
As if the above isn’t bad enough, today’s oligarchs have manufactured a bought congress, a friendly judiciary, a hegemon military, monopolized media, rotten banking, oil and chemical deals, privatized health care, military grade-equipped police departments, an enormous prison and probation system and control over the public square of social media. Add to this constraints on what can be funded or taught in our academic institutions and a never-ending drug war which heaps too many not into college but rather into an underground economy. More recently, Covid profiteers are having a heyday!
Be prepared to give a hearty hello to facial recognition, DNA entrapment and never forget that your phone has always got you. Indeed, oligarchy has very well-positioned itself.
Meanwhile, the two political parties, each appeasing their own set of oligarchs, remain bogged down with god, gun and gay issues used to help determine which political party a citizen might wish to join or support. Note neither of these issues have anything to do with economic reality. Think how America’s independent political parties and voices routinely get cut out of the game.
Let’s examine what happened the last time oligarchy shot its wad, giving birth to The Great Depression at the end of The Roaring Twenties.
Before Franklin D. Roosevelt came into power, oligarchy saw only glory and manifestation. Robber barons were held in high esteem. It was almost as if the genocide of Native Americans and America’s slavery trade had been completely forgotten. Oligarchy never even skipped a beat during Prohibition. And a neatly tucked-away piece of history is capitalism’s role with building up Nazi Germany.
A strong progressive political response was required to combat the oligarch-induced Great Depression. FDR’s New Deal rescued America, saved families and gave rise to what ultimately became The American Dream.
Henry Wallace
Roosevelt’s original vice president was a Texas conservative named, John Garner. A prohibitionist and friendly to oligarchy, Garner was never fully in tune with what Roosevelt wanted. In fact, Garner ran against FDR’s reelection bid in 1940. Keeping to his strong progressive agenda, FDR replaced Garner with democratic-socialist and Secretary of Agriculture, Henry Wallace.
As vice president Wallace staunchly supported and advocated FDR’s leftist policies. He offered great contributions to the war effort, was very adept on economic fronts and he played a key role helping to reduce rural poverty in America. Wallace was exactly what our country needed!
He became world renown after he delivered a speech in 1942 at the Commodore Hotel in New York City. The theme of his speech was Century of the Common Man. Wallace highlighted that winning the war would be like ending slavery and that winning the peace meant a better standard of living for the common man not just in America but everywhere on the planet. His words, his ideas were directly at odds with US oligarchy.
Indeed, shades of Republican William Taft, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover influences of oligarchy were still in the air. There were also rumblings from conservative and moderate Democrats, especially the Dixiecrats who didn’t like that Wallace denunciated racial segregation. While the progressive FDR and Wallace governed to help create a strong middle class and end poverty, and despite their best war efforts, staunch capitalists still hungered with a lust to feed.
Back room deals were made and socialist Wallace got kicked off the Democratic ticket for FDR’s final reelection bid. They feared Wallace would become president upon FDR’s passing due to his frail health. Hello, Harry Truman! FDR did die several months into his fourth term. Truman, instead of Wallace, became president.
The Marvel World of What-If
Were Wallace the president instead of Truman, our planet likely never would have seen the horror from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs. Wallace wouldn’t have dropped those nukes!
Moreover, had Wallace become president with oligarchy desperately scheming for its comeback, very well it could have become the progressive Wallace who might have been assassinated, and not JFK later on. Why? Many of JFK’s New Left policies would have been attempted and perhaps accomplished under Wallace. Like JFK, Wallace was no warmonger and he would have opposed building up the military-industrial complex which became a key component tool of oligarchy.
Wallace, undoubtedly, was the true enemy to oligarchy.
In this What-If scenario, depending on who Wallace would have picked as his VP, America’s presidential succession throughout the ’50s could have seen the hardcore Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan types arrive sooner. Instead it became the relatively moderate Republican Ike Eisenhower who followed Truman, thus setting the stage for JFK to launch for a progressive America in FDR’s footsteps.
The What-If scenario also shows that JFK might never have become president because the wheels of oligarchy, by assassinating Wallace, would have completely greased progressives out of the picture, much like what has happened today. Also, America’s middle class might never have achieved the greatness it did because oligarchy would have gained an earlier grip.
Oligarchy always fights back. It remains hellbent on crushing progressive politics no matter what required. Using the tool of assassination has never been out of reach, and thinking about such a possibility is certainly not a wild consideration. Think how fiducial actuaries determine, on behalf of their oligarch masters, that it’s more profitable to pay wrongful death settlements than to actually pay the costs to fix major defect problems (see Ford Pinto crash-burn analysis).
Progressives Locked Out of Sharing Governance
Contemporary American history proves, progressive policy (people policy) got locked out of power when progressive Wallace was forced from FDR’s ticket. It happened again when the progressive JFK was assassinated.
Even his progressive brother Robert Kennedy got shot trying to become president. What were the odds Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. would both die from gunshots and at key moments in history? Future potential progressive presidential candidates like Paul Wellstone and JFK, Jr. saw planes crashes scrabble with their fate.
Not that he was a great progressive, but Al Gore did advocate some serious climate change initiatives that were directly contrary to positions of oligarchy. Remember what happened to him? Of course, we all saw what they did to Bernie Sanders during his two campaigns and think how independent-minded former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard bucked the system. Today, it’s as if Gabbard doesn’t exist in the media anymore.
The final nail in the coffin for America’s progressives happened when oligarchy finally captured control of America’s media, the press being the last line of defense for the people. When Reagan-Bush came into power there were 50 major media companies. Today, five corporate conglomerates control 90% of all US media. Their impact on the social media public square is markedly apparent.
Yes, Bill Clinton deregulating the FCC wasn’t helpful and this weakened protections for a free press, but I believe oligarchy’s ultimate media grab came as a response to America’s Occupy Movement. This movement became like a direct kick in the groin of capitalism. Occupy very clearly defined what is described in the below meme:
Indeed, America’s media hasn’t been the same since Occupy! The media ombudsmen critics have all been fired and today’s investigative journalists have become potted plants for the governance of oligarchy. Very sadly, primary media has become tainted with lies, distortions, omissions and perversions of truth.
