The Inmates Are Running the Asylum!
If they wanted to save our democratic republic, not to mention the world, our “democratically elected” governmental officials would be working feverishly to break up the worst violators of our antitrust laws. They would not be standing idly by, allowing the billionaire owners of these super-mega-corporations (to date, there are no acceptable terms for them) to continue to play Monopoly with our country, and the world. By standing aside and feigning ignorance about their constitutionally and statutorily mandated duty to break up powerful, competition- and opportunity-killing trusts (monopolies and powerful oligopolies), and to prevent them from forming in the first place, they are playing the role of midwives to the destruction of our once much more democratic, free, and equitable economy and society.
The wealth and power of today’s billionaire oligarchs have become so oversized and obscene that the World Economic Forum, one of their favorite meetups, this year advocated for two disturbing and insane wishlist items: that the masses would “own nothing and be happy,” and that they would plug themselves into the Metaverse’s virtual reality world and be content to spend large amounts of time virtually existing there. These two stated ambitions of the ultra-wealthy do seem compatible, but that’s the only good thing I can see in them.
For one, the threat that the real estate hoarding billionaires (often operating via investments in huge corporations such as Real Estate Investment Trusts, or REITs) pose to that mainstay of the American way of life, home ownership, looms over the horizon like a dark storm. In cornering the market on residential housing, the billionaire oligarchs are acting not in the public interest but as so many wrecking balls smashing the rights and freedoms of the people. The fact that Jeff Bezos and others of the ultra-wealthy are now targeting residential real estate in their ongoing game of Monopoly is unsettling, as their “shares” in this heretofore much more resident-owned market rise. The phrase “A man (or woman’s) home is his (or her) castle” is not meant to refer to a real castle, in terms of its size or luxuriousness. It means instead that the resident is the rightful proprietor of their home (whether owned or leased) and is free and, in fact, lord and master there — within certain obvious legal boundaries, of course. Naturally, a person may not assault or kidnap others, and so on, just because they happen to be inside their home.
To give a little background to the ongoing buying up, or scarfing down, depending on how you view it, of residential real estate by the ultra-wealthy, during the George W. Bush administration, Bush often boasted about the huge “housing boom” that was taking place in which so many millions of Americans were acquiring homes. However, this housing boom quickly fizzled into a housing bust because of the massive numbers of fraudulently sold mortgages to people the bankers knew would not be able to afford them, due to their lax income and credit requirements coupled with the uncertainties of variable mortgage interest rates. The bankers knew what they were doing, and they knew what would happen. This blatant and extreme mortgage fraud was allowed to continue despite the fact that many top US economists repeatedly warned the Bush administration early on of the dangers inherent in it. The Bush administration chose to take no action to prosecute and put a halt to the fraud and prevent the predicted economic disaster. The result was the Great Recession of 2008.
This was a tragic era in US and world history, similar to the Great Depression of 1929–39. But it was not at all a bad deal for the fraudulent big bankers and mortgage lenders, who got busy foreclosing on the homes of their victims as they fell behind on their impossibly high mortgage payments. The ultra-wealthy and their agents were more than happy to buy up “distressed” properties at bargain basement prices — and paid no attention to the pain suffered by the distressed owners of those properties or the fraudulent part played by the mortgage lenders. All of these “transactions” got neatly rolled up into the “sanitized saga” of the “Great Recession,” as told by the billionaire-owned-and-controlled Mainstream Media. During the height of American distress, the US Mainstream Media (a misnomer, since there hasn’t been much of anything mainstream, or Main Street, about it since it was allowed to be consolidated from hundreds of owners to just SIX — or EIGHT — depending on your source, by the 1996 Telecommunications Act) failed to give adequate, honest coverage to the American people about the true causes of their epic levels of suffering, both individually and collectively — that is, the epic suffering of the poor and working class.
But then most people were filled with “Hope” (Barack Obama’s campaign slogan) when the Obama administration rode into Washington DC on their gallant steeds shortly after the onset of the Great Recession. People clung to that “Hope” for as long as they could as the Obama administration kept bailing out the banksters (to the tune of $Trillions) and kept allocating next to nothing in government, emergency assistance to the victims of the banksters mortgage fraud. They also did next to nothing to bring the banksters to justice. The fines that were imposed on them, some to the tune of hundreds of $Millions, were a mere pat on the wrist as compared to the huge fines and criminal charges they should have faced —in view of the many hundreds of $Billions the bankers in question had looted from the American people during their fraudulent American housing “boom.”
The meting out of such small punishments for such grave crimes was, to the American people who had suffered so much, a great insult added to their injuries. There were millions of Americans who were now jobless and penniless. Hundreds of thousands found themselves homeless, adding to the already huge population of homeless people in America. Thus, we can see that the buying up and hoarding of residential real estate by the richest .001% in this country did not start recently. The ever growing present-day, residential real estate oligopolies got a big “hand” and “leg up” from the George W. Bush and Obama administrations.
However not so “hopeful” that start to the Obama administration was, most of Obama’s supporters felt they had no choice but to just “move on” — and many to “move out (or get thrown out) and move on.” Progressive Americans figured that the Republicans were the greater evil, which concept, when thought over and digested completely, translated: “The Democrats were evil, but just not as evil as the Republicans were … sometimes … I mean…” — whatever! Just watch your back! That was a telling moment, and many Americans woke up to the rude realization that the privately owned, super-mega-corporations, the DNC and RNC, the “Duopoly,” were, in truth, not just the “Evil” and “Eviler,” as formerly believed, but the “Eviler and Eviler-er” of American politics. Many came to the stark realization that it had been this way for seveal decades.
In the case of the oligopoly of the billionaire-owned and controlled Big 6 hyper-mega-conglomerates, the Mainstream Media — under whose 6 (or 8, depending on your source) mega-gargantuan, corporate umbrellas fall all of the large cable TV networks and programming, large broadcast TV networks and programming, large radio stations, major Internet networks and programming, major newspapers and magazines, and major movie studios — the need for trust busting is getting more urgent every day (Foti, 2020). The lack of freedom, competition, and opportunity in our Mainstream Media has engendered a media status quo in which a very substantial percentage of Americans are becoming increasingly dumbed down, misinformed, and divided by the ever more trivial (distraction, not quality), biased, divisive, and misleading news and information; and the ever more pointless, low quality, and unedifying entertainment. Further, in the absence of greater competition and freedom in our Mainstream Media, to our great peril, a large percentage of Americans are becoming more and more incited to outright hatred, rage, and violence against the innocent scapegoats constantly being attacked on certain news and talk shows. One example of this effect is the surge in shootings at places of religious worship by racists or religious bigots.
The effects of the misinformation spewed by many of the Big-6’s media outlets are becoming increasingly alarming. One prime example: Fox News, with such news anchors as Tucker Carlson, the most popular news anchor in the US, who is one of the prime desseminators of the debunked conspiracy theory, “replacement theory.” Racist, hate-mongerers have been spreading this false conspiracy theory since at least the late 19th Century (Duignan). However, just this news anchor and network alone has done a huge disservice by working to incite hate crimes, or racially/bigotry motivated attacks. One of the network’s favorite targets is immigrants. It is deceitful and dangerous propaganda that most people see through, but tragically, a very large minority do not. The result is increased discrimination and violence against racial, ethnic, gender, and religious minorities. Yet the sane majority is unable to counter it since the Big 6 have been allowed to own and control all of the Mainstream Media; and since the Fairness Doctrine (which allowed for the opposing or targeted side of any attack the opportunity to answer the accusations against it) and Net Neutrality (which prevented Internet companies from speeding up and slowing down selected websites and other forms of censorship) were terminated in the Reagan and Trump administrations, respectively.
It is one short step away from Fox News to the more overtly racist, bigoted, and hate-filled messaging of extremist, nationalist, and fascist websites and chat rooms on the Internet and the Dark Web. The consequences of this recycling of old and debunked conspiracy theories targeting immigrants and minorities are particularly tragic at this late stage in the historically regressive year 2022. The “misinform, divide, and conquer programming” of many of the MM outlets has also included constant messages denying the validity of global warming and the health dangers of the Covid-19 pandemic.
These misinformation campaigns, targeted toward the uneducated and uniformed, come at a time when Americans are in great danger, and in dire need of unity to combat global warming, an often lethal global pandemic, record wealth and income inequality, increasingly unaffordable healthcare, prescriptions, and housing costs, rampant homelessness, and shamefully inadequate funding for such necessities as education, childcare, healthcare, and assistance for the unemployed, the elderly, and the disabled.
Such intentional acts as the Big 6’s (or Big 8’s) mass deception and misinformation campaigns, taken in total, have ultimately led to such great suffering, death, and destruction that they constitute crimes against humanity. If shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater is not allowed under the First Amendment, then deliberate misinformation campaigns that can potentially cause or have caused significant death and destruction should not be allowed either. The illegal nature of the billionaire oligarchs’ intent and harms caused in these cases is even more apparent when one considers that their mass deception campaigns are intentionally being carried out in order to prevent people from being able to do the things we need to do to preserve our lives, liberty, and ability to engage in the pursuit of happiness. For these reasons, as pertains to the Mainstream Media especially, antitrust legislation should be at the top of the agenda for our president and our Congress.
So long as an overwhelming majority of Americans are being subjected to what I like to refer to as DDOPE (Distraction, Distortion, Omission, Promotion, and Erasure — which spells, in a roundabout way, Propaganda), and some substantial segment are being induced to hatred and rage against selected scapegoats, how are we ever going to realize what the really crucial challenges that we face are, and how are we ever going to realize what the real obstacles that we’re facing are in our efforts to overcome our challenges? How are we, as a group, ever going to understand the real reasons for our ever decreasing standard of living? And the causes and solutions for global warming? And our ever decreasingly healthy and wholesome food? And our ever more toxic and unhealthy environment? To be deprived of free and democratic elections (by Citizens United class of Supreme Court decisions) and freedom of the press is to place any democratic republic in an extremely vulnerable and dangerous situation. We are effectively facing an powerful and armed-to-the-teeth foe, but we are both unarmed and blind. Not fair, and not good odds. The fundamental right to free markets and fair competition enshrined in the US Constitution applies to all or our markets, including our media market.
The need for a new trust-busting era, such as the Progressive Era of the late 19th Century and early 20th Century, is one of the most urgent needs of our time. I would say it is equally urgent for the people of the US to reverse the effects of the slew of unconstitutional and corrupt Supreme Court decisions from First National Bank of Boston v. Belotti to Citizens United v. the FEC, to McCutchen v. the FEC, which gave corporations and wealthy individuals the unprecedented right to donate virtually unlimited amounts of money to political campaigns and initiatives — reversing the centuries-old right of the states to impose restrictions on these going all the way back to the founding of this country. The founders of this country, in fact, were quite antagonistic and suspicious of corporations, and aware of the inherent dangers posed by their owners. States often broke up or prevented the formation of corporations because of their monopolistic or oligopolistic nature, and because of their tendency to bring about corrupt influences.
But why would our government officials, most of whom were elected through huge campaign contributions from the ultra-wealthy, made possible by the aforementioned Supreme Court cases, be motivated to break up any of the dangerously rich and powerful monopolies or oligopolies owned by their ultra-wealthy campaign contributors? As Upton Sinclair so famously stated, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” There’s our conundrum. The other is, why would most Americans see our most crucial challenges and the solutions thereof when the billionaire class and its oligarchs who own the MM are so busy distracting from, distorting, omitting, and erasing the really crucial news and information, and promoting only their perspectives and their chosen stories and information?
We in the US are nearing a situation very similar to that of the USSR just before it finally collapsed, as a great proportion of the people reached that tipping point where they could no longer tolerate the stresses brought about by economic hardship, corruption, and political oppression caused by their totalitarian regime. Though the billionaire oligarchs’ very own MM almost never truthfully and objectively covers the fundamental threats to our democratic republic, and our survival, many Americans are aware of what they are. But we are helpless to change anything. We are being gagged and smothered by the billionaire oligarchs. And this as the existential threats grow. And this despite the legal and political fact that the Big 6 (or Big 8) MM and all the other super-mega-corporations (trusts) are illegal entities. They brazenly exist and bulldoze everything around them in violation of our constitutional mandate against trusts and for free markets and competition. These monopolies and oligopolies owe their existence to the dark powers of bribery and corruption, which owe their existence to the dark human weakness of greed (not to mention pridefulness, jealousy, wrath, lust, gluttony, and sloth — which rounds out the Seven Deadly Sins of yore).
The obscene piles of ill-gotten lucre of today’s billionaires could only have accumulated to them as a result of their having purchased our government officials’ willingness to violate their oaths of office to uphold and support the Constitution. In fact, there have been instances where corrupt government officials have sent out agents to groom, fund, and pave the way for certain new additions to the billionaire oligarch club. This has been done especially in the high-tech sector in order to establish new, “needful” super-mega-corporations, such as the all-seeing and all-knowing Google (Ahmed, 2015).
None of this is new, in the annals of history. Such extreme levels of wealth as we are witnessing among the billionaire oligarchs, have always been unethically accumulated, and misused, throughout history. There have been times in history, and our current time is not exempt, where the ultra-wealthy have become so excessively wealthy and powerful, and entrenched, that they have become, in reality, criminally insane. It is also apparent, as evinced throughout history, that as their wealth and power grew, so did the progression of their criminal insanity. What do I mean by “criminally insane”? I mean having the will and ability to commit criminal acts due to their insanity.
Lack of empathy (sociopathy) and grandiosity (narcissism) are not mental characteristics that people would desire to see in those who are extremely wealthy, influential, and powerful. Unfortunately, as a rule, they are always present to some extent in these persons. Further, the more wealthy, influential, and powerful they become, the more they come to be lacking in empathy and grandiose. The correlation between wealth, on the one hand, and sociopathy and narcissism, on the other, has been proven by psychologists and sociologists (Manne, 2014). Put all of this together, and it is clear that these people also are prone to becoming more criminally insane. The moral compass of these individuals is lacking, as our human empathy and our humility both form such a large part of it.
To cite one of the most egregious ways in which the billionaire oligarchs have been misleading us toward catastrophe: it has been well documented that it was, in fact, the goal of the fossil fuel industry’s super-mega-corporations (Exxon’s, Chevron’s, BP’s, etc.) to destroy what was left of our chances of preventing a global warming apocalypse — this even after the majority of Americans were convinced that the major cause of global warming was the use of fossil fuels. Most Americans are aware that of their having spent millions of dollars on suppressing the scientific evidence of the link between their fossil fuel products and global warming when we all needed to know the truth about it. Furthermore, if they have not still been working over the past several years to prevent us from effectively combating global warming in time to avert catastrophe, then why have they been spending so much of their immense profits on campaign contributions to our “democratically elected officials” who have been obstructing legislation to combat global warming and on lobbyists whose work it is to influence legislation away from transitioning to green energy and making a timely transition away from the use of fossil fuels — a goal which is shared by the majority of Americans?
In our present, extremely dangerous world, there are many “roads to hell paved with ill intentions” along which the billionaire oligarchs have been dragging us, the people, against our will. But what do our sold-out government officials care about our will? The corrupt Citizens United class of Supreme Court decisions — handed down by the corrupt majority of Supreme Court Justices who were nominated by corrupt presidents and confirmed by corrupt Senators — destroyed the ability of most of our elected officials to represent us, their constituents. As per the new requirements of getting elected or reelected, they must bow to the will of their most “generous” campaign contributors. Very few can thwart the will of the ultra-rich oligarchs — only those who have the vision and the courage to cultivate a following based on their wisdom, fortitude, strength of character, and ability to communicate.
Because of the increasingly corrupt US government (and other nations’ governments), we may well be living — dying — through the beginning of the end of human civilization, the end of humanity itself, and the extinction of most if not all of the higher species. The bought-and-paid-for 99% of the DNC-RNC duopoly will not save us. It is apparent that they are suffering from the delusion that they are lining their pockets with impunity. They have been blinded by greed and are working to serve the greed-driven and power-hunger-driven ambitions of the criminally insane, billionaire oligarchs.
Only we can save ourselves. The only way we can do this is for those of us who see through the lies of the billionaire oligarchs and their hired help to educate those of us who do not — those who are discerning enough to listen to reason. It would be a wonderful accomplishment if we could somehow convince our “democratically elected” government officials to reverse the effects of Citizens United and break up all the trusts that are looting and misguiding our nation — if we could just get them to do their jobs and pull the plug on the ever growing monopolies and oligopolies, and their “mischief.” This will likely not happen. So, as dirty as politics in the US currently is, it is up to us to actually become more active in it and work as hard as we can in that forum, like mud-wrestlers, if need be. Our lives and the next generations’ lives depend on our efforts. We have to do our best to inform the people who have been misinformed and uninformed.
As for myself, I am involved in Bernie Sanders’ Our Revolution, a political organization that has a huge army of volunteers and sponsors in every state and supports truly progressive, honest candidates for public office. I also pay attention to some of the most well-respected, independent news and information media outlets, such as: Common Dreams, Democracy Now!, The Real News Network, Nation of Change, Truthout, Mother Jones, Jacobin, Substack, Sheerpost, and TomDispatch.
Though the activists of Our Revolution and other progressive organizations such as Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, POGO, Center for Media and Democracy, and so on, have been making political gains though their efforts, those gains have not been nearly enough. Our elected officials fell short with the Inflation Reduction Act, for example, stuffing it with handouts to the fossil fuel industry and halting the efforts made to require the ultra-wealthy to pay their fair share of taxes. However, without the hard work of progressive organizations, even the partial wins of the Inflation Reduction Act would not have been possible.
The power and insanity of the most extremely greedy and power-hungry billionaire oligarchs, and of their propaganda, is almost incomprehensible. But then, the power and insanity of any extreme addiction and form of brainwashing have always been nearly impossible to comprehend. There is no question that evil does exist and that life is stranger than fiction. The freakish nightmare we are living through is enough to convince most anyone of these things. Not one of the horror novels or films can touch it, try as such great authors as Stephen King and M. Night Shyamalan may.
Despite all of the hardship, corruption, and oppression we are facing daily, we, like the people who were subjects of the former, totalitarian dictatorship of the USSR, cannot allow ourselves to become dispirited or defeated. In all of human history, for every force of evil, no matter how great, there has always been a greater counter-force of good that has overcome it. We cannot fall into the trap of thinking that it is too late to bring about positive outcomes. In all of the past eras of great injustice, extreme inequality, tyranny, and destruction, those who were on the side of justice, equality, the preservation of fundamental rights and freedoms, and progress, have always won. Always.
References
Ahmed, Nafeez. (2015, Jan. 22). Inside the secret network behind mass surveillance, endless war, and Skynet — part 1. https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-google-e836451a959e
Duignan, Brian. “Replacement theory.” Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/replacement-theory
Foti, L. (2020, September 18). These 6 corporations control 90% of the media outlets in America. The illusion of choice and objectivity 2020. WORLD NEWSERA. https://worldnewsera.com/news/startups/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-outlets-in-america-the-illusion-of-choice-and-objectivity-2020-tech-news-startups-news/
Manne, A. (2014, July 7). The age of entitlement: how wealth breeds narcissism. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/08/the-age-of-entitlement-how-wealth-breeds-narcissism