Crazies: Wrong And Right

(This started as a letter to Jim Wright, who writes extensively about right-wing crazies outside the centers of power. But I got to thinking that the picture was incomplete, and wondered about the crazies in the centers of power, and what to do about them. This is the result.)

I see a lot about the crazies of the radical right; people like Cliven Bundy and so on. But they're only one prong of a two-pronged movement. They're the outsiders, propagandized to support the insiders: the people who are in the government and, in turn, are put there by that shadowy political leadership that includes the Kochs, Scaife, Heritage, and so on.

There is a real and successful conspiracy.

We snicker at the right-wing nuts and their fear of government. Yet just a few weeks ago, one of the original Occupy Wall Street protesters was sent up for seven years. Her crime? Allegedly she was groped by a police officer (he groped hard enough to leave bruises on her breast) and she elbowed him. She was beaten, jailed, and given a trial presided over by a hostile judge. For her, it seems all the things the right-wing crazies say about the government came true. There was no outpouring of sentiment from the would-be defenders of freedom, no vast outpouring of media coverage from the people who are constantly reminding us of the threat of abused government power.

Police departments have gone hog-wild since 9/11. Homeland Security has funneled huge amounts of money to local police departments. The NYPD spent a huge amount building a surveillance unit to monitor Muslims in the NYC area — half a million people, most of whom are not terrorists. It was shut down this year, having accomplished nothing. It's not just New York City; towns now have tanks. In the Pacific Northwest, not a hotbed of illegal immigration from Mexico, Homeland Security agents were stopping brown people on buses, just because.

We have become accustomed to routine checking of papers by every employer and at every airport. In Washington State, papers are checked at every bar. Bizarrely, just last night my id was checked at Northwest Folklife, a hippie-fest of sorts.

It can't be anarchism if they're checking id.

The Supreme Court has declared that almost any political contribution except direct bribery is protected speech and breaking down the wall between church and state. The House majority has voted to repeal the ACA over 50 times. And it may get worse. Nate Silver gives the Republicans slightly more than an even chance of taking the Senate this year. If they succeed — it is possible they will shoot themselves in the foot again — we may be in for years of government abuse. Even if not, we are in for more years of legislative deadlock, when we face problems desperately in need of attention. Hundreds of thousands lost their homes and their life savings in the banking scams of the 2000s and not enough was been done. The securities markets have been fixed in favor of the very wealthiest traders and banks and are at risk of a second collapse and not enough has been done. We have the highest unemployment in two generations and not enough is being done. We direly need infrastructure work; our country is literally falling apart and not enough is being done. Environmental destruction continues unchecked and not enough is being done. The global balance of power changes and all Washington wants to do is cut the deficit and the civilian government and spend more money on the military.

Why are we so entranced with authority, if authority does not act on our behalf?

As citizens we are subject to an arbitrary and incompetent government, heavily influenced by wealthy minority which controls one house of Congress and has an international propaganda network. Some things the right-wing crazies say are true. They are wrong about which side is doing them. They are wrong about what to do about them. And yet in this the are right: we have lost control of our government and it is not representing our desires or acting in our interests.

We are too much afraid of "anarchism" — freedom — and too little afraid of plutocracy, aristocracy, theocracy, false demagoguery.

What is to be done? Oh, I'm not expecting the United States or the world to suddenly turn into perfect places. But surely democracy can be made to govern more-or-less on behalf of the demos, and not on behalf of wealthy cranks, religious madmen, and the violence-obsessed.