Meltdown, Shutdown, What's Next? or Marriage of the Super-rich and Religious Fundamentalists

Economic meltdown in 2008, government shutdown in 2013, what will be destroyed next? What is behind these two crises? How are they related to climate chaos, racial, sexual, cultural and religious intolerance and social indifference? Our fragile species is having a time of it on our little planet, yes?

The economic meltdown was the result of the greed of wealthy individuals and the financial sector, primarily investment firms, banks and insurance companies. They invented toxic instruments that were not backed by real assets or real production. When those collapsed, the federal government was used to apply citizen (tax payer) debt to bail them out, or else.

Now we find ourselves in a government shutdown that is the result of social, economic and environmental indifference and hostility to the sick, the elderly, the young, the poor and even to the middle class. It is born from the marriage of an unlikely couple, the super-rich and religious fundamentalists.

The super-rich including most prominently the fossil fuel industry despise the federal government for any attempt to respond to climate chaos which would endanger their asset base and their profits. But it also includes all of the super-rich who do not want to be taxed to pay for health, education and infrastructure for the masses.

Religious fundamentalists, on the other hand, hate the federal government for its support of the equality and rights of the different races (translate Blacks and Hispanics), sexes (translate women) and different sexual orientations (translate homosexual marriage).

Their shared fear and hatred of how the federal government has and could hurt their trust funds or their prejudice and moralism is what has brought about the unholy political marriage of the super-rich and religious fundamentalists.  

For them the primary roles of the federal government are two: 1) to have massive military capability to protect the interests of US corporations around the world and 2) to have policies, a police force and a penal system at home to control and subjugate women, youth, the elderly, the poor, homosexuals, Blacks, Hispanics, climate activists and liberals.

I truly wish all of the above were just paranoid delusion rather than naked truth. But there is hope where there is truth and a vision of a better world for all the people and all the planet.

May we each speak, write, organize, act and stand our ground with compassion for those who suffer from greed, fear and hatred but most especially for the least, the lost and the last.