How Deep is Your Patriotism?

How deep is your patriotism, gentle reader? Do you welcome yet another President who says, “once again, the American people are too stupid and uninformed about the deep intel that I alone have access to for them to form the right opinion about their own safety”? Yes, it is an attractive proposition: another someone-to-watch-over-me has arrived in the White House; let your neighbors send their sons and daughters to Afghanistan to kill, die and go mad — it’s all for the best in the best of all possible countries.

Now, another question: how about paying higher taxes for your safety? Ouch, that’s a different story, ain’t it? That’s build-the-barricades-in-the-street stuff, right?

Well, no, in fact: look at the story in that link again: Lincoln did it to pay for the war that wiped out virtually an entire generation of young men; FDR did it to fund WW2 and the nuclear dawn; and so on.

Shared sacrifice: that’s what war is all about (note: does not apply to Presidents and their families, members of Congress, executives of large corporations that profit from war). Everyone pays — with their life, their sanity, their health, or their money.

To me personally, it doesn’t mean a blessed thing: I’ve been out of work for 9 months and took the no-withholding option on my UI benefits. This means that, come April 15, I am officially ruined, and I mean turned utterly to financial dust. I will be looking at a sinkhole of a tax bill, and the Feds and state governments will take over my bank account and not let go of it until the debt is clear. They will, of course, only be taking their own money (with the 14 month extension, I’m eligible for benefits until June). I am on financial death row with about four and a half months till my execution date.

There are no doubt millions of Americans in exactly the same position as me: perhaps this is how the revolution will begin, with as many as ten million or more of us unable to pay our taxes and thrown into a cyber-debtor’s prison.

I will not be joining the barricades: I am too old, weak, and cowardly for that stuff. Revolt is not what I’m about; and anyway poverty fills me with neither rage nor fear, only mild annoyance. So all I can do now is observe the signs and show the President what’s ahead. How will these millions of unemployed react when they are told to forget about the rent, food, and caring for their kids — there’s turrurists to fight and kill and taxes must be paid to kill ‘em with.

Now, watch this weekend as the Geithner gang and its op-ed tank, the WSJ and other right wing outlets, assault Paul Krugman for his suggestion that taxing financial speculators might be a good idea. He will be branded a far-left, crazed, unpatriotic zealot with no concern for the future.

As we enter a new decade, it appears that change, once again, is entirely superficial: war is still the sport of the elite, a Roman game observed from on high by a gleaming Emperor; and Chicago is the new Crawford.