Preserving the Freedom of our Economic Democracy

Dear George,

We are living in dangerous times. No, I’m not talking about terrorism; that is nothing more than a non-threat elevated to the level of an imaginary real threat for the purposes of keeping our military-industrial-security complex in robust health.

The danger I speak of strikes at the very heart of our democratic system. But first, I have to take you around the barn a couple of times, so try not to fall behind.

When Ronnie brought mourning to America, he oversaw a seismic change in democracy. Under his firm hand, both political and social democracies were exiled to history’s dustbin and were replaced by economic democracy. This was a frightfully clever ideology in which the masses were scammed into becoming willing participants in their own exploitation.

Two dynamics shored up this economic democracy: debt-driven consumerism and the Africa Syndrome.

Consumerism allowed the drones to maintain a façade of prosperity as they slid slowly down the economic ladder. If the local factory closed forcing blue-collar workers to don a Wal-Mart vest, their impoverishment was tolerable as long as their line of credit had some wiggle room left. It was easy for a drone to forget his misery if he could plop himself down in front of a big-screen TV and lose himself in “Dancing with the Stars” or “WWF Raw.” In short, America’s working class sunk into a gentile poverty that preserved the illusion of a thread-bare prosperity.

The Africa Syndrome is a little more subtle. Thanks to it, America is convinced that poverty wears blackface makeup. It is something that happens in the ghettos and not the burbs. This is because the only time America sees an African on the tube, he is either starving, diseased or dead. But above, an African is a label and not a human being.

What is telling is the outrage that followed Katrina. It lasted only until Blacks were evacuated from New Orleans and scattered across the nation. They were still as poor and as miserable as ever, but they were now diffused and invisible.

These two pillars that supported America’s experiment in economic democracy are starting to crumble. We are beginning to see the stirrings of a populist revolt in the growing popularity of “jingle mail” where homeowners are mailing their house keys to the bank and walking away from the negative equity their houses now represent.

The social fabric that once equated default with shame is no more. The economic repercussions could be devastating. However, I don’t see it getting out of hand as long as corporate-friendly courts are willing to seize property and garnish poverty level wages.

The real problem is the threat the Africa Syndrome is under. The successful exploitation of Whites has always depended on the presence of a Black underclass upon which poor whites could heap scorn and prejudice.

Tragically, this instrument of social control is under attack by the presence of one Barack Obama. Every time he opens his mouth, every time he is shown on the tube, America sees a Black man who is articulate and intelligent. He’s not angry; he’s not peppering his sentences with “‘mo fuckers.” In short, he comes across as a human being, and therein lays the danger.

George, the day Blacks cease to be labels and become human beings is the day the entire structure of economic democracy will collapse. Once Whites discover that their lives are becoming as wretched as Blacks, you will see the growth of a class solidarity that could well shake the very foundations of finance capitalism.

This is why it is so important that your Corporatists throw their weight behind HillBill. She’s spent enough time at the pig trough that she will do whatever is necessary to keep it filled to the brim. Her strength is that she will give the impression of a populist revolt without actually creating one. The same cannot be said for Obama. We simply can’t allow the racist scales to fall from America’s eyes.

Successful impoverishment rests upon a firm foundation of divide and rule. As long as animosity between Blacks and Whites can be kept at the boiling point, the health of our economic democracy is guaranteed.

Your admirer,
Belacqua Jones