Aohell

A Reflection on George Orwell, Red Cloud, Heaven, and Hell

We of the sinking middle class may sink without further struggles into the working class where we belong, and probably when we get there it will not be so dreadful as we feared, for, after all, we have nothing to lose. -- George Orwell

As election time draws closer, I become reflective upon the process: what the mythology says it is and what it actually is.

In American mythology, the people speak on voting day. They choose their leaders, who could be just about anyone who wants to try his hand at running things, and the government responds to the mandate of the people.

In reality, the people vote upon a pre-approved slate of candidates who either are members of the Republican or Democrat parties, who enjoy a co-dominion in US politics, or they vote for people who had to do far, far more than show up sober to one of the Republican or Democrat nominating committees. These outsiders are kept as outside as possible by the major parties. They must raise huge sums to compete, or in some states to even file a candidacy. They must amass signatures to prove they have a modicum of support. Why don't the major parties jump through those hoops? The fix is in. They already know they have power and money, so they need not display it like everyone else. And who wrote these laws, which serve as barriers to entry in the free market of ideas? The Republicans and Democrats.

And do they respond to the people? They respond to the people to some degree, it is true. I won't be entirely cynical. But they respond even more readily to huge lobbying efforts on behalf of massive corporate entities and the richest 1% of the richest 1% of American families. America has been bought and paid for, and 99.99% of its citizens aren't on the board of directors.90% of Americans don't even own a share large enough to be noticed, even for a moment, at a blue-plate fundraising dinner. This is not their America. This is, and always has been, the America of the untitled aristocracy.

Income disparity continues to widen in America. This is not necessarily a bad thing in the long run. As my electric bill robs me of plans for my future and I struggle to slay the hydra of debt, the very money I pay to keep the wolves away from my door goes to the pockets of the owners of those wolves and makes their wallets fat with my cash.

All right, so I exaggerate with imagery. Who carries cash, anymore? No, it is their bank accounts which grow ever larger as the electronic bits instantly transfer money away from me and into the laps of the waiting rich, whose government will allow them any tax loopholes their lawyers can write - and when a $500,000-a-year lawyer can save millions of dollars more in taxes, one hires lawyers for just such a purpose and pays them every penny of their retainer fee. And when I pay taxes to the government, who does the government contract with to provide for the common defense, to promote the general welfare, and to secure the blessings of liberty? Ah, that would be the rich, again. Yet again, my money flows uphill.

And defense for who? The poorer the neighborhood, the worse the crime rate. The richer the neighborhood, the more secure the police coverage.

And general welfare for who? The rich pay a much smaller percentage of their income in taxes than the not-quite-so-rich on down to the destitute and starving. The benefits of those taxes go to those whose companies can skim off the public till. The rich even find ways to qualify for farm subsidies and tax credits intended to help the poorest Americans.

Blessings of liberty? The Constitutional rights Americans supposedly enjoy are enjoyed only at the whim of the sitting president. Should he do something unconstitutional, it requires a massive court challenge spanning years and costing potentially millions of dollars in order to attempt to undo. Mind you, that's attempt. There's no guarantee the Supreme Court will agree with your interpretation of "constitutional". Corporations choose to pollute and pay fines rather than clean up. Death penalties are assigned to the poor at greater rates than to the wealthy, yet one does not see a lack of wealthey men accused of murder. One's lawyer can secure the blessings of liberty. or at least the blessings of a prison stretch in a high-quality jail, if paid highly enough. For everyone else, the wheels of justice are made to crush.

No, it is as Orwell says. The middle class will fade and join the poor. It is an inevitable process, perhaps recently sped up by the industrialization of China, India, and the former Soviet Bloc. Their populations are producing millions more skilled workers who are eroding the middle range of salaries in the developed world.

And as Orwell said, it will not be so dreadful a thing as the middle class may be thinking. What do we have to lose but material possessions? When they're gone, we're free.

I am poor and naked but I am the chief of a nation. We do not want riches but we do want to train our children right. Riches would do us no good. We could not take them with us to the other world. We do not want riches. We want peace and love. -- Red Cloud

Let the rich have their riches. I believe in something beyond this life. I am patient. If I have nothing going into the afterlife, I will not miss it at all when I am dead. I will be in heaven. The rich who set their hearts upon the wealth and power of this world will not have it in the next. They will desire it, but they will not have it. They will be in the same place I am, but they will be in hell.

Now I think I understand more why Jesus said a rich man would have a very difficult time getting into heaven. Because of that, Orwell's quote above does not depress me. It sets me free.

The truth is cruel, but it can be loved, and it makes free those who have loved it. -- George Santayana