Injustice and Inequality: No Mas!

Mexican Politicos, police, and narcos conspired, reportedly, to murder 43 students who were incidentally in the way of a party planned by the Mayor’s wife of Iguala in the state of Guerrero. When a Mexican Official dismissed concerns, citing fatigue: “Ya Me Canse (Enough, I’m tired), protestors turned the remarks around and redefined government inaction from a populist POV: Yo Me Canse (Enough. I’m tired.)

Thanks to Cesar Chavez and the first Obama campaign, Americans revived the notion of “Si Se Puede” (Yes we can). Now we might simplify and identify with the great Panamanian fighter, Roberto Duran, who, when out-boxed by Sugar Ray Leonard, finally said “No Mas.”

Let us say “no mas” to injustice, the official liars of the state and the wealthy lawn mowers searching for public tax dollars between the blades of grass. After you say no to the beatings and dirty doings, then you say yes to life and turn the words of defeat into aphorisms of victory: signposts and slogans denoting resistance to the “man.”

The lowest turnout in decades at the polls signals American disgust with the 21st Century version of Capitalist Democracy: call it civil bankruptcy. Inequality, whether in terms of wealth, income or opportunity creates an unstable civil society. Today’s America is looking more like Mexico or South American and Mid Eastern countries with two classes, the wealthy and the poor. As more Americans slide down the slippery slope into the ranks of the poor, so the revolutionary class grows in number, the mirror image of gated communities, where the rich hide behind the walls from the peasants with their pitchforks.

The America that promised a better deal under FDR in terms of dignity and income was realized during the post WW II era of the 50s, when Americans could brag about a stable society, due to the expanding middle class, even as social-cultural inequality lagged. The great cultural revolution of the sixties, which focused on civil rights for people of color and women and the natural world has been compromised and commodified by the wealthy.

Now the elitists of both political parties have turned concerns for the environment, education, energy and the economy into the commodification of earth, air, fire and water. The right to work for food and clothing, shelter and health care, and even a glass of water is being abrogated and detained by privatization.

Moral consciousness, the freedom to chose and evaluate the decisions and actions that constitute civil society and social contract has been transformed. The average citizen has confused the categories: I am no longer who I think I am but what I buy.

Extremists on the right, Corporatists and Wealthy demagogues, use money to buy up the media, then divide and conquer the people by identifying cultural and social issues with corporate profits. The working poor and disappearing middle class shoulder the costs of government, serving Wall St. bankers, billionaires, and elected representatives, who sequester profits by means of fraud or by depositing ill-gotten gains in offshore accounts. Tax revenue has been effectively privatized and pirated away by elite puppet masters, whether elected or appointed and by their duly hired lobbyists.

The recent election witnessed a Democratic party, bankrupted by a lack of ideas, whose candidates ran away from Obama’s few accomplishments in favor of minor social issues. Elite Demos refuse to confront the plight of the 99%. In a capitalist society, there is only one-way of correcting injustice and inequality: “It’s the economy, stupid.”

In Taos County only the Sign Man stands up as a lonely symbol of resistance to major corporations, which play “bait and switch” with the people’s loyalties. The Smith’s Gas Station has gone from being the tribune to the pirate of El Norte back to  tribune this last week because the sign man has returned to the streets and haunts their corporate ass.

Former Clinton Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich notes “Fifty years ago, just 29 percent of voters believed government is “run by a few big interests looking out for themselves. Now, 79 percent think so. According to Pew, the percentage of Americans who believe most people who want to get ahead can do so through hard work has plummeted 14 points since 2000.”

The government promotes endless war and the National Security State, while  suppressing truth and undermining civil liberties: Obama uses the 100-year old Espionage act to jail whistleblowers. The elites have created inverse totalitarianism as the voters acquiesce in conformity to Fox propaganda, having forgotten, like the Supremes, the U.S. constitutional principles. Extremists appeal to “racism,” and use traitorous attacks on the president and the government, while displaying a disingenuous and self-righteous contempt for the 99%. The Demos appeal to weakness and mediocrity, while hiding behind their symbol: a Donkey’s ass.

As William Butler Yeats wrote in “The Second Coming: The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity.” See Hilary Clinton; see Ted Cruz. The Clintons sold us down the river once and want to do it again. Ted just wants to transform America into a theocracy.