Marc Batko
Nihilism leads to cynicism
by Marc Batko (marc1seed@yahoo.com; freetranslations.foundation)
How juvenile to call 2.3 million federal employees “leftists” and put them on the chopping block with illegal buyout offers! What happens to teamwork, cooperation, and public spirit? The fairy-tale metaphor of a raging bear storming through a china shop seems appropriate!
The market is an effective tool after the people decide what kind of society they want. Regulation is vital to assure truthfulness and fairness since the market is not self-healing but prone to exaggeration, fraud, and manipulation.
Late-stage finance capitalism is a time of tax avoidance and elite or oligopoly rule. The strong man is often preferred to the unwieldy democratic process of negotiation, debate, and exchange. Economic power translates into political power. Leading firms distort the market, dominate prices and capture regulatory agencies as the economist John Kenneth Galbraith warned in the 1960s.
The one thing we learn from history is that we don’t learn from history, said Albert Einstein. The atom bomb changed everything (e.g. strength, power, security) and, unlike other weapons, is destabilizing. More nuclear weapons do not bring more security but rather more uncertainty and instability!
Trump urged federal employees to transition to the private sector. Putting a nihilist or a narcissist fox in charge of the hen house was fraught with unspeakable dangers. What important lessons were learned from FDR and his New Deal in grappling with unemployment, speculative banks, private opulence and public squalor?
An active state can stabilize an economy through timely purchases and job creations. FDR created the social security system, minimum wages, civil service and farm subsidies and enabled thousands of roads, hospitals, bridges, libraries, museums, and apartment buildings to arise amidst excruciating poverty and food shortages.
What was learned from the 2007-8 financial meltdown when hundreds of banks capsized and millions became unemployed? Neoliberalism and exploding inequality led to the development of two Americas! The three richest Americans (Musk, Gates, and Bezos) have more wealth than 170 million citizens. Poverty returns and intensifies with misguided policy when teachers and librarians pay more in taxes than hedge fund speculators or billionaires like Warren Buffet!
Inequality hurts everyone and turns public spirit from a universal amenity to a vague abstraction. The US media could have been a watchdog instead of a lapdog and hearkened back to FDR’s courageous initiatives in averting self-destruction! Jesus’ parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard (Matt 20) may seem totally unrealistic in our hyper-materialist and hyper-individualist culture. Those who worked one hour received the same pay as those who worked the whole day. Knowledge of God and fellowship with the contemporaneous Jesus is the true reward and goal of life that doesn’t rust or fade.
The water that I give you wells up in eternal life. Labor for that bread that does not perish! As the Old Testament prophets warn, the rich cannot tell their left hand from their right! They regard material things as eternal and clean the outside of the cup and leave the inside filthy!
The convicted felon and sexual predator now in the White House is enamored with himself and boasts he is the only one who understands economics, taxation, immigration, and foreign policy. A rude awakening awaits him and the shocked world around him when the myths of omniscience and his divine calling finally crumble into dust!
The pathological narcissist cannot even appreciate public service, criticism, or the world-changing innovations of FDR! Rambling incoherence follows incoherent rambling! Inflated egos capable of nonstop lies and revisionist history are sought. Bootlickers and sycophants allow decision-making without policy or principle! Trump calls leftists “vermin” and uses Hitler words “killers” and “invaders” to describe immigrants only seeking a better life for themselves and their families. He pardons the 1500 January 6 rioters, suspends all federal spending, and urges 2.3 federal employees to join the private sector!
We live on the shoulders of our progressive heroes whose wisdom and critical thinking can still bring light in our dark times! Martin Luther King, FDR, Eleanor Roosevelt, Justices Brandeis, Black, Douglas, Frankfurter, Ruth Ginsberg, Sotomayor, Elizabeth Warren, Rev William Sloan Coffin, Daniel Berrigan, Rev William Barber, Thomas Merton, Soren Kierkegaard, Matthew Fox, Michael Hudson, Richard Wolff, John Kenneth Galbraith, Jurgen Moltmann, Naomi Klein, Dorothee Soelle, Bishop Spong and Bishop Budde would be aghast at the self-destructive turn to authoritarian Trumpism!
Without humility, there is no sense of wonder, Kierkegaard warned. Without memory, we risk being monads in a once dominant culture headed for the dustbin of history, sheep without a shepherd or persons without a center, cogs or human capital without a collective history!