[Terry's Tale] Following The Wind

The other day I spoke about the negative changes in the US society that gave me great concern about the future.  I have yet a couple more and then I plan to leave the subject behind to focus more on my Korean experiences and the future that I am hopefully reaching for.

When Ronald Reagan came into the office of the Presidency his administration set what was, and may still be, an incredible record for corruption.  That administration had a great many more government officials indicted and convicted for corruption than any other in history.  It beat by miles the notoriously corrupt administrations of Ulysses S. Grant (Republican) and Warren G. Harding (Republican) and set a new standard for irresponsibility.  Unfortunately, the George W. Bush administration tried and now the current Obama administration seems to be trying real hard to reach those records, but as accountability has apparently gone out the window since the year 2000, possibly before, people are no longer being indicted let alone prosecuted for their misdeeds (and I am NOT talking about the foolishness of the Republican generated Benghazi and Bergdahl scandals nor the VA scandal that falls upon both the major parties).

I am talking about the scandals of both parties to sell the government to the highest bidder that began long, long ago, but very rapidly accelerated with the Reagan administration and its’ incoherent and now fully discredited “trickle-down” economic policy and big tax cuts for the wealthy that has resulted in today’s situation of wealth inequity and instability.

Why are the wealthy getting these tax cuts when they are the ones sucking in so many of the government services.  Why should they be allowed to not have to fully pay for the government services they use?  While I could give myriad examples of how the super rich soak up the money of the middle class both through tax law changes from Reagan on and by means of other arrangements, let me give just one example and then move on.  If you fly on a commercial jet, part of the taxes you pay cover the costs of air traffic control, but you are one of many on the aircraft so your cost is the fraction you represent of the number of people on the plane.  The one percent fly around in their own private aircraft and so the cost per person for the air control service becomes extremely high.  Yet, since the costs are paid through tax dollars, the wealthy are being subsidized at taxpayers’ expense.  And it is not just here where the taxpayers are subsidizing the wealthy.  OK, one more example.  The ultra-rich Walton heirs rake in billions of dollars each year.  Yet they do so at taxpayer expense.  Since most Walmart (and MacDonalds, and many others) employees are not paid a living wage a great many of them wind up requiring government assistance to get by.  These heirs (and others) wouldn’t miss one bit the less money they would take in by paying a living wage to their employees.  Such a wage would then allow these employees to survive without government assistance – but the rich oligarchs will not change their behaviors because they ARE legally allowed to line their pockets with taxpayer dollars, so they do.

Did you know there are some very large, wealthy corporations such as GE that pay no business income taxes – in fact they actually receive money from the government.  Combining this with tax rates of 15% or less on DECLARED income (in 2011 for example, Mitt Romney’s tax rates were less than 14%.  His previous years were probably significantly less, but unlike his father George Romney who willingly opened up his tax records for the ten years prior to his presidential bid, Mitt Romney was too embarrassed to open up his tax records.) as opposed to complete wealth from many hidden accounts (Mitt Romney even admitted to having these during his presidential bid).

While the major push for this was from the Republican party with their mantra of “deregulation”, both parties came to be involved, after all it was Clinton himself who signed the bill that repealed the Glass-Steagall Act thus allowing the big banks to play poker with taxpayers dollars.  And with the Roberts Supreme Court now seeming to act in collusion with the likes of the Koch brothers, our government has been sold out from under it’s citizenry to a plutocracy and ALL of the 99% are suffering the effects.

Worse still, authorities apparently began to realize the need for turning the US into a ‘police state’ after the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City by a former US Army Sargent.  Thus today local police agencies are equipped with everything from helicopters to armored assault vehicles and will soon have drones if they do not already.  Combining this with the NSA surveillance now so well focused on the US population, oversight by the FBI, and the new focus centers centralizing citizen data, is it any wonder that the old KGB or the East German Stasi would be jealous of what has been wrought in the US with US tax dollars.  And the government has already demonstrated that it is willing to use its power against any and all who may work against this new plutocracy.

The recent felony assault conviction against one young woman in New York recently aptly demonstrates this.  All she did was to use an elbow strike against a recent mugger who had groped one of her breasts so hard that he left large and obvious bruises on it.  Yet, this mugger was none other than a cop wearing streetclothes who was ‘legally’ groping her.  She was being ‘legally groped’ because she had been active in the Occupy Wallstreet protests of a couple of years ago, and this apparently made her a legal target for groping by members of the NYC police.  Considering what happened to this poor woman it is not hyperbolic to ask what actions legally allow the police of New York City, or anywhere else for that matter to go beyond bodily groping that results in bodily injury to rape or worse?

I now can see that if things do not change for the better soon, people on both the right as well as those on the left may take action for change - and as well armed as the people on the right are, the government (which you must understand does foresee this possibility) understands that the situation could be incredibly bad.  People in both camps are equally dissatisfied, and despite their philosophical differences, they may wind up working or even fighting together to create change.  Should this come to pass the future becomes anybody’s guess because true revolutions cannot be controlled and their outcomes cannot be predetermined. 

I came to Asia not only to seek enlightenment, but as well, for the same reason that Lao Tzu left behind his comfortable life in China.  To quote R.L. Wing from page 10 of his book, The Tao of Power “According to legend, the book (The Tao [my parentheses]) was written by Lao Tzu, a gifted scholar who lived nearly twenty six centuries ago and worked as the Custodian of the Imperial Archives during the reign of the Chou Dynasty.  Lao Tzu experienced a time of political unrest not unlike our own.  His world was divided into hundreds of separate provinces, each with its own laws and leaders.  He saw a buildup of arms and hostilities as each province competed for political supremacy.  Every aggressive act was met with further hostility and aggression, until it seemed to the war-torn people of China that they stood on the threshold of complete destruction and that their world would finish as a wasteland.

Lao Tzu riding an ox.

Sensing the hopelessness of the era, with its hostile political counter-reactions spiraling out of control, Lao Tzu retired from his position and prepared to leave the civilized world forever.”  For me, I do know that I am not leaving the civilized world, just a part that has significantly changed for the worse and in the process has become considerably less stable.