IN AMERICA, DEMOCRACY AND MERITOCRACY ARE BUT AN ILLUSION

I have said this before many times: We have been sold a bill of goods when it comes to believing we live under a DEMOCRACY and that if you are enterprising you will get your rewards.

But instead of desserts, Americans have not even getting a piece of the pie, not one sliver of that cake of prosperity and wealth…”Let them eat cake” was Marie Antoinette’s alleged comment when she was told that the people were revolting in the streets.

There are uncanny parallels between that period of history in France and the one in America today. We not only have a very privileged wealthy minority but the redistribution of wealth has taken place already and the class warfare has continued to be fought with the very rich winning all the battles so far.

Enter the Republican Party, more specifically a candidate for President: Mitt Romney, this is one individual who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and all through his life has known nothing but affluence and comfort. Even though he is now trying to portray himself as “one of us”, he is very much out of touch with the realities of that 99% of Americans who struggle every day to keep food on their tables and even keeping their jobs.

Mr. Romney gloats at his ability to give people pink slips and even relishes the thought that he can fire anybody at will as does Mr. Trump who even has a reality based television show where his most famous line is the sadistic and cruel “you are fired!”

We have yet one of the many assholes running for the office of President suggesting that we should fire union janitors and replace them with child labor. Our 13 year old takes a lot of comfort in that.

All of this of course hasn’t gone unnoticed by the general population and the voters are taking notice. The majority of the people in America have now done a 180 degree turn to repudiate the Republican philosophy and what the GOP stands for: the very wealthy and the corporations. We have seen it in Wisconsin and in the Occupy Wall Street Movement.

Paul Krugman recently said: “What hasn’t been as widely noted, however, is that Mr. Romney’s picture of himself as a believer in a level playing field is just as fictional. Where is the evidence that he or his party cares at all about equality of opportunity?”

Republicans and Mitt Romney in particular have declared war on all the social programs that help make the playing field fairer. Their war on welfare, education, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security knows no truce, has not one ounce of restrain.

 

Professor Krugman continues: “If Mr. Romney has come out for any of these things, I’ve missed it. And the Congressional wing of his party seems determined to make upward mobility even harder. For example, Republicans have tried to slash funds for the Women, Infants and Children program, which helps provide adequate nutrition to low-income mothers and their children; they have demanded cuts in Pell grants, which are designed to help lower-income students afford college.
And they have, of course, pledged to repeal a health reform that, for all its imperfections, would finally give Americans the guaranteed care that everyone else in the advanced world takes for granted.
So where is the evidence that Mr. Romney or his party actually believes in equal opportunity? Judging by their actions, they seem to prefer a society in which your station in life is largely determined by that of your parents — and in which the children of the very rich get to inherit their estates tax-free. Teddy Roosevelt would not have approved.”
If you add to that the massive effort on the part of the Republicans to disenfranchise minority voters and rig the elections then you will come to the conclusion that DEMOCRACY IS AN ILLUSION as well.

 SOURCE: A version of this op-ed appeared in print on January 9, 2012, on page A19 of the New York edition with the headline: America’s Unlevel Field.

PHOTO CREDIT: Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times