AMERICAN SCHIZO

The closer we get to the 2016 election, the more the cultural schizophrenia of America becomes prevalent. The ugly truth is that we have never been one nation under God; nor have we been indivisible. The more one looks at real american history, it can be concluded that america is a nation that appears to be bursting apart underneath the surface. It also reveals a country that is in the grips of extreme amnesia about its history of division. This division is not only found in the corridors of race but also class. It is a deep contradiction that sees the most depressed sectors of the country identify with socio-political segments that are inherently adverse to its' own interest. It was clear that from the advent of the Constitutional Convention, the "Founding Father" has deep reservations about what democracy meant and how it would be carried out in America. With British authority now gone, the people set about to try and experiment with this thing called democracy. From the words of the men at this convention, it was clear that they had a deep un-abiding fear of rule by the people. It may be because when simple farmers and peasants see the practices of the British among the government in the, then fledgling colonies, they set about the business of fomenting rebellion to determine the real meaning of the American Revolution. Shays Rebellion was the natural result of what happens when sectors of the American economy are in conflict with one another. The agrarian sector of the country had no capital beyond the land and subsisted on a trade system among community members, but a credit system with the merchant class in more developed areas. The result of this relationship contained the seeds of rebellion from the very outset. In the more developed areas along the coast, national and international trade made the merchant class the ruling sectors in the colonies. Concurrently, the promises of land and assets, which were made to entice soldiers into the Continental Army, were never fulfilled after the British defeat and the establishment of political independence. The late historian Howard Zinn recounts this event in his DVD companion to his book, A People's History of the United States. The story is told through the mouth of an un-named soldier who joined the Continental Army for just such a promise. However, when the Revolutionary War was over, the soldiers were turned away since the government "had no more want of them."

Additionally, the demand by foreign trading partners of the merchant class of payment in currency, in stead of credit, threw the already fragile business cycle in a tailspin. With no payment from their service in the Continental Army and no currency other than their goods, the imposition of tax collections on their properties, and debt collections from the merchant class, was the spark that ignited the fuse of rebellion. The foreclosure upon properties for these debts led to massive protests by farmers and commoners who felt the pinch of the collections. Mass civil protests and violent actions occurred to halt the foreclosures and seizures of lands by government officials. Local militias were formed and for the first time, these paragons of the rights of man were faced with the very real possibility of the dissolution of the Continental Government. After raising funds for the conscription of soldiers and enticing Washington back out of retirement, the Government was able to put down the rebellion. However, the possibilities of what could happen if the masses arose in opposition against the rule of the merchant class left an indelible scar on the psyche of the colonial elite.

As a result, a kind of illusory compromise was engineered where the government would govern by the consent of the governed, but without their actual input. Such a suggestion was championed by men like Founding Father and Former New Jersey Governor William Livingston, who stated that "the people have ever been and ever will be unfit to retain the exercise of power in their own hands." Or the wealthy planter, Constitutional Signer and Governor of South Carolina, Charles Pinckey who declared that "no one be president that is not worth at least $100,00. It is this impetus that formed the crux of our political schizophrenia. Out of the conflicting psyche of these "enlightened individuals" would come a government of representation by a small group of people who were not representative of the people that they represented. A kind of constitutional monarchy masquerading as a democratic republic.

These fissures would continue through the Industrial Revolution right on up to the Civil War. The latter of which saw the great mass of southern, landless, commoners fight to uphold the rights of the relatively few land holding aristocracy who believed that they had a divine right to benefit from the free labor of African slaves while extolling the virtues of liberty. Many of whom possessed type of intellectual and spiritual kinship to the "Founding Fathers." While such claims are greeted with ribald laughter and a kind of patronizing dismissal befitting the actions of a mentally disabled child, when one looks at the letters and words of the people who signed the U.S. Constitution, the claims are painfully accurate. What is more important than these claims are the consistent patterns of conduct from the Revolutionary War up to the Civil War that would make the "regular masses" engage in actions that are in opposition to their very own interests. These two wars show the fundamental contradiction in the American political fabric: a love of democratic tradition and a longing for the days of monarchy. There is also the pervasive conditioning of obfuscation that cleverly disguises the interests of the commoner with the interest of the merchant; the interest of the banker with the interest of the farmer; the interest of the landlord with the interest of the landless.

In the present day, the trend continues. Scores of americans protest taxes and debt under the moniker of an act of civil dis-obediance that took place in 1773. Apparently, they have no problem with escalating taxation by the authorities in their own political parties and ideologies. They labor under the chimerical belief that a tax cut on someone making $25,000.000 is equivalent to a small businessman making $100,000. Even more fantastically illusory is the belief that tax cuts for the few benefit the many through a kind of trickle down mathematics that never seems to add up on April 15th. Of parallel importance is the constant insistence upon freedom to privacy all the while supporting politicians who support expanded government surveillance and intrusion; people who are so vigilant about liberty that they will protect it by arms but suppress the liberty of others due to a difference in religious beliefs, national origins or race; people who romanticize the fetish of patriotism but scarcely utter a word at multi-national corporations who flee the country to foreign lands in favor of profit over the economic integrity of their fellow citizens. A flight that has the externality of contracting both GDP and taxation upon the corporations, but increasing it on the everyday citizen. The question must be asked by saner men upon what rational belief can this schizophrenia make an America great again? By what estimation can a major constituency of the country consider this contradiction worthy of their greatest passions? Can frequent un-employment, economic instability, and social division really conspire to corrupt the reasoning powers of the majority? It is happening and it has happened. And it is thoroughly within the schizophrenic history of the American experiment with "democracy." that such contradictions are possible,or better yet, predictable. These questions and their answers shatter the hollow mythology surrounding the "Founding Fathers" and the Constitution. They are the self-created memories of a people infected with paranoia and dying from impoverishment of the spirit. With that said, see you in November!. This is the RED HORNET signing out!