By Peter Breschard | Dissident Voice | February 5, 2014
The question is no longer what, the question is when.
Very soon, income inequality in the United States will reach such a critical level it is likely violence will be viewed as an acceptable response to America’s social ills.
Unlike Depression Era bank robbers, assaults will be aimed at soft human targets. After all, who uses cash anymore?
Extortion. Kidnapping. Arson. A crime wave of epic proportions might well be the only way those running America will come to their senses and realize that no democracy can continue to exist where so much is controlled by so few. The present system of representative government has failed in such a spectacular fashion to protect the rights of the majority that the government itself has become the criminal.
Do not kid yourself that the present resource inequality will do anything but get much, much worse. Do the math. Tax rates for the extremely wealthy being so extremely low can only lead to the further accumulation of massive fortunes by the select few. That wealth will be taken from those lower on the economic food chain and so the disparity can only become greater.
Let them eat cake.
Public discussion of the critical problems currently facing this nation is so infantile it might as well be Medieval monks chattering on about the number of angels that can fit on the top of a pin. Bridges collapsing. People literally starving. Jobless working class. A country without hope. Yet the rulers natter on about reducing the rations of the most needy while at the same time they loot every household in the name of a putrid for-profit medical system and drone bomb the hell out of any country they wish.
How many military bases does this country have outside our borders? How many countries have U.S. troops stationed in them? Only criminals need those many guns.
Serious problems. There is a total disconnect between those charged with keeping this country on an even keel and reality.
The United States has become a kleptocracy. And criminality is the lesson it is teaching its citizens. Those living outside of the law, whether in skyscrapers or shacks, bring only pain and deprivation to those who strive to maintain a civilized society. When the government itself is the criminal, cutting up the pie solely for itself and its cronies, an equally criminal response will be inevitable.
What to do? It’s Robin Hood time. It’s only a question of who becomes the outlaw of Sherwood. People will only allow a boot to press against their neck for so long before the violence being done to them precipitates a like response. Unless those in positions of power tax the rich until it hurts, there will, like night follows day, be a violent response from those being oppressed against those they see as inflicting their pain.
If this government keeps shirking its responsibility to the vast majority of its citizens, this country is dooming itself to a bloody future.
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Peter Breschard is the author of Circus Rider and My Love Affair with Barack Obama as well as other lesser works of fact and fiction.