Whenever someone comes up to me and tries to explain that some complicated conspiracy is going on to control my life, the theorists always use the word "They". You know people who speak like this. If you know me, I speak like this when I decide to go on a rant about how fucked up our American Culture has become, and how totally screwed we are as a people now that Wall Street has gained control. The fact is, however, most people know and just don't care. They have more important things to worry about than who is telling them to buy what - they need to take little Jake to his soccer game, and Sally to her dance class.
I, however, do care, and that's why I'm writing this little tidbit. Even though I often find I don't have time to care, it's something I think about in the back of my head. I always ask the conspiracy theorist who 'they' is to them. The answers vary, but almost always land on one of, what I like to call, the Big Five: Banks, ATF, Prisons, Pharmaceuticals, Oil. Of all the major companies - these five are the ones I refer to as 'they'.
Sometimes I get the conspiracy theorists who think a group of wealthy men sit in a room and plot out the world and how it's going to be. I think this is funny. I don't think men wealthy enough to have the kind of money necessary to make those decisions would ever be in a room together - they'd be so full of themselves that they would butt heads and make no decisions at all. What I really think is happening is that corporations from each wing of the Big Five are lobbying for laws that, in benefiting one, benefits them all.
I'll take Banks first. By Banks, I don't mean the First National Bank of Nowheresville, IN. I mean Bank of America, Citibank, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, yadayada. These guys paid off the credit rating bureaus to give bad investments sound ratings so they could gain insurance money off the failed account. They knowingly advised clients to purchase bad items, and then, when the insurance company (AIG) went bankrupt and couldn't afford all the insurance policies being claimed by the failed investments, they asked for taxpayers to bail them out. It makes me sick to think about it, and now they're "Too Big To Fail." Yet, our politicians continue to argue that regulating the market is not something we should do. Why would they try to harm our system further by deregulating unless they were being paid off by the banks?
But that's just it, isn't it? We have been bombarded by Wall Street money through politicians, news anchors, and pundits who tell us regulating a 'free market' economy would be bad for business. Whose business? When we had regulations, small businesses were able to thrive because they had a fighting chance at gaining an upper hand. The less regulations there are, the more the playing field is tilted against the little guy. So, what ends up happening? The playing field tilts too high against the little guy, all the shit from the big guy at the top pours down to the bottom, and the little guy cleans it up. See September 2008, see also 1987, and 1929. During the formative stages of each economic catastrophe, there had been a previous push by politicians for deregulation. Calvin Coolidge's Lassez Faire economics - government's hands off - comes to mind.
I could continue on this line of thought, but I have four other 'They's' to get through...groan.
The next is the Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco guys - the ones who pay off the Federal ATF to look the other way, or pay politicians to remove the agency's teeth. Gun Makers are the most powerful of the three, as they represent a serious amount of money. The government arms the military with guns bought from private contractors. It behooves the government to have good relations with gun dealers. It may even behoove the government to look the other way when the gun dealers sell their weapons to other countries. Weapon makers may even try to start a civil war in a small country for the sole purpose of selling guns to both sides. They may just decide it's time for the United States to move in and work against the side that won't buy guns from them. They lobby a Senator, they release a few pictures of the war they've been profiting from across the news channels, and our media flood to the 'cause.' Next thing we know, the United States goes in and blows a few trillion dollars on the kind of devastation we throw down. Who pays for it? Taxpayers. We give those weapon makers money through taxes.
Well, I guess it really is all just the Bank's money, really, and we're borrowing it.
I digress, onward to the third. This will soon be over...
Prisons. Many states have been taken by the for profit prisons. Many politicians have, as well. These prisons are given money per inmate. Because they make money per inmate, they stand to gain if it's easier for people to go to prison. They lobby for harsher sentencing, against marijuana legalization, and for the three strikes rules. They have a major hold in Texas, but in each state, there are privately run and owned prisons. They begin with a small charge - they quote to the state that they can do what the state needs for less money than the state would spend. The state says okay, but then, years later, the costs begins to rise. Slowly and surely, the costs become the same, then more expensive. We pay these private corporations through our taxpayer dollars, and we believe that 'crime should be punished' because of the flood of police shows, crime reports, and drug abuse crimes we see on TV. We get scared of the the junkie, we say - "Go ahead, lock him up." We don't say "Man, that guy needs some help. Get him to a hospital."
Why's that? Is it because we're cold as a culture? Is it because we fear the junkie's pasty skin and haggard appearance? Maybe it's because we're taught that using drugs is 'bad' as well as illegal. Maybe that's why kids express their independence through overindulgence of illegal substances. The kids either snap out of it, or become junkies of some sort, and whole cycle begins again, because using illegal drugs is 'bad'. If we legalized everything, then regulated it, we could control the substances in a much better environment than we have. But we don't do that. That doesn't produce prisoners.
Speaking of drugs, I move to the fourth of the Five - Big Pharma. These guys like to lobby for less testing for certain products, or more testing for products of their competitors. They each have their own wing of the medicinal product lines - from enhancement products to necessary cures. However, with each deregulation, each corporation benefits in their own way. It makes sense to create common cause between lobbying groups on certain issues. What they are really doing, is getting us used to taking pills, or some form of medication, in my opinion. They flood the media with new viral scares, new reasons to buy new drugs, and new necessities to our daily routine.
Utilizing this very technique, Big Oil has inserted itself into our everyday lives as well. We rely on them for energy: gas for our transportation, power for our buildings, plastics and byproducts we both eat and surround what we eat. They have been the major conspirators against alternative fuel sources. We had an electric car, solar capabilities, and designs that could've shocked the market into the future. Big Oil shot them down. They went on a campaign against it, using politicians who called it a waste of money, scientists who would argue against the feasibility of using it as a primary source, and car companies who refused to build anything but combustible engines. They won, and had a whole generation of people believing the technology was just too costly to use. Thirty years later, we have hybrids. To say "they have an excessive amount of control over the politicians we elect through campaign donations" would be an understatement. They have total control. Whoever is in Big Oil's pocket usually wins the campaign.
There are a lot of elements contributing to our degradation as a culture. It all boils down to integrity and greed, and how much one has of either. This covers both the artistic image of the man who says no to temptation - the man of solid temperance who chooses the righteous path - and the image of the man who must have everything to prove his own might and power. While these are my arguments, and they lack sources, I do not believe there is any way to truly break their grip on our government. The only true way to do so would be change our culture. Many of their messages have become ingrained within our social conscious and morale. The only way to fight this is to defy the stereotype. Be the example. It only takes one person to do a 'great thing' successfully for an entire group of people to believe that they, too, can do great things.
