Bread and Circuses

Hey, folks, I get the idea… you don’t like rich people. Doesn’t bother me – I’m not rich. Are you? Maybe you are, and you don’t know it. If so, you’re in for it. All rich people are, because they’ve been defined as the enemy.

People, you’re making a mistake. The rich are our friends. Without them, we’d still be scratching the ground with sticks to plant our seeds. You think the poor can build a John Deere? The poor by themselves can’t do anything. It takes a gathering and growing of wealth to produce the producers of most of the products you can’t do without. Laundry detergent. Toilet paper. Without the rich, you wouldn’t even have newsprint to save your ass.

Ever hear of the goose that laid the golden egg? Yes you have, don’t lie to me. Somebody killed it out of jealousy, and that was the end of all their wealth. Folks, you’re about to kill that goose. It’s already wounded, laying an egg only every other day, and look what’s happening all over the world. Production is stopping.

Let me see if I can explain: If you take the money away from the rich people and spread it around, everybody has a dollar or two more, which doesn’t matter, and the rich people have no money to make color TVs or build Sports Stadiums, or mount television shows, or pay for them with commercials. There’s a whole big world up there, which you disdain, that provides you with your pleasures.

Well, let’s see how you like it when we’re all equally poor, when there’s no hope in the world that your friend, relative, or neighbor can bail you out, because he’s just as bad off as you are. No point crying to the magistrate, there isn’t even enough money coming in from taxes to buy him a uniform. The tax base is way low. Almost non-existent. That guy behind you on the soup line (run out of the old Starbucks) used to own the three movie theaters in the neighborhood. Now he can’t afford popcorn. The theaters are closed, the seats are ripped out and people are sleeping on the floors. They can’t afford their houses and their landlords, the banks and the feds, can’t afford to fix them up. Nobody’s got money to buy them. They’re moldering, going back to the jungle.

We’re too poor to fix our satellites. We listen to Obama’s daily oratory on little portable radios powered by a crank. Buck up, he tells us. This is only the beginning. There’s bound to be a little disruption as we maneuver the wealth from one group’s hands into another. And stop complaining, you there in the Inner Cities.

Why shouldn’t you complain? You used to be poor, but you had big TVs and boom-boxes. You’re still poor, but your TV’s on the blink and you can’t afford to fix it. You can’t get batteries for the boom-box. And you thought it was bad before! For some reason, it is no consolation to you that everybody else is poor, too.

The Olympics? Have you any idea how much corporate wealth it takes to pull one off?

But listen all you Libs who fought for this and finally got what you wanted, look around you. Nobody's poorer than you are and nobody is sticking his head up above yours.

Nobody’s offering you a job, either. Or making those shoes you fancied, or that motorcycle you just about had enough for. Or turning down your bed on a cruise ship. Luxury, my mate, is out the window. Welcome to flat land. Enjoy your beans.