HOW DO THE APE-MASTERS convince us to vote for their lieutenants time and time again?
How do they continue to get and wield power?
- They oppose any meaningful campaign reform: any change which would mean that every candidate—Republican or Democrat—didn't need their money and influence to stand a chance in an election.
- They lie to us—Scott Walker didn't campaign on destroying worker rights, Paul Ryan won't tell you that he's out to eliminate Medicare for the elderly, John Boehner doesn't say that he wants to give the country away to the wealthy.
- They work behind the scenes to undermine the process:
- using trumped-up concerns about "voter fraud" to keep the poor and the young and anyone who might see through their propaganda from voting,
- consistently undermining the public school system, which might actually provide some informed and intelligent voters,
- disenfranchising unions: the only powerful political organization of the middle class.
- But also—and this is going to hurt—they invite us into the game.
Would you like to force other people—including rape victims and women who will die otherwise—to avoid even early term abortions, because you have decided they are wrong?
Just vote for us.
Would you like to put those people of another color in their place—remind them that you call the shots, not them?
Vote for us.
Would you like to tell gays you've never met, and don't know, that they can't do what you can do—serve in the military or get married?
Vote for us.
Would you like the public schools to force your religion on all students?
Vote for us.
Vote for the ape-masters and you get to be an ape-master by proxy.
Kowtow to your corporate boss, agree with his politics, and you may get promoted, then you can have other employees kowtow to you and agree with your politics.
You get to be a little big ape yourself.
It runs pretty deep in our culture.
It's been 12,000 years of kingdoms, since we were democratic hunter gatherers, and only a couple hundred years of democracy since the kingdoms.
We've been struggling to throw off the bad habits, but the fight isn't over.
And the master apes have been undermining us—massaging the culture, whispering in our ears, casting their spell—all along.
If we win the class war, if we prevail in the end and bring about a truly free and democratic society, it will not be just because we won an election, or merely because we sent a billionaire to jail.
It will be because we have broken their spell, and realized that none of can be free unless we all are free.
That is the nature of class warfare.
It's the battle between our inner human and our inner ape.
And each of us is on the front line.
Each of us is the front line.
At least, that's what I think today.
