Beware the New Normal

In the US, a wealthy, powerful and privileged plutocracy has defined a new normal that fails normal people, according to an article by Anand Giridharadas in TIME magazine (December 2-9, 2019), His observations apply equally to the elite hyperwealthy who govern in many countries throughout the world. Those who Giridharadas calls plutes know how to mask their influence by using the following tactics real normal people need to recognize and reject.

They:

• Emphasize job creation, when they expect tax breaks where they locate a new business, contribute to climate change, or disregard environmental and worker safety laws. 
• Benefit from ongoing corruption involved in constructing a sports arena that provides a day of entertainment for fans.
• Offset massive returns from investments of questionable social value, such as production of sugary soda drinks, by making some do-good investments and philanthropic contributions.
• Learn to describe their fear of losing wealth to taxes as harmful to those who benefit from their philanthropy and research to develop new products and drugs.
• Win elections by posing as the ones who are providing the food supplied by humanitarian organizations.
• Prefer paying fines, even major ones, to making actual reforms of harmful and unfair practices.
• Hire public relations' experts to brand harmful and unfair practices with deceptive labels and descriptions that sound like public services.
• Blame poverty on the victims of government policies or people who just don't like to work.

Whatever a person's religion or lack of religion, the Christmas season offers a reminder that it takes a god to be a savior. The world is too complicated for a wealthy individual to govern alone; it takes an administration. Fair elections enable lucky voters to choose between a one-person administration dedicated to maintaining a wealthy elite or an administration with a president, cabinet, congress, and courts devoted to the rule of law and institutions that serve the public interest.

Successful Revolutions Require Organization

Massive rallies and marches fail to result in change, unless they are supported by organizations. It takes political parties to win elections, military forces to stage a coup, pressure from organized religions, and labor unions to change corporations and institutions of learning.

     Individuals with ideas for reform can write books, but organizations need to put these ideas into operational form. When would-be reformers approach Nancy Pelosi, the former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, for her endorsement, she asks if they can muster a group of at least one thousand. Crowdfunding on social media suggests one way to gain support for causes.

     Where are groups already assembled? On college campuses, war and South Africa's apartheid protesters gained traction. Members of Jewish temples, Muslim mosques, African-American and other Christian churches share common causes.

     In Prague, dissidents hung out at the Art Deco cafe, Kavarna Slavia, to plot the Velvet Revolution that ended communism in Czechoslovakia. The Cafe Gallery and Bassiani night clubs in Tbilisi, Georgia, now attract young people ready to break out of post-Soviet police and interior ministry restraints and to embrace liberalized Western culture. The clubs serve as a gathering space, not only for locals, but also for tourists, rappers, and DJs with European followings. Young Russians received social media news of a club protest that led demonstrators to the steps of Georgia's parliament.