You Are A. Peasant, Just Like Me

Regardless of whether the war with Iran will come, and I believe it will, the economy continues to crash down. It's like a huge explosion taking place far away. We see a flash of light and see some smoke rising on the horizon, but the terrible shock wave rumbles toward us along the ground, obscured by all the other people, places and things between us and the financial implosion point. It's just a matter of time, as thunder follows the lightning, before we are each tossed like rag dolls by the powerful shock wave. Or think of the tsunami. Perhaps that is a better analogy. The massive earthquake happened deep underwater, and above it the surface probably rippled and buzzed. The deep water masked the enormity of the earthquake. If you were in a cruise ship sitting right on top of the event, you could sip your martini in peace. But as the wave moved into shallower water it rose up to reveal it's magnitude. Just so, where the financial waters are more shallow, meaning where the working people live, the calamitous wave of the deep financial collapse will rise up and swamp us without warning. Where does one go for protection? Inland. Far inland, away from the delights of the water. Don't frolic on the financial shores. If you can't afford to be on a cruise ship far out to sea, then your next safest place is deep inland: out of debt and living within your means. This is not the time to treat yourself.

My blogger ID is A. Peasant for a reason. What is a peasant? Any of a class of small landowners or laborers tilling the soil. A peasant is not a serf, a slave. I embrace the very idea of peasantry because I recognize that it realistically describes me, my family, and just about everyone I know personally. If you work for a living, you, too, are a peasant in this economy. And the sooner you accept that fact, the better off you will be. For in the peasantry there is power.

As American corporatists continue to work their little butts off in order to create their ultimate wet-dream of “cheap labor” here in the US as well as abroad, might they also be creating some kind of Frankenstein’s monster peasant class that will eventually come back and bite them in said little butts — when the villagers they are trying so hard to create out of America’s former middle class start coming after them with torches and pitchforks?

American corporatists need to be careful what they wish for.

Perhaps they too would benefit from driving around town (past all those home-foreclosure signs and boarded-up banks) while listening to John Reed’s “Insurgent Mexico” book-on-tape.

A revolution in America — either by peasants or not — might be happening here sooner rather than later if the economy continues to fail at the startling rate that it is now bob-sledding straight down. According to Kitco columnist Darryl Robert Schoon, “Since 1913 when the Federal Reserve first issued its debt based paper money in the US, the paper US dollar has lost 95 % of its value, a loss of 95 % over 95 years. Perhaps in five more years, 100 years after the creation of the Federal Reserve, the US dollar will have lost 100 % of its value—which means in five years the US paper dollar will be worth nothing.”

I know many middle class people are beginning to get tired of the pinch. It's been pinching for some time now, and it's getting old. They can't go places and do things freely anymore. They have to watch every penny. The constant spinning and obfuscation of the real economic situation helps keep people from accepting the reality of their peasanthood and pining away after the American dream. As long as people pine away for upward mobility that will never happen under the current system, they will be miserable and powerless, turning on each other and watching their relationships fall apart under duress.

Accept reality. You are A. Peasant, just like me. Does that make you angry? Well...good. Be angry. You have the right to be angry. Just understand who to be angry with. And remember, there's a lot of us.