The separation of church and state was not the sole invention of the framers of the Constitution. From time to time, that particular line of reasoning made an appearance in the makeup and origins of many progressive government models proposed over the decades. One of the reasons such was included in the doctrines of so many societies, was that they wanted to avoid once again coming under the harsh hand of the upper classes.
For it was the state churches that empowered the Medieval kings, by keeping the lower classes on a tight moral rein: one that favored the wealthy and politically powerful with church backed edicts such as The Divine Right of Kings.
As we moved into the 19th century, most developed democratic countries began to move away from this socially undesirable societal model: one that lacked justice for the average citizen and was a tinderbox for revolution.
However, America’s bold move in the late 1700’s converted the concept of democracy, from fledgling ambiguous theory to actual practice. The world shaking-Declaration of Independence and its Constitutional Bill of Rights, an act of blasphemy in the face of all other government models, changed everything forever. The common citizen now had a voice in how he or she was to be governed.
The powerful forces of wealth, however, had no intention of allowing their influence or fortune to be summarily diluted. Equality was not part and parcel of their credo. So out of social necessity they too changed, but in doing so brought about the dawn of the new powerbrokers; the ‘Robber Barons.’
The key difference from what came before, was that the Robber Barons made their fortunes by building the manufacturing and transportation institutions that brought America to its high point of early technology and development. They did indeed fill their pockets handsomely, but in the wake of their tempered greed they also built the railroads, highways, and developed better means of long distance communication. In a sense, everyone at every economic of level of the new industrialized America profited to some degree by their actions.
By the beginning of the 20th century America evolved rapidly from an agrarian to an efficient industrialized economy. And along the way with great pride a stronger Middle Class evolved, and was uplifted to that pinnacle of human achievement that came to be so idolized by the rest of the world.
True, along the way there were bumps in the road for U.S. workers and their families. In the early 1800’s till it’s eventual demise in the early 1900’s, there did exist in many places an entity that came to be known as the ‘Company Town.’
The company town was a modestly successful early experimental social template developed by the industrial elite; directed at not only guaranteeing the availability of a low cost labor force, but to control that force to their own economic advantage.
By the construction of small towns in rural areas adjacent to plants and mines, and the mass purchase of mercantile establishments in large cities, the industrial powerbrokers were able to direct most of the funds paid to their work force, back into their own coffers. In some backwater areas of the country, however, the practice was not so subtle.
Workers like coal miners: mostly White, and agriculture workers: mostly Black, had items of questionable value upon them (including inferior company rental housing). The monthly payments almost always exceeded their meager income capabilities, but the landowners provided coupon books for repayment in small, barely affordable increments financed by excessive interest rates. Sound familiar?
The workers, of course, never caught up and paid off any of this debt. In essence it was a barely legal well-orchestrated system of redefined slavery.
It was during the period encompassing the beginning and end of World War II that the ‘company town’ system began to erode. The military draft made it virtually impossible to keep track of men, and their families could not be kept hostage until their eventual return – if ever.
After World War II, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt vision of “ a chicken in every pot and two cars in every garage” actually started to materialize. By the late 1950’s the American Middle Class was well on its way to an unprecedented lifestyle status.
So what happened to the Middle Class, and why are they economically where they are today? As it turns out, the calamity that befell the Middle Class (which managed to wreck havoc on the lower economic class as well) was the coming of the computer age.
Computers enabled employers to track to the penny, the actual day-to-day cost of an employee; and as exposure to this new technological capability bred comfort within the executive suite, so did the trend. By the mid to late 1980’s, employers began to fathom, in minute detail, just how costly the American worker was to maintain: pensions, medical plans, sick leave, disability insurance contributions and a host of other government-mandated expenditures cut into the ‘bottom line.’
Banking institutions used this same technology to determine the cost of small account customers, which led to the birth of the first robotic employee, the Automatic Teller Machine (ATM).
Soon health care providers and insurance companies were afforded incredibly accurate ‘risk management’ data revealing the economic liability of workers that were - native born: knowledge they soon shared with the corporate world.
Manufacturing cost savings were astronomical if jobs were exported directly to ‘ cheap labor’ countries. In less than two decades industry had reduced the American Middle Class to a minimum wage second world status.
So it has come to pass that the powerful forces of corporate America, through the able assistance of their ‘Congressional employees’, had managed to reincarnate the ‘company town.’
The Corporate world, now for the most part freed of annoying government restrictions, firmly controls what the average citizen pays for his or her health care, pharmaceuticals, food, higher education and energy in its various forms.
They have even managed to have our sons and daughters engage in a horrific war without end, in pursuit of their personal control of a vast reserve of oil revenue – namely Iraq. And it should be noted that not one offspring of any large corporate CEO, or their top-level officers, is serving on the ground in that conflict.
Resting upon a false confidence born of inbred naivety of the Fairness Myth, the American Middle Class foolishly relied upon government to protect them from such corporate abuse. And by doing so fell victim to one tragic oversight. They may have elected a congress, but industry had purchased the very souls of most of its members a long time before.
We are now at a state now where lawmakers have little fear of engaging in open corruption. In fact, corruption is coming to be viewed by both major parties as a mostly partisan issue. In many cases, outright theft of taxpayer funds is considered no more than appropriation for favored interests and political expediency to gain reelection campaign funding. And those who give the most to reelect a congressman or congresswoman do so in full expectation of that candidate’s first loyalty.
So what can we as a society do when greed breaks out? Or more to the point, what can we do when the democratically elected officials selected to guard the interests of the masses, themselves, become infected with greed?
This precise conundrum facing the American citizen today, has surfaced many times in past societies. And it is no wonder the framers encountered such great difficulty constructing specific language in the Constitution to deal with it. What they came up with was the – the Separation of Church and State.
They did well in their quest to avoid the establishment of a State Church, but fell victim to a development they could not have envisioned: the evolution of the ‘Professional Politician.’ To avoid this unintended birth there would have been required a new amendment – The Separation of Professional Politicians and Special Interest Money.
In the day of the framers of the Constitution, there simply was no such entity as a Professional Politician. Politics was engaged in as a part-time civic duty like serving on a jury. And that’s the way it remained until sometime after the Civil War.
The social unrest that split the young nation, and gave rise to the politician as we have come to know them today: the first being a breakaway faction of the Democratic Party, the segregationist ‘Dixiecrats.’ It was only a matter of time before the ‘gods’ of industry and their lobbyists discovered it more effective to court favor directly at the seat of national government, than at local levels state by state.
America today is faced with the rapidly developing dilemma of the imminent reversal of its founding goals, brought on by the excess of both the political left and Right: special interests groups both social and industrial.
Liberal forces on the militant Left are rendering the once heralded American education system into a sham. While those lucky enough to attain higher education end up lumbered with ‘back-door’ mortgages to pay for the privilege: sometimes up to 40 years. In the same time frame home ownership and credit debt is being dictated by the whims of powerful financial intuitions, with the blessing of our highest court and the forces on the Right.
Meanwhile, Middle Class Americans are being coerced to toil excessive hours, or risk losing their jobs; and many are expected to be at the beck and call of their employers, via electronic communication, 24/7.
To make matters worse, hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens flow across our porous borders to feed the quest for low cost labor by billionaire agriculturists, while our bought and paid for Congress does nothing.
In essence, the Congress of the United States has become the new ‘national church’, under the virtual control of the ruling elite. And in the cold light of reality, they answer only to the lords of corporate America, who in turn speak only to God – in the guise of the almighty buck. |