Is the Capitol Insurrection a Sign of a Failed State?

My first thought as I watched the Capitol Insurrection unfold was:

• The reason these people marched to the Capitol Building at the behest of Trump was because they had been radicalized by a mobster president, lied to by their elected Republican officials, and whipped into a frenzy of hate due to unemployment, hunger, grief at the death of lost family members due to Covid-19, or over the last forty years, no longer trusted our political institutions.
• I’ve since discovered many of these domestic terrorists can afford to stay in expensive hotels in DC, some arriving in private jets, others able to skip their jobs and fly across the country at a moment’s notice. What is the most egregious part of this knowledge is that many Americans don’t even have $400.00 to spare for emergencies, much less the money to afford an excursion to DC during a weekday.
• Then I learned the average income among them was $70000.00 and some of them were off-duty police or retired military or CEOs or just middle-class racist boobs.

My next conjecture was that Neoliberalism in the Republican and Democratic Parties is to blame:

• Republicans have always fought for more wars overseas, less government for us, handing out welfare to failing banks and corrupt corporations while taxing the middle-class and poor.
• Democrats since the Clintons pretend to be “woke” and still choose people in government who are corporate shells who have punished the poor and forgiven the rich. Now, they’ve invited people of color into their club, but some of these people of color may simply go along with the rest of the corporate democrats exacerbating our failing economy.

Then I listened to many people I respect and realize a combination of factors, Covid-19, NAFTA, Neoliberalism, Corporate Welfare and Big Tech have led to America’s decline:

• Corporations and the morbidly rich continue to profit while Americans die in foreign wars, in our streets and in our hospitals.
• The rich are bailed out and the rest of us get crumbs.
• The American Medical Association has chosen profit over people which has resulted, so far, in 397,994 Americans dead.
• The erasure of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 and implementation of the Telecommunication Reform Act of 1996 have created silos of misinformation on radio, television and cable news while encouraging monopolies on the Internet to feed us conspiracy theories.
• Stooges posing as journalists and corrupt political analysts are given CIA talking points and then feed those lies to us via Fox News, MSNBC and CNN.
• Facebook, Google and Twitter undermine democracies all over the world.
• If we allow Democrats and Republicans to strip us of our First Amendment Rights:
  • We will end up like Trump, our platforms shut down and our voices silenced. Even though I find Trump to be a despicable person, perhaps even a domestic terrorist, if he doesn’t call for another insurrection, it is far better that he keeps his platforms so that we know what nefarious plans he is cooking up next.

Because of what happened on January 6^th, 2021, I am convinced that our First Amendment Rights must be upheld at all costs, our “five freedoms…: speech, religion, press, assembly, and the right to petition the government” must never be taken away from us. And I am also fearful after forty years of neoliberalism and the takeover of our democracy by corporations, we are already a failed state.

Even if Americans are unable to restore our republic and secure the rule-of-law, as well as, our Constitution, I vow to:

• Demand that our American Congress break up Big Tech and turn them into public utilities, get rid of what Zephr Teachout calls “disease is the business model,” Big Techs’ targeted ads and their immoral algorithms that encourage hate groups.
• Continue to donate money on Christmas Day every year to Democracy Now, Extinction Rebellion, Idaho Public Television, Idaho Youth Ranch, and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
• Plan to donate money on Martin Luther King Day every year to Black Lives Matter and the ACLU.
• Speak out against neoliberalism, seditious speech and domestic terrorism.
• Boycott MSNBC, Fox News, CNN and any news platform that doesn’t report the facts.
• Get my news from YouTube’s The Hills Rising, PBS, Democracy Now and reliable podcasts.
• And my final promise to myself is to do all I can to help a new party, the Movement for a People’s Party, an American People’s Party become the alternative to the two neoliberal parties we have in this country right now.