First Published in DelawareLiberal on January 2, 2015 by ProgressivePopulist
As their first initiative in 2015, the RNC has banned all remnants of
the Enlightenment and declared the USA a collection of feudal fiefs.
Let's review the similarities of the middle ages to our contemporary
America.
At the top, we have our version of the Lords of the
Medieval period back in the 5th to 15th centuries. They are the
Corporations and 1% who own the lions share of all property. They
earned their status by accumulating assets. All other social groups
work for their benefit in the Manor. Today's equivalent to the Manors
are our States, which under the Republican plan are a loose
neo-confederation.
Next in pecking order are the Barons, Bishops,
Vassals and Knights......today's version being elected officials,
sponsored by the Lords. They do the Lords' bidding in the public and
private spheres. The Bishops, today's mega churches and diocese, have a
special place in society; all the necessary protections, but without
having the pay homage to the Lords, or in today's vernacular, taxes.
They are tax exempt. Their job is to protect the Lords by declaring
their value to the social order.
A special category of the modern
Knights, or warriors tasked to protect the Lords are in today's
structure, the defense contractors. Like their predecessor Knights,
their reward for service are property and assets. A key task in today's
world is manor or homeland security and preemptive attacks on
threatening hordes of barbarians. Additionally, internal dissidents are
dealt with by militarized police forces reporting to the Barons and
Vassals.
Do the similarities between gated communities and moats
ring some bells with you ? How about the torture techniques of the
middle ages and today's waterboarding? Drone attacks and swat teams and
village scorching?
Also serving the Barons and Vassals are a few
skilled working class, known as our middle class. They provide
technical and specialized expertise needed by them as well as the
Lords. Their reward for service is limited amounts of property and
assets, including small amounts of capital loans to expand their
services.
The Lords, Barons and Vassals oversee the work and
production of the serfs and peasants. These are mostly unskilled
persons who are compensated on a very limited scale to barely sustain
their families and whose work is considered easily replaceable should
they prove uncooperative or unproductive in their service. They
comprise the vast majority or about 80% of the population of the manors
or states.
This group is dominated by persons of color and ethnic
heritage considered of lesser quality of personhood. As a result,
though granted minimal rights of citizenship, those rights are being
restricted and suppressed for fear that they might challenge the
existing social order.
To maintain this social order, Republicans
today emphasize limiting public services to the serfs and peasants,
including both education and health care, for fear that strengthening
their intellectual, mental and physical well-being could result in
insurrection and revolution against the rule of the Lords, Barons and
Vassals.
This system served a few very well for about 1,000 years. Seemed to work for them, so why fix what ain't broke?