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YOU! HAVE THE POWER | Dr. Ellen Brown

September 14, 2020 by  
Filed under Extra

Haves and have-nots: on the 2020 table?

As we approach the November elections, let’s use our remaining time to prepare ourselves for battle.

BY DR. ELLEN BROWN

DR. ELLEN BROWN

Most people who speak to me about politics agree that 2020 is an inflection point for our nation. Without exception, myself included, consequences attached to the promises offer significant — often life-threatening — outcomes for each American who chooses (or not) to cast a ballot. Anyone considering staying home still has time to evaluate the consequences. But do you know what is on the table? How about your life, your children’s and family’s lives for the next four years and beyond? It is generational. It is that serious!

Anthony R. DiMaggio’s “Political Power in America: Class Conflict and the Subversion of Democracy” is a thick, textbook-style publication released in 2019. In its pages, he reveals facts from the 2016 election that are again rearing their heads.

Credible, independent fact-checkers have documented that during the 2016 presidential election, 53% of Hillary Clinton’s campaign statements were true, compared to just 9% of Donald Trump’s. Worse, “we” the public actually tolerate this manipulation with a wave of the hand and a shake of the head, followed by this all-too-familiar statement: “They’re gonna do what they want.” Within that statement, what we fail to consider is what’s on the table. Dr. DiMaggio goes on to describe how this public blow-off gives way to a blank check that increases the divide between the haves and have-nots in America, with the upper-class haves dominating public life through politics and self-serving business interests. This “power elite” is “comprised of business officials, political leaders, and military officials, all working in service of the corporate rich.”(C. Wright Mills).

If you align with the superpowers in corporate and political arenas, then you embrace the haves — whose fiercest focus is grabbing it all, after which this faction determines how the have-nots will live on the leftovers. If something is not in the best interest of the haves, they possess powerful resources to manipulate or just squash the whole threat.

Wrapping up this discussion, I’m reminded of the cliché: “minimize your losses.” Clearly, both political sides have demonstrated how they intend to use power to take more power. Whichever side you align with, just consider their offer to you and what it adds to your own power. Use it or lose it. That is what is on the table — and yes, you have the power!

Dr. Ellen Brown is an affiliate faculty member at Regis University. Contact Dr. Brown at ebrown.nci@gmail.com

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