Kimball Shinkoskey

Woods Cross

I have finally learned who runs America.

I must admit I have been deaf, dumb and blind for a long time. I thought I had arrived at a state of enlightenment when I learned there was another class of people besides the white suburban middle class I grew up in. I learned in college and graduate school and as a young working man that there was a distinct class of poverty-stricken people of color living in the big cities. That was quite a revelation to me.

I never imagined, and it took me still many more decades to learn, that there has long been a third class in America…the educated, super wealthy, gated-community aristocracy living where no one can see them or get close to them.

They almost live on a separate planet with different morals (anything goes, honesty is not required), different work habits (let others do the work), different paycheck philosophy (unearned income) and different intellectual orientation (certain wealthy families are special and must have special privileges in society). This class accepts nothing the rest of us learned in public school about what our ancestors taught, like all people are created equal, and everyone must participate in governing. They understand that nothing corporate America teaches gullible consumers in their advertisements is real, like all American citizens are joyful, fulfilled, dancing consumers of America’s goods and services. They don’t believe anything that Judeo-Christian churches, public schools and government at all levels teach about equal opportunity in America.

They see nothing the same, hear nothing the same and speak nothing the same as the rest of America. Their entire orientation is toward the unimpeded personal and corporate accumulation of capital and the easy investment of resources however they want. This small class of people has existed alongside the other two massive classes in America for a long time. They became a little more visible during the age of the Robber Barons in the late 19th century but then withdrew into their mansions to secretly and quietly promote monopoly, high interest rates, regressive taxation and other economic marvels designed to make themselves even richer over the next 100 years and everybody else much poorer. Now in the 21st century we have 1,000 billionaires in America and many centi-millionaires safely ensconced in economic power who are coming out as the new ruling class with the aim of asserting political power and militantly menacing society.

Our new 47th President was asked a question one day by a reporter when he was signing Executive Orders. In the midst of all the joy in the Middle East and middle-class America about a so-far successful hostage release cease-fire, the reporter asked our enlightened president what Gaza’s fate might be in the future. In an unguarded moment of truth-telling, the President revealed what the many cloistered decades residing in the privileged, unregulated aristocracy has taught him. He said, “You know, it’s a great place for investment and development.” We later learned he believed he would soon “own” Gaza and turn it into “the Riviera of the Middle East.”

President Trump was not thinking about Gazans and their hopes and aspirations, but just the hopes and aspirations of real estate billionaires like himself who might make a killing there. His family has existed alongside everybody else in America under different laws, different lifestyles, a different socio-economic language and, truly, a different God. In the imperial societies of the ancient world, the gods of the wealthy class were Pluto, the Roman god of wealth, and Dis and Hades, the Athenian gods of wealth and underworld. Underworld is truly a good description of the aristocratic class. It operates outside the light of business accountability, ethics, morality and social acceptability.

Our newly crowned aristocracy now want immunity from prosecution for the rich and all their sycophant partisan politicians in the White House and the Congress. They want the traditional medieval European governing system of aristocracy, where members of the Senate virtually hand down their “elected” offices (more likely “gifted” offices) to members of their own families, or wealthy neighbors or other corporate barons like themselves. They don’t want education for the masses, don’t care about health care for the masses and are perfectly fine seeing the homeless population explode across America. They want personal safety, private health care, legacy education and celebrity status forevermore. And they don’t want anybody toying with their wealth, no matter how unseemly their methods of obtaining it.

My eyes have finally been opened. My ears finally can hear. My mouth is compelled now to speak the truth of history and the direction of current events to my neighbors and fellow citizens. Are you interested in joining me?