Editor’s note: To date, this website has been solely dedicated to my own writing and thinking. But if this medium – the Internet – is good for anything, it must be about supporting free expression and protecting dissenting views. The following opinion piece was written by Libby Bakalar, an elections attorney for the State of Alaska who on her own time also kept a blog critical of President Trump. Although her legal work for the state was exemplary, Bakalar was dismissed by incoming Gov. Mike Dunleavy for reasons that were officially unexplained but smack of retaliation against Bakalar for expressing her personal political views. Scary stuff but not surprising for a governor who also has threatened public education, public health, our ferry system and the viability of our communities. Keep a close eye on Dunleavy and follow this link to learn more about Bakalar’s termination: https://www.ktoo.org/2018/12/13/last-month-ruth-botstein-argued-alaskas-case-at-the-supreme-court-this-month-she-was-fired/. Bakalar’s most recent blog entry, “Sick, Dumb, Mean and Afraid,” is reprinted below with her permission. More from Bakalar is at: https://onehotmessalaska.blogspot.com/.
By Libby Bakalar
It is critical – and I mean truly critical – to understand that the governing power structure in this country right now, from the top down, is actively invested in four things with respect to the general population: making all of us – every last one of us – sicker, dumber, meaner, and more afraid. And it will swiftly punish anyone who tries to expose that fact, push back against it, or give it voice.
How and why? The answers are long enough to fill 17 books, but let’s briefly unpack this in 500 words or less.
A citizenry that is uneducated, divided amongst itself, unhealthy, and afraid lacks the ability and the resources to push back against cronyism, corruption, and corporate capture. It is robbed of the tools – including the financial tools – necessary to assert both individual and collective rights. Keeping the populace in this condition allows a small cadre of economic elite and their elected-through-gerrymander foot soldiers to undermine human rights and the environment by exercising outsized influence over both domestic and international decision-making and public institutions.
A population that is dumb, mean, sick, and afraid is easier to con and manipulate. These goals are reflected in public policies and funding decisions that are devoid of human empathy and intentionally starve the citizenry of the resources it needs to succeed in a system that is rigged in favor of corporate – not natural – personhood.
They want us dumb. They want to starve our children of knowledge, because they know that the more educated we are, particularly in science and civics, the more we understand the ridiculous con that has been perpetrated on us for decades, is reaching its apex now, and will ultimately kill us and the planet.
They want us mean. They use a divide and conquer strategy dating back to the Roman Empire that pits us all against each other for their systemic benefit. While MAGAs and Libtards are busy arguing on Facebook, the ruling class is raping and pillaging the planet and stripping the country for parts. They are doing this, mind you, on the back of underpaid, under-protected, blue-collar labor fueled by a mythical mirage of future financial success that – conveniently – never seems to arrive for hard-working Americans who can’t pay their bills no matter how hard they work.
They want us sick. This is reflected in our broken health care system and the absolutely criminal insurance market in which we relinquish giant chunks of our piddling paychecks on the promise that these corporations will return our money when we get sick–but surprise!–when that day comes, they have an institutional policy of denying claims outright, so that only the people with enough moxie (read: time and resources) to fight back get the services they paid for. When we are sick, we are literally physically defeated. We are too busy trying to get insulin for diabetes to care about the reason we can’t afford insulin for diabetes, much less do anything about it.
But most of all, they want us afraid. They want to punish anyone who speaks out against this mode of governing because telling the truth is the biggest threat of all. The second someone says the emperor has no clothes, you have the potential for a dangerous rebellion, and the ruling class knows this. That is why government employees cower in fear of exercising their constitutional rights to free speech and are summarily punished when they do. That is why loyal public servants are driven out of government and replaced by lickspittles, cronies, and hacks.
Sick, dumb, mean, and afraid is no way to live. We may not have much control over being sick or dumb, but we can decide not to be mean or afraid. We have to fight this by refusing to argue with our fellow citizens, calling this venal system what it is, and simply refusing fear.