Lootocracy

Published on Thursday, August 28, 2003 by CommonDreams.org

Lootocracy

by Paul Rogat Loeb

If you run a lootocracy, you have no conception of sufficiency. You set up the rules to grab as much money as you can, as if you've won a supermarket shopping spree. You also concentrate power, the better to arrange the world for your benefit. Unchecked by modesty, satiety, or shame, you take all you can get away with. You loot until someone stops you.

The word lootocracy was originally coined to describe the corrupt cartels that have ruled and plundered countries like Nigeria, Kenya, and some of the former Soviet Republics. But with an amazingly small amount of national debate, George Bush is installing a more global and sophisticated version-one where those on top can do whatever they choose without the slightest constraints. Bush began his presidency by giving the wealthiest five percent of all Americans massive tax breaks of $75 billion a year. He paid for them in part by cutting child abuse prevention, community policing, Americorps, low-income childcare, health care, housing, and even support for military families. This spring he passed another round of cuts, $35 billion a year targeted overwhelmingly to the same lucky lootocrats.

You'd think these victories would leave the Bush administration and its core supporters satisfied that they'd transferred more than enough wealth to the very richest Americans. You'd also think they might have notice that the first tax cut neither created new jobs or stemmed the continuing loss of existing jobs. But no. House Republicans have now just voted to end the Estate Tax permanently. If the Senate goes along, this will transfer a trillion dollars more, over the coming two decades, to an even tinier group of individuals. And key Republican strategist Grover Norquist promises more cuts down the line, explaining, "My goal is to cut government...down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." Conservatives once preached fiscal restraint. Now strategists like Norquist view massive deficits as a tool to strip away government's ability to affect public life. And the administration neglects practically every real need so they can shift as much money as possible away from communities that could use it to the most to those who already have more than they know what to do with.

As 2001 Nobel economics laureate George Akerlof said recently, in calling the administration "the worst government the US has ever had in its more than 200 years of history, "This is not normal government policy What we have here is a form of looting." - http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0828-02.htm

We all know this is what's going on. The key is how to get America to realize this fact.