Why does everything have to be so political?

Have you heard this refrain recently? People complaining that no matter what subject they bring up, it gets political? Is that an exaggeration? Or have things gotten very political while we were all busy trying to stay healthy amid an unmanaged global pandemic?

See there? I got political. I called the COVID-19 pandemic unmanaged.

Certain people out there of a certain political bent would suggest that I was taking a shot at the current administration’s murderous efforts to manage a virus by lying about it, hiding statistics, holding equipment and money hostage, profiting illegally, and just generally doing a Keystone Cops level job of managing a public health crisis. But I have no strong feelings on that.

Meanwhile, other first-world nations have gotten things quickly under control by actually following the advice of experts, infectious-disease specialists, and practicing common courtesy. They do this by masking up, keeping their distance, and not throwing public hissy fits when someone suggests they wear a mask to help their fellow Earth people.

In mostly sane countries, wearing a mask is not political. Only here, in ’Murica has it been made political by a person who is happy for thousands to die as long as he keeps his job. And that, folks, is why everything has gotten political. The people currently in power will do anything to keep that power and so they have taken common-sense issues and made them political.

We’re told we need to cut public spending on food stamps, unemployment, Medicare, and Social Security because we’ve run up a huge budget deficit. Of course the deficit was hugely inflated due to a world record trillion-dollar giveaway to corporations and billionaires. So now the social safety net has become ever more politicized.

Education should be a pretty simple issue. People would like their children to receive a decent education at their local public schools. Right?

Well no. You see, rich folks like education secretary Betsy DeVos (who never attended a public school in her life) have a vested financial interest in private schools, charter schools, and defunding public education.

Right-wing ideologues want diminished public education because an educated populace is hard to control and harder to lie to. And of course, the religious right hates public education due to wavering but still mildly intact separation of church and state that prohibits religious education in public schools.

OK, so how about health care? Should be a no-brainer, right? All Americans want access to decent health care, at a reasonable price, and yet we pay more per capita than any other western nation and get far less.

Why? Money and politics.

Highly paid lobbyists have bought most members of Congress who now routinely pass or block legislation that only works for big pharma, health maintenance organizations, doctors, hospitals, and so on. We pay too much for medication because big pharma would lose profits if prices were controlled by the federal government as they are in most other nations.

And, while we can easily afford a military budget that dwarfs the next six countries put together, the idea of universal health care is fought by the GOP and big money with the same level of hatred and vengeance they once unleashed on the Nazis in World War II (the United States was the original antifa).

Hmm, we’re running out of issues. How about Social Security?

You pay in during your working life and then you get a steady, albeit small payback after you retire and until you die. Seems simple. But no, the GOP wants to do away with it, and hand it over to their buddies on Wall Street to “manage.”

Then they can plunder the remainder of the fund and line their pockets. This is why they keep lumping Social Security in with Medicare; Medicaid; the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program; the Home Energy Assistance Program; the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children; and other social programs funded by the government through our taxes.

They keep calling Social Security an entitlement when that’s an utter lie. An entitlement is not something you pay into your entire working life.

So when you get down to it, everything has become political because the folks holding power have no interest in helping the people they were elected to represent. Thanks to the Citizens United decision by the U. S. Supreme Court, unending amounts of dark money now flow into political coffers from shadowy places, and the pols who are being paid do as they’re told.

Our government is truly for sale to the highest bidder and the wealthy and powerful one-percenters who pull all these strings like it this way. They want us squabbling amongst ourselves, blaming anyone and everyone for our troubles while they sit back on their yachts and in their mansions and laugh at us.

The last time they got really nervous was during the Occupy Wall Street period back around 2008. People were really starting to pick up the message that our real and true enemy was the one percent and support was growing fast.

So what did they do? They started a media campaign, got the FBI to infiltrate the movement, treated it like a terrorist organization, and broke it up. And the proud sheeple of the U.S. just baahed and accepted it as dished out by the mainstream media.

I could go on and on, but the real issue is very clear. Things are political because we are being used, manipulated, lied to and killed off so a small group of people can hold onto power. It’s not a new story and has taken place over and over again down through history.

The real question now is what we’re going to do about it. Argue on Facebook or take to the streets and take our country back. Your choice.

Editor’s note: Michael Seinberg says he has been to more protests in the past three-and-a-half years than in the previous 50. He and his wife are not planning on stopping anytime soon, he says, unless of course they’re grabbed off the street by federal stormtroopers in unmarked uniforms.