Well, now… Had a minor catastrophe this past week when my computer died. And I mean, it died. Overnight. In its sleep… It was working fine when I shut it down, refused to do more than start the fans when I powered it up. So it was off to the store, where I bought a brand new Windows 11 box with a 1TB solid-state drive. Pretty much state-of-the-art (except I know it really isn’t, but I don’t want a gaming computer).

That’s when I discovered that my “scheduled” backups never happened. This is, of course, horrifying, because there are photos and data on those hard drives that cannot be duplicated, so they’re in the hands of a data recovery pro – and I’m praying for his success. So among the other things I’ve been doing – aside from all the holiday festivities – has been gathering up all the old thumb drives and the positively ancient 150GB Seagate external drive, and see just what I actually have.

I’m missing a lot…

But something I did discover is that I’ve been writing essays like these since well before the turn of the 21st century; more than 25 years, now. I found one from 2019 that tells me that nothing much has changed since then. With the exception of Star Trek going off the rails (at least until Lower Decks set things mostly right just this past week). And we don’t discuss the atrocity that was inflicted on Battlestar Galactica 20 years ago…

Twenty-five years and more of the same thing, the same cons, the same political BS we’re seeing now. And if anything, it’s gotten worse. The gaslighting, the finger-pointing, the blind acceptance of half-truths and full-on lies. The racism that’s built into the messaging. The vilification of anyone who thinks differently. The carefully-crafted deceptions designed to maintain their power, keep undesirable facts out of the approved narrative – never mind that it undermines the country and our society as a whole.

And don’t get me started on the Republican Party Line…

I’ve said for years (and years and years) that our political system is deeply, and deliberately, flawed, and the majority of us – regardless of party affiliation – are caught in the crossfire, our voices unheard. Back-room dealings have reduced our choices to two; others, rational thinkers or not, need not apply. And for our entire adult lives, we’ve let them continue.

We have the power, should we choose to exercise it. We don’t, which is a great mystery to me. We’re content to sit on the sidelines, trusting a few non-elected power brokers to run things, the billionaires whose only true interest is keeping their billions, accepting their narratives as gospel…

Let me take a moment to discuss money. Money makes the world go around, as they say – and it’s a truism. Money is strength, and can be compared to physical strength pretty much point-by-point. The wealthy have always had greater influence than the poor, in all areas – political, social, everything. As the mighty hunter had greater influence in his tribe, so does the wealthy man.

And it used to be that we looked up to those whose hard work and perseverance (or good luck, for that matter) gained them that strength. Yes, there was exploitation that occurred, greed among the robber barons, but there were also good people in charge during the Industrial Revolution and laws were enacted to protect workers from overt – and dangerous – exploitation. But we admired the good men (and women) who managed to do better than average. Who excelled. We tried to emulate them, in fact.

Not so much any more. We vilify them now – most of them. If you’re earning much more than poverty-level wages, you’re hoarding wealth that would make life easier for the downtrodden. You’re evil – and you’re likely a Republican. Which is ludicrous, since the Democrat party is also run by billionaires, but the only people talking about that are Republicans (and me), since apparently Republican billionaires are the devil’s spawn, but Democrat billionaires are saintly and routinely perform miracles.

And the billionaires themselves are largely to blame for this attitude. Their focus has shifted from true, consumer-oriented Capitalism to keeping – and expanding – their portfolios at all costs. But the messaging they put out demonizes the rich running the political opposition. They’ve figured out how to stay rich; their idea of “sharing the wealth” is for other rich people to “share” theirs…

There’s an old song – a 1971 song by Ten Years After called “I’d Love to Change the World” – with the line “tax the rich, feed the poor, ’til there are no rich no more.” That’s what most of the rhetoric you’re hearing now is aiming for, you know. Except for the saintly rich, of course.

Anyway, one of the points that is apparently completely lost on people today is that the Musks and Bezoses and Soroses of the world aren’t sitting on billions in cash. The vast majority of their wealth isn’t “liquid,” it’s all on paper, tied up in companies, real estate, loans, stocks and bonds, and the value of those – regardless if the company is making or losing money – are the largest part of their calculated worth; they probably couldn’t come up with a tiny fraction of their calculated worth in cash on short notice. They probably couldn’t come up with anything near their calculated worth if they sold every asset they owned, for that matter…

But what that boils down to is this: Sure, Elon could solve world hunger with just 10% of his calculated worth – probably only temporarily, but still – but which companies are you going to force him to sell to do it? Who are you going to force to buy them?

And who died and made you God, that you can make that decision?