DEMOCRATIC AMERICA IS BEING TESTED – PART IV
For most of the history of the U.S.A., the country has been run by the energy companies (oil, gas, and coal), industrial companies (railways, automobile, defense) and banking companies. The incestuous relationship among these companies enables them to control our country and therefore the world.
Anything or anyone outside of their circle, including other countries on earth, is just a service provider for them.
For the past few decades, the world has changed to the dismay and anxiety of lots of members of this circle.
There was the story of a former U.S. Secretary of State meeting a delegation of Japanese businessmen in Bangkok. They asked for help to sell cars in the U.S. The secretary put his hand in his vest’s pocket to pull out a chain watch, looked at it then told the Japanese to better sell their cars in the third world countries such as Thailand; the Americans would not buy Japanese cars because of their low quality. The secretary was probably not condescending, just stating a matter of fact.
But the fact had changed.
One example is the automobile industry. A few decades after the Bangkok meeting, Japanese cars surpassed American cars not only in sale but in terms of engineering, technology, and craftsmanship. They even beat the Germans, the white bastion of engineering excellence according to automobile experts including German. With the new wave of changes caused by electric cars coming on the markets, the dominance of Detroit was sunsetting. Toyota just surpassed General Motors as the seller of most cars in the U.S. in 2021. The founding ultra-rich families and the millionaires who rode the coattails of the combustible engine revolution to wealth saw the writing on the wall.
The coal industry and the oil and gas business have struggled against a different kind of attack, at first not from competition but from the people and therefore the governments, on environmental issues, climate change. That has led to competition, the solar energy industry, currently not a major threat to them but the trend is worrisome. In no time, coal, and with it wealth and power, will be history.
The most striking, and to the white establishment the most threatening changes have been in the finance sector, the heart of capitalism and the seat of power of the old order for centuries.
Sabrina, the movie, was the perfect image of the old order, which the old guards have tried to preserve. It is not just a beautiful movie but for them a beautiful order. The patriarch, though senile still sits at the top, proud and respected. His executive power has already been transferred to his oldest son, therefore the continuity of the family’s wealth and influence is preserved. The second son is the embodiment of the bon vivant aspect of the privileged life, having none of the cares in the world. Everyone else, represented by the chauffeur and his daughter, can only climb the tree to look in from the outside, dreaming of the life inside and of being admitted. The hierarchy is rigid, and the separation is absolute: without permission – and permission is granted only after passing heartbreaking tests – an outsider has no way to get in.
Until now.
(Next, Part V)
