I write this with a certain aghar in my brain, a word that is spelled and translated into so many different meanings, in so many inter-related languages, and in so many parallel cultures, that it’s true meaning is very hard to define. So let me try to simplify it.
The true Biblical quotation I’m concerned with at present – to the extent that we can accurately translate and explain it after the passage of millennia, and so many competing languages and interpretations, is this: “For the love of money is the root of all evil; which, while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”
In your King James Bible, that’s 1 Timothy 6:10. Note that money is not said to be the root of all evil, but the love of money is at fault.
What does this have to do with aghar?
The word has many meanings, in many languages, but lets use the operative interpretation in Urdu, which is “greed.”
And greed is the best word to accurately define not only the American economy, but also the American political system and, by extension, the global economy. That is because we ceased being a democratic system of government sometime after the United States Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United that corporations and other associations of individuals are protected by the First Amendment, meaning the government cannot ban them from making independent political expenditures, because corporations act as associations of citizens.
So maybe corporations are not now people, but they are protected in their efforts to influence political decisions as if they were people. And the result is that American politics is no longer a democratic system; it has become an Autocracy, in which private money doesn’t always, but frequently can, determine the outcome of elections. .
And so we have the richest man in history, the world’s first trillionaire, trying to boldly and transparently buy an election – in fact, several elections – because he can. And by doing so, he stands to profit immeasurably through more – and more profitable– government contracts.
The corruption now unveiled in the Trump administration knows no equals and no boundaries. Trump administration and family members are simultaneously negotiating international accords and private business deals, all interrelated. And the leakage of private money into public politics only expands exponentially.
Where this leads is painfully clear. The rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer. And let’s not allow ourselves to be coerced down the “communist” rabbit hole. Communism is not even a failed system. It doesn’t exist, beyond romantic Marxist-Leninist wet dreams. The Soviet Union was not a communist state, it was an autocratic, fascist dictatorship.
The closest thing America has ever been to socialism or communism has been the oil industry’s depletion allowance tax benefits, and countless other depreciation allowances whereby the government guarantees massive profits however the petroleum market moves.
Closer to home, we have a young, inexperienced, but very rich young entrepreneur and political neophyte – Eric Jones – challenging an aging but honest and effective long-term member of Congress – Mike Thompson – and spreading lies about Thompson with millions of his own dollars because he is rich. Ironically, Jones is accusing Thompson of taking corporate contributions while Jones, himself, is one, giant corporate contribution.
Underlying the unbridled influence of wealth on the political process, is the fundamental inequity of wealth distribution, not just in Sonoma Valley, or Sonoma County, or California, or the United States, but in the world at large. As we face the escalating threat of climate change and the radical destabilization of the global environment, it doesn’t take a mathematical genius to predict who will profit and who will perish in the volving global economic environment.
The massive, overwhelming maldistribution of global wealth is the single greatest threat to the world as we know it. The Trumpian model of unparalleled greed and blatant fraud will come back to bite the wealthy Maga-istas in the butt. But it will hurt the poor the hardest.
Billionaires are not the problem. Unfair distribution of wealth is the problem. And the current oligarchy is designed to hasten the entire system’s collapse.
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