"Remember Who The Real Enemy Is"

If you're a "Hunger Games" fan, you know that those are words of advice given to Katniss Everdeen as she prepares to go back into the arena in "Catching Fire," the second book (and movie) of the series, which show how a future ruling elite manipulate and intimate a divided population by forcing their teenage children to fight to the death.

Here in 21st-century America, however, we have our own Hunger Games, minus the gladitorial trappings.  Instead of divide-and-conquer games, we have divide-and-conquer politics.  And we, the people, cheerful participate in them, through our greed and laziness.

How does it work?  Well, it's best summed up in a joke I've seen on the Internet a number of times, in one version or another.  Basically, it goes something like this:  a 1-percenter, a Tea Partier, and a union representative attend a party, and are presented with a plate of 10 cookies.  The 1-percenter immediately takes nine of the cookies, turns to the Tea Partier and says "Watch out for that union guy--he's after your cookie!"

Funny, right?  Except for the fact that the Tea Partier buys it.  He desperately grabs the last cookie from the union rep, and leaves the most productive member of the group without reward for his labors.

Because it's time to face reality.  The 1-percent make money by gambling, while the union workers (and those who want to be union workers) create the real wealth, through skill, teamwork, and persistence that often challenges the odds.

And the Tea Partier?  He or she lives in a state that is largely depending on Federal tax dollars from elsewhere.  He or she lives in a state with low levels of accomplishment and high levels of social dysfunction.  He or she is, if anything, even more oppressed than the union workers, because they earn fewer wages and have far less access to public services (especially education) that could and should make a material difference in their lives.  For these reasons, the Tea Partiers should be natural allies of the unions, the only proven form of organization to make the lives of average citizens better.

But the Tea Partier throws in his or her lot with the 1-percent.  Why?  Because they think the 1-percent has gotten what the 1-percent deserves, through either hard work or skill?  No, they would agree with the unions that the 1-percent are just people who've won the investment lottery.  The difference, in the case of the Tea Partier, is that the 1-percent has gotten what the Tea Partier thinks he or she deserves--a chance to win that same lottery.  This is why the cut-spending-and-taxes argument works so well with Tea Partiers--they think that it gives them the same lottery ticket that the 1-percent have.  Many of them share the 1-percent's aversion to hard work, talent and perserverance.  Why, those things are for suckers.  Why not roll the dice with the wealth created by others, and take a chance on winning it all?

And therein lies the rub:  All of us CAN'T win it all.  The 1-percent know that, and spend their time playing political games that have the effect of dividing the Tea Parties from the unions, and prevent both groups from combining into a powerful force that could build a rational society based on shared wealth and responsibility.  After all, if that were to ever happen, casino capitalism would come to a screeching halt, and in its place would be a market-based society in which access to basic needs and opportunities for advancement could be equally shared.

But this will never happen, until those of us in the union-based, progressive side of politics start to engage the Tea Partiers in a dialogue about how wealth works, and show them that wealth isn't created by a handful of investor-kings but by all of us.  Adam Smith's book is called "The Wealth of Nations," not "The Wealth of a Privileged Few."  Smith understood, far better than his modern-day acolytes, the need for laws and collective activity to generate wealth.  Doubt me?  Try something:  read him.  And then talk to the nearest Tea Partier about how the creation and accumulation of wealth really works.  A lot of it has to do with values that are not only union values, but Christian ones as well.  It's not an accident that Solidarity, the union that helped end the Cold War, was as much about Christianity as it was about workers' rights.

We need to take a page or two from "The Hunger Games."  Start talking to our fellow "tributes in the arena," the Tea Partiers, and convince them that progressive values are traditional, even religious, values as well.  If we can do that, perhaps, one day--together--we can learn to fight the real enemy.  For my part, I hope and pray to do my part with this in 2014, and I hope and pray that you will do yours as well.