Truth to Power

Life on Maggie’s Farm

I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more

No, I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more

Well, I wake in the morning

Fold my hands and pray for rain

I got a head full of ideas

That are drivin’ me insane

It’s a shame the way she makes me scrub the floor

I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more</i>

Bob Dylan turns 70 today. He released his first album in 1962, the year I was born. And like Bob, I got a head full of ideas that are driving me insane. Like when I read something like this:

The Rich Are About To Get Very, Very Rich: Study Finds Global Millionaire Wealth Set To More Than Double By 2020

A new study by Deloitte confirms everyone’s worst fear (and every millionaire’s wettest dream): the wealth amassed by millionaire households is set to increase by more than 100% over the next 9 years. From a total of $92 trillion held by the world’s richest in 2011, by 2020 the world’s millionaire households will possess $202 trillion, or roughly 4 times current global GDP. Even though much of move up is attributed to the wealth surge in the developing world, the biggest beneficiary is, you guessed it, the United States where the millionaires (those with net wealth of at least $1 million), who currently account for $38.6 trillion of total wealth, will see their assets increased by 225% to $87.1 trillion!

And as has been the case for the last 30 years, incomes of the lower and middle classes will remain stagnant, and social services and infrastructure get further slashed, in order to fund more gimmies to the wealthiest among us. But that’s the thing, you see. They aren’t “among us”. They live behind walls in gated communities, drive expensive cars to private airfields- you don’t hear Warren Buffett whining about the TSA, do ya? Their children don’t go to public schools, or sit in emergency rooms with a cough.

I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s pa no more

No, I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s pa no more

Well, he puts his cigar

Out in your face just for kicks

His bedroom window

It is made out of bricks

The National Guard stands around his door

Ah, I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s pa no more</i>

The oft-quoted axiom that democracies survive until the public learns to vote themselves money frequently gets tossed into discussions about this, despite it not being an actual quote, nor it being particularly factual. Show me a society that collapsed because the majority of the citizens had the majority of the nations wealth, and it will be the first I’ve heard of it. In fact, in this country our darkest hours are generally the exact opposite. The majority of the wealth- wealth that should be moving around society, hiring people, building bridges, paying school teachers, is instead sitting in bank accounts off shore, waiting. Same as it was before the last Depression. So please explain to me how the rich of this country are going to get richer when nobody is working enough to buy anything? Start another war? We have enough of those, no more room to increase production to sate the war profiteers (make due with what ya got, Cheney and crew), and since taxes are at their lowest since the 1950s, and most large corporations have rewritten the laws to pay nothing at all, so where is the money going to come from? Are we going to wake up one morning with crude stitches where our kidneys used to be? Or all in jail on bogus drug charges, while private prison investors get a check each month for keeping us there?

Just how long you think this nation’s wealth can continue to be pilfered by those who write the laws until we’re just a bare husk of a nation? Until we have no teachers? No firemen? Until our food is nothing but masses of GMO poison, contaminated and uninspected? What will happen then?

This guy. Or this guy.


Recently on Ink 19...

Tremors 2: Aftershocks

Tremors 2: Aftershocks

Screen Reviews

Earl is about to learn the Graboids have evolved and are deadlier than ever! Tremors 2: Aftershocks, the 1996 film by the original Tremors creative team, gets a 4k restoration for modern audiences.

Chris Knight

Chris Knight

Event Reviews

Joe Stamm opens for Chris Knight at First Avenue Club in Iowa City, Iowa, and the audience is there for absolutely all of it.

Heroes of the Metal Underground

Heroes of the Metal Underground

Print Reviews

Just in time for the heavy metal Christmas shopping season, European author Alexandros Anesiadis delivers his latest — a thorough and riveting encyclopedia-type account of the hard-working DIY American bands that created an important underground music scene that’s well worth remembering.

Witness 4k UHD

Witness 4k UHD

Screen Reviews

In a beautiful testament to Peter Weir’s vision, the director’s 1985 classic, Witness, gets a fresh restoration from Arrow Video.

Year-End Record Roundup

Year-End Record Roundup

Features

Ready for a cold one this season? We thought so! Enjoy, as Christopher Long reflects on his favorite VINYL releases of 2023 — an intoxicating (and satisfying) “six-pack,” to be sure.

A.J. Croce

A.J. Croce

Interviews

Concert addict Jeremy Glazier talked with A.J. Croce near the beginning of his year-long Croce Plays Croce tour about embracing his father’s music and his own while honoring both their familial bond and shared influences.

Best of Film 2023

Best of Film 2023

Screen Reviews

For Lily and Generoso, 2023 was a fantastic year at the cinema! They select and review their ten favorite films, six supplemental features, and one extraordinary repertory release seen at microcinemas, archives, and festivals.

%d