Malefactors of Great Wealth

Too much cannot be said against the men of wealth who sacrifice everything to getting wealth. There is not in the world a more ignoble character than the mere money-getting American, insensible to every duty, regardless of every principle, bent only on amassing a fortune, and putting his fortune only to the basest uses —whether these uses be to speculate in stocks and wreck railroads himself, or to allow his son to lead a life of foolish and expensive idleness and gross debauchery, or to purchase some scoundrel of high social position, foreign or native, for his daughter. Such a man is only the more dangerous if he occasionally does some deed like founding a college or endowing a church, which makes those good people who are also foolish forget his real iniquity. These men are equally careless of the working men, whom they oppress, and of the State, whose existence they imperil. There are not very many of them, but there is a very great number of men who approach more or less closely to the type, and, just in so far as they do so approach, they are curses to the country. (Forum, February 1895.) Mem.Ed. XV, 10; Nat. Ed. XIII, 9.

It may well be that the determination of the government (in which, gentlemen, it will not waver) to punish certain malefactors of great wealth, has been responsible for something of the trouble; at least to the extent of having caused these men to combine to bring about as much financial stress as possible, in order to discredit the policy of the government and thereby secure a reversal of that policy, so that they may enjoy unmolested the fruits of their own evil-doing. . . . I regard this contest as one to determine who shall rule this free country—the people through their governmental agents, or a few ruthless and domineering men whose wealth makes them peculiarly formidable because they hide behind the breastworks of corporate organization. (At Pilgrim Memorial Monument, Provincetown, Mass., August 20, 1907.) Mem. Ed. XVIII, 99; Nat. Ed. XVI, 84.

Those are the words of Theodore Roosevelt over 100 years ago. If Teddy were alive today I cannot help wonder if he would be talking about the Koch Brothers, or their minions like Rick Perry, Scott Walker, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell and others.

Reflecting on the recent events of the Republican Congress risking the entire economy and economic reputation of the United States by (self-admittingly) holding hostage the government debt ceiling — when Senate House Minority Leader Mitch McConnel said “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president” he was foreshadowing what he would say in the future: “I think some of our members may have thought the default issue was a hostage you might take a chance at shooting,” he said. “Most of us didn’t think that. What we did learn is this — it’s a hostage that’s worth ransoming. And it focuses the Congress on something that must be done.” This is clearly the most blatant form of political malfeasance possible. It does not take a rocket scientist to conclude that these republicans care more about undermining the efficacy of a sitting president, and deliberately sabotaging the economy and job growth in order create the worst possible situation for re-election.

What is interesting is that all federal government officials take an oath (to God) to to work in the best interest of the county. The fact that these sitting officials flaunt their disregard for this oath so brazenly only points out how meaningless such an oath is, and that there is no entity in the country to hold officials accountable to their oath. Personally I think such acts warrant an indictment of corruption, or even treason. Can anyone else see the hypocrisy in the republicans spending millions of dollars, upsetting countless lives, and misdirecting the resources of government simply to impeach a sitting president for getting a blow job; yet the next president starts several wars which lead to the death and injury of tens of thousands of Americans, hundreds of thousands of others, brings the debt to record levels by not creating the revenue to pay for these wars; the US and world economy tanks because of right-wing deregulation policies allow malefactors of great wealth to engage in gambling trillions of dollars of other people's money on toxic investments rated AAA; and now the current minority of republicans terrorizes the entire country so that they can deliberately ruin the economy in order to make it more difficult for the president to get re-elected?

This irony only grows when you consider that the republican base is propped up by self-important, self-righteous, punitive right-wing Christians who are more interested in punishing women who get abortions, or even think about getting abortions; marginalizing and demonizing gays, lesbians, transgenders, etc.; and hastening the end of the world so they can “be there” when the rapture starts — than, well, being Christian — and showing some compassion for children who are unplanned and unwanted; showing tolerance to people whose lifestyle in no way harms anyone but the intolerant; accepting the fact that the rapture will come in God's time and not theirs; or maybe actually care about the economy, the attack on the middle class, the fears of the jobless, the despair of the poor, and the increasing numbers of the homeless. The irony I mean is that mainstream Christians stand quietly by with nothing to say about these malefactors of faith, because “evil can only flourish when good people are silent.”

The point I am trying to make, is that in over a hundred years, we must still endure the same malefactors of wealth that Teddy Roosevelt described, only now they have partnered with malefactors of politics and malefactors of faith as well, and what are we to do about it?