A sweep around social networks like Reddit would have you believe that one Ajit Pai is the end-all, be-all poster child for the repeal of Net Neutrality. We all know that he was a lawyer for Verizon, one of the biggest telecommunications corporations in the world and now he runs the Federal Communications Commission, the governmental body that regulates, well, communications, from our television, to radio, and yes, even the internet. Interestingly, his doofy, smiling mug has been made into spicy memes that express the anger of those of us that are clearly in favor of keeping our internet open and free from under the thumb of major telecom companies, but he is, after all, just one guy. A guy that clearly doesn’t have the best interests of millions of Americans at heart. What’s interesting to understand, is that Pai is just a lackey, an errand boy for a much larger systematic entity that is bent on control for the sake of profit. That entity is Capitalism.

I can hear the boos, hisses and outright defense of capitalism now. Heralded as “the best system we can come up with”, this is a system that by it’s very design and nature does all it can do destroy the public good and maximize profits for the few that control it. Think about it. We know that Pai was a corporate lawyer for Verizon, one of the benefactors of a decision like the repeal of Net Neutrality. Does the collective citizenry really believe that having someone who made their career being employed by one of the largest multinational telecommunications corporations should be at the helm of making decisions about what’s best for the internet as a whole? Does the collective citizenry really think that he won’t have the interests of that same corporation at heart when he makes these decisions? I would argue no, not in the least. But let’s not be mad at the man, after all, he’s just doing his job. That is, if his job entails being the package boy for the telecommunications industry.



Let’s try and understand it. When a President gets to make federal appointments, as Obama did of Pai in May of 2012, they should be choosing the best person for the job at hand. There’s probably a multitude of factors to consider when making such an appointment, who will do right by the agency, how will it benefit the American people and so on and so on. But here’s a decision that was made, of a man that clearly didn’t have the best interests of the people, to head an agency that was in control of the last bastion of personal and expressive freedom in the United States. Like many of Obama’s appointees(and let’s be real, this isn’t just an Obama thing, Federal appointments of terrible people can go as far back into history as we would like, but for this arguments sake, we’ll stick with modern US history), they have come from the industry in which they were appointed to regulate. Hell, we can even look at current appointments: Scott Pruitt was an outright vocal denier of Climate Change science as Oklahoma state attorney general, as well as a myriad of other reprehensible opinions(lawsuits against the ACA, and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection act) and was appointed by President Trump to head the Environmental Protection Agency. Here’s a guy that made a career of suing the government over climate science, then lead the department in charge of the science of climate. Rex Tillerson had a half trillion dollar deal with Russian state-owned oil companies while the CEO of Exxon-Mobil and was appointed as the Secretary of State by the Trump Administration. Betsy DeVoss, a woman who has never, not once even stepped foot inside of a public school in her entire privileged life, who’s father made the family fortune by starting the Amway pyramid scheme, and who’s brother started the largest, most ruthless mercenary private army in modern US history, was appointed by the Trump Administration as Secretary of Education, in charge of overseeing the education of millions of children and young adults. Steve Mnuchen, a man who was appointed Treasury Secretary by the Trump Administration, used to run a private bank that foreclosed on folks that owed literally pennies on back mortgage payments. Gary Cohn was former President and COO of Goldman-Sachs, a large multi-national investment bank, he now serves as the Director of the National Economic Council and is a chief economic advisor to President Trump. The list could go on and on and on.

What’s my point?

These people, while in a certain light, could be seen as the best people to lead the institutions in which they were appointed, are in actuality the worst kinds of people to be in those positions. This is what happens when a corrupt system works to benefit corporations and the wealthy elite. Instead of having the EPA run by a scientist, or professor, or someone with a political agenda that doesn’t involve profits for multinational corporations, we have a guy that wants to shred that office and all it stands for, in order for his friends at energy companies to make money by polluting our air and water. Instead of having a qualified educator with decades of teaching and maybe school administration experience, we have a woman that paid her way into that position, in order to push her agenda of religiously led, private charter schools. Instead of a seasoned diplomat with decades of experience in foreign affairs, negotiating peace-treaties and helping organize peaceful solutions to difficult situations, we have a former CEO of one of the largest oil and gas corporations in human history as Secretary of State. Instead of a seasoned economist that understands the complexities of a delicate economic system and the fundamental reasoning behind a fair tax system, we appoint a man that ran a multinational conglomerate investment banking firm that donated to all the major Presidential candidates in the past twenty years(with the exception of Bernie Sanders).

Is this what the people really want? Is this what the collective citizenry really desire? These people, in their appointed positions, do what’s best for their former(and sometimes future) employers. The United States is beholden, not to the will and demonstration of a democratic system of the will of the people, but to the will and whim of individuals and corporations that are willing to buy the candidate of their choice. This isn’t democracy. This is oligarchy, a system of rule by the elite, the rich, the affluent. This is simply what happens when the ideology of the capitalist system is allowed to permeate and fester, unchecked and unregulated for decades. When an entire society is led to believe that they too will be one of those elites, those rich and powerful folks that have the giant mansions and private jets and never have to worry about a thing. This is what happens when we allow private industry to do what it wants, with no regard for workers, or the environment, or even national sovereignty. This is the result of a system that is sick, sick beyond any realistic cure, other than to be put out to pasture and shot, it’s body left out in the field to rot and be fed upon by wild animals. This is a system that will continue to do what it wants, regardless of peoples phone calls, or petitions or any other mealy-mouthed attempts to reign it in.

Look, I’m all for active participation in government, but I’m also not naive enough to believe that the will of the voter will actually be listened to, at least not on the state and national level. What needs to happen is a groundswell of understanding of the system in which we live and try to survive on a daily basis. What needs to happen is a great reckoning of massive citizen support for a fundamental systemic change, and I personally believe that it starts with an understanding of said system, of the ideologies that control our every waking decision. We need more people to understand that every major hardship that they face in their lives can be traced back to the capitalist system under which we live. Its said that every decision we make in our lives is political, well I see it as one step further than that. Every decision we make is also ideological. Capitalist ideology is the mask we wear to blind us from the rotten truths of the world, it’s the earbuds we throw in to ignore the sounds of the world, it’s the television program we watch to ignore the harshness of the real, its the drug we take to drop out.

The time has come to not be blind, to not ignore, to not drop out. The time has come to understand and realize that as a people, as a collective citizenry and as a world, we human beings can do better. We have the means, we have the ability, we just lack the drive, the push. The human flock has been led to the holding pens of history, and the gates are open, we just choose the safety of our barns. We are scared of the wolves of change, for change is scary and massive systemic change is even more frightening. We want to be able to live, be able to raise our families, be able to die with dignity and an honor. No one wants to starve, no one wants to live in hardship, but we have a system that is designed to produce a life of starvation and hardship for those who did not win the affluent lottery. We have a system that is designed, by it’s nature, to only benefit those that are willing to forsake all the goodness of their human spirit, for the sake of avarice and hatred. Is this what human beings really want?

So what’s my proposal?

Be the change. Understand the system and how it is working against you. Back in my Occupy Wall Street days, I heard a chant: “We are the 99%”. It might not have started there, and I’m sure it still goes on today, but it’s true today as it was then. We are that 99% of people that won’t have what the elites have, and in a way, we have to come to terms with that. We have to understand that affluence isn’t the end result of a good life. Being able to live your life fully, and enjoy the things that make you happy are what’s most important. Being able to raise future generations without having to think of how you’re going to be able to afford dinner this week, or how to pay a heating bill, or how you’re going to put gas in your car. As a society, we need to throw off this blanket of ideology that teaches us that we are all just temporarily embarrassed millionaires.

As for Ajit Pai, he’s just a guy. A terrible guy working for a terrible, amoral machine that’s terrible sole purpose is to create more wealth for itself and it’s terrible shareholders. He has a wife and a family. He needs to eat and breathe, and he even shits like the rest of us. Sure, he may have a goofy smile, and he’s a poster-child for all of our hatred right now, but we have to understand that he’s just a guy. A flesh and blood human being that needs to understand his role in the system. In the cosmic law of the universe, he’ll answer for his indiscretions, but for now, he’s just a guy doing the job he’s been told to do, by the institutions that told him to do it. Don’t blame Pai, blame capitalism.