In the last few days, listening to and reading news stories on money, politicians and large corporations; I have started to feel a huge, yawning pit of helplessness.
Here in America, the divide between the haves and the have-nots in now a chasm. And the people who should be protecting the rights and lives of the have-nots are in the pockets of the haves. There is no clear way out of this quagmire of deceit, lies, greed and selfishness. No one currently in a position of power or running for a position of power is a good option to help re-stabilize society. I certainly do not expect that there will be someone who will follow my beliefs down the line. I do wish that someone would have the welfare of the people rather than someone who is just going to make sure that the interests of the industries that are paying them are seen to.
What I see today are people who are poised to turn back time. Strip the rights of women and minorities, take away the protections for our environment and future generations, forcing their religious views on the public, giving freer rein to those who got us here to begin with, taking away all the protections put in place to keep the haves honest, forcing the have-nots to shoulder more and more of the burden for the haves, taking away or hollowing out any programs designed to give the have-nots a chance to move closer to the haves. No matter what history has shown, the haves seem bent on continuing in their course, seemingly gambling on the hope that nothing will happen in their lifetimes. Increasingly forgetting their obligations and responsibilities in favor of their pleasure. Giving in to their sense of entitlement and lack of accountability.
We see this as well in the, admittedly, horrifying rioting in England. It is true that the rioters are committing crimes and acts of violence but it is reckless (or willful) blindness on the part of the politicians to say that these riots have only the greed and selfishness of the rioters behind it. When it is very clear, even to those of us not in politics that the underlying sickness is the horrifying disconnect between the protectors and the protectees. Today's politicians seem to have forgotten or buried the simple fact that they are public servants, they are there to serve and protect the public. They are not put in office to take money on the side from large firms to look after their interests even if they could bring harm to the public as a whole. The whole job of politicians is to keep that very thing from happening, to protect the public the environment and our future from harm. Corporations do not have loyalty to a particular country anymore, they can go anywhere in the world now. Now more than ever we need politicians to keep the depredations of large corporations and the very rich from grinding down the general public. Large corporations do not but should care that they can only grind down the public for so long before there is nothing more to get from it.
As I have said before, I think that the first thing that went wrong was that we started paying our politicians and quit making it a volunteer assignment. The second error was allowing lawyers to be politicians. I believe that, as they are lawyers and therefore part of the judicial branch, lawyers should not be allowed to become politicians. Third, very few of the current politicians have ever run a business or know anything about budgeting. Its all games and getting their way over all the others or making sure they get a share of the pie.
I do not see a way out of this mess as long as the politicians are willingly blinding themselves to the true issues and unwilling to remove their hands from the pockets of large corporations.
And that's My 25 cents...
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