I on the World

I believed. Yes, I did.  I believed Mr. Obama would bring change to Washington.  But other than turning the White House black, he didn’t.  He made a lot of promises.  He didn’t keep them.  He said no more business as usual.  Then he stacked his administration with the same old Washington entrenched – Emanuel, Gates, Geithner, Holder, Panetta, Summers. . .the list is endless.

Then there was the bought-and-paid-for Congress, heralding the “landmark” health care reform bill – except there wasn’t any reform in it.  And now we have the “landmark” financial reform bill – except, again, there isn’t any reform in it.  And I can’t wait for the “landmark” energy reform bill – can you?  Health insurance companies are still raking in the dough.  Banks are still screwing the people.  And the oil companies, well, they’ll just keep on destroying the planet in the name of greed.

Does all this mean the president is weak?  Of course it does.  Does it mean he’s scared?  Probably.  Does it mean he’s naïve?  Undoubtedly.  It also means he will not be elected to a second term.  Certainly not by me, and millions of others just like me.  You know the old saying — fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.

Word to the wise — Republicans, find a moderate.  None of your teabag extremists will do, so get smart, find a moderate for 2012.

Whatever you might think of the recent SCOTUS ruling on campaign contributions, one thing is abysmally clear — the collapse of America is coming closer and closer.  Why, you ask?  Because, without a true functioning government — and in this country, that means a government that is of the people, by the people, and for the people — there is no bottom to corpocracy, to greed, to corruption, to disaster.

And the sad truth is, it’s so easy to fix.  And the people who shudder at the very mention of campaign finance reform are, sadly, those who thrive on corpocracy, greed and corruption.  And, tragically, many of them are your senators and congresspeople.  They like the special interests.  They like the special attention they receive.  They like the money that pours into their coffers.  They didn’t seek public office to give a hoot about their constituents — they sought public office to enrich themselves on the backs of their constituents,  to make career changes that would, one way or another, set them up for life.  The worst of the worst at it get caught out and kicked out.  The rest get away with it.  Are there some good ones in the bunch?  I’m sure there are, and I can probably name them.  But they’re too few to make any real difference.

Don’t agree?  Okay, let’s put it to the test.  A couple of years ago, I suggested a simple, winning solution to my own congressman.  I suggested that a designated sum of money be transferred from every taxpayer’s tax return to a national, interest-bearing election account, and then proportionally allotted to every legitimate candidate for national office every two years.  That’s it.  No other contributions accepted.  At any time.  For any reason.

Just think what that would do to clean up the dirt that is the American government today.  Our senators and congresspeople would be beholden to no one but their constituents.  They could admit that global warming does indeed exist.  They could hasten the planet on the path to real sustainability.  They could tell health insurance companies where they could take their business if they didn’t treat their people right.  They could suggest to pharmaceutical companies that gouging their constituents was not okay.  They could tell big banks and Wall Street that their heydays were over.  They could perhaps then honestly claim the moral integrity to lead the world.  What a novel concept!

Oh yes, and what did my congressperson do in response to my suggestion?  He ignored it.

Barney Frank, chairman of the senate banking committee, and his bank reform legislation are a joke.  Much as I appreciate a good joke, this one’s on the American taxpayer . . . again.  Let’s see, Frank not only wants to legalize Too Big to Fail, and maintain the kind of secrecy surrounding the shenanigans that got us into the economic mess we’re in, in the first place, he wants to create loopholes so big that up to 80 percent of the gambling that caused the financial collapse last year will be exempt from public view!  This means the banks can go right on taking massive risks, in secret, with taxpayer money.  If they win, they reap the benefits.  If they lose, the taxpayer picks up the tab.  If he really thinks this is in the best interests of the American people, Barney Frank ought to retire, and Massachusetts should help him do so.

CIT Group filed for Chapter 11 protection.  Cost to taxpayers?  Oh, only the 2.3 billion dollars that was handed over to them last year right out of our pockets.  But all is not lost — Goldman Sachs gets 1 billion dollars on the deal.  And what is our hen-guarding-the-fox-house treasury secretary worried about?  He’s worried that banks aren’t taking enough risks!  You know, like the kind they took for the past decade that ended up in our being mostly owned by China now.  It’s way past time for Mr. Geithner to retire, along with whoever was responsible for giving him the job to begin with.  We don’t need a Wall Street protector in charge of our money — we need a taxpayer protector.

Never in the history of this county have so many labored for so long and so hard to come up with so little for the American people, and so much for the American health care industry.  Just in case you thought you lived in a democracy, where the people you elect to public office worked on your behalf — welcome to corpocracy, where the people you elect to public office can get paid a whole hell of a lot more than the $175,000 a year you pay them by working on behalf of the corporations that really line their pockets.  And health care isn’t even the tip of the corruption iceberg.

In case anyone was wondering why this country is decaying from the inside out, the answer is in a system that sounds grand in the ideal, but doesn’t work very well in the reality.  The reason is simple.  It’s called greed.

Capitalism typically refers to an economic and social system of supply and demand based on private ownership of capital.  It was supposed to give people impetus to achieve while benefiting society by creating jobs and products and services.  However, by using supply and demand to their advantage, unscrupulous capitalists can cut the supply of a product, even if it’s urgent, and become very rich indeed from taking advantage of people’s needs.

One of the best examples of this?  Today’s health insurance industry, an unprecedented success story that has made a very small part of society very rich while leaving the rest of us out in the cold.  How does it happen?  It’s not that hard to follow.  The industry spends millions of dollars every year buying greedy members of Congress who are supposed to be working for you, protecting you, looking out for your best interests, but instead sell themselves to the highest bidders.  In this instance, these greedy members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, go about making sure that the health insurance industry keeps its Sherman Antitrust Act exemption, and thwarting every effort to reform health care in any way that might impact the industry’s profits.

With much of Congress bought and paid for, by one industry or another, one doesn’t have to wonder why ninety-five percent of the nation’s wealth is in the hands of one percent of the nation’s population.

In a nutshell, today’s capitalism is a pretty neat reverse Robin Hood that takes from the poor and gives to the rich.