Dishonest Politicians
In the news I see that President Obama thinks that the crushing loss of Senator Edward Kennedy's seat to the Republicans is due to voter dissatisfaction with the economy. I guess it never occurs to him that voters have deserted him personally because of his selling them out to the right wingers, time-after-time. Lots of voters thought he was a leader who would try to move the country back towards the ideas of the people, by the people, and for the people. Not just what helps the super wealthy people, but what is good for all the people. Progressive taxation and accountability for corruption among wealthy businessmen, politicians, or any one else. Laws applied equally to all people, regardless of their race, religion, or socioeconomic status.
For many years I was heavily addicted to smoking cigarettes. Eight years ago I quit. As any ex-smoker can tell you quitting and then staying quit is not easy. It takes backbone and strength of character. When it came out in the open that Obama was a closet smoker there was a lot of concern. Not especially due to a concern about him getting lung cancer or heart disease, more an unnerving perception among the millions of ex-smokers that this might indicate a basic lack of backbone on the part of Obama. His hiding this addiction was an early indication of his approach to honesty too. It turns out that his character weaknesses have become a major problem for the country. He's afraid of any fight...he is a chicken. What we voters first saw as a certain rather appealing coolness turns out to be ice water flowing in his veins. He has no problem going back on most of his most important campaign promises and selling out many millions of Americans, all the while playing out the Tiger Woods Routine of pretending that he is Mr. Clean the Good Guy.
The Democrats are now apparently considering some sort of even weaker health care reform. Months ago I came to the conclusion that Obama and his team had sold out on so many of the important elements of Universal Health Care that his so called “healthcare reform” should be allowed to die. Just like the growing millions of people in America who are excluded from the healthcare system. The former Vermont Governor, physician, and past head of the democratic party Howard Dean agrees that healthcare reform without “single payer” or even a far weaker “government option” just isn't worth fighting for.
The disgusting games we see being played out in Washington by all the politicians who have been corrupted by taking enormous campaign contributions from wealthy corporations makes me want to vomit. All this dishonesty and corruption has some major implications for our form of government.
The American form of Democracy, which virtually guarantees that our politicians have to sell their souls to get (and remain) elected, is now showing many serious and deep cracks. The American style of Democracy is a very sick puppy. No wonder we are having such a hard time exporting it to poorly educated third-world countries by military force. Unless we manage to reform the way that political campaigns are financed in America, which seems quite improbable, I don't see much of a future for the U.S.A.
Many other countries have managed to solve the problems of political corruption and campaign finance reform. Most other western democracies have already implemented a working form of universal healthcare. But in America we don't seem capable of doing either.
Unless you want your children and grandchildren to suffer horribly, I recommend that you stress that they must become highly proficient in foreign languages. Not just Spanish, but also French and Chinese. Over the last few hundred years many of the wisest Europeans chose to emigrate from their dying countries. It is generally the best and the brightest who have the strength of character to leave their own country and the comfort of their own culture to try and start a new life in a better place.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
–
-
