News You Need Kleenex For

Well, we have nobody to blame but ourselves. As a nation we continue to reward the two-party system and just accept that it is corrupt. We settle for the lowest common denominator instead of demanding excellence from our leaders. Have an affair and you're out of office in a flash (or impeached). Accept a bribe from a lobbyist and nobody bats an eyelash.

The counter-productive level of negative discourse in DC is not going to change until we, the citizens, demand it with our votes. It is our apathy that is killing this country. So many of us simply choose not to research the candidates beyond checking for the (R) or (D) next to their name. We don't dig into their policy positions or their proposals. We don't research third-party candidates. And in the Internet age, there's no excuse for not finding out what these people really stand for.

It's very simple how we got to the state we're in, and yes, it's a lack of morality pure and simple.

Commercialism and pure capitalistic greed have taught about two generations now to worship the dollar instead of the values of decency.

That's why this depression will be far far worse that the 1930s. Because in the 1930s the country was infused, by and large, by morality and compassion for their neighbor and brother. I'm not talking sappy christian morality, I'm talking the basic stuff of having a soul and common human compassion vs thinking like friggin' reptiles like so many do today. And the very worst of those reptiles are those who coerce and lie in the name of "decency and morality". They lead masses astray with their deception and our whole country has followed them down the wrong path.

When the dookie really starts to hit the fan, the hundreds of millions of people in the cities who wouldn't know how to grow a garden to feed themselves to save their lives (in this case, literally) will be hunting for their food instead of politely asking "brother can you spare a dime?".

In downtown Greenville, SC, the sidewalk has numerous quotations engraved in it. The one that I'm particularly fond of:

"Most people would learn from their mistakes if they weren't so busy denying that they made them".

Its attributed to an anonymous author, but it rings so true to me looking at the landscape. I know you said there is more to it than politics, but watching our leaders take credit for anything and blame others for everything else has shown me the true lack of leadership that we currently have. I've often been told that we deserve the leaders we have, that they are a mere reflection of us all. I don't know what the deeper reasons are but it is easy to see now how everything has a political spin to it--their doesn't seem to be a "common good" anymore. The current crises may only fan the flame on our problems. As things become tighter, more and more people will need to start thinking of themselves first.

Consider this. The only goal of a publicly held company is to provide the maximum profits for the shareholders in the mind of the majority of businessmen and politicians who support them. This, conveniently enough, is what makes upper management very wealthy. Playing manipulative games with stocks, commodities and financial instruments related to them is what makes people in the financial sector rich. The latter has managed to become the largest section of the American economy. "Wall Street" applauds companies that have massive firings of people. In their minds a company's employees are not an asset but solely a cost center. Businesses fire people, cut back on their benefits and ship jobs overseas and are rewarded with a higher share price. Inflation adjusted wages are flat even as the cost of health care, food and energy increase drastically. Yet somehow you have people who should know better being surprised that an economy that depends heavily on consumer spending is now struggling even as they have been the ones laying the groundwork.

There's a similar story happening in my neck of the woods. I'm sure it's not uncommon. A Haitian woman who has been in this country over 20 years is getting foreclosed due to predatory lending. To add insult, the day she gets the notice she is to be foreclosed, her son is killed serving in Iraq. Talk about insult to industry.

J. Satterfield makes an excellent post, summating the foundation of the evils of pure capitialism that is unbalanced by socialist concerns. Neither pure state is healthy for a populace. It takes a balance of both to really kick butt....lol..

Personally, the root of all evils in our political system today is lobbying. Our representatives are respondant to their citizens ONLY. Not industry and then later maybe they'll think about the citizens. Citizens profit when industry thrives of course, and therefore industry should be lobbying citizens to put pressure on Congress. I would make any contact between industry and Congress one of the highest crimes of our nation, just below or equal with treason. We all can see how lobbying brought our country to the brink of ruin. What could be more treasonous than that?

Yes, this would be a disaster, but that word, "ill-starred" with its astrological roots fails utterly to attribute causality, which the above commenters all peg correctly. Unbridled greed is not a healthy motivator for our culture and has been the mantra since Reagan threw away fiscal conservatism and we all began to revere the rich and big corporations, oh excuse me, I mean "small business" (the universal talking point when shoveling out more millions to really big business).

What to do? Remove the power of money from politics. Discard the legal fiction of "corporate personhood" that falsely grants human rights to soulless, sociopathic corporate interests. No more bribes, no more pandering to those who deceive us into giving up our prosperity for their greed, no more of K Street writing laws meant to protect humans, no more foxes watching the henhouse. Our current policies that have led us here? It's not a disaster. It's a failure.

Ban Congressional lobbying. It's a start at least.