Originally posted by: sportage
Now, even the good old US post office may cut days of service. Seems like every single aspect of our way of life is fast going down the tubes.
That's hardly the case. Things in many ways are better in modern times than they were previously.
However, one thing to beware of is to accept imbalances because of advances. Concentration of wealth is something to beware because it's a primary source of corruption.
I'll use your next point to illustrate:
During the Reagan admin, the USSR self destructed. Is this what is happening to us, the U.S.?
Is our way of government, in the end, possibly self destructing?
During the Stalin era, the USSR was extremely 'stable' as a state - no one spoke of the USSR falling because of domestic struggles, even while oppression was at a peak, from millions being killed by policies of starvation, massive poverty and political repression - and a stable government.
It's actually because the USSR was politically *healthier* in the Gorbachev era that it was able to politically disintegrate. It was a time when the people's rights were stronger.
Unfortunately, the people made a bad choice - and the west is in part to blame for how the country threw out Gorbachev for a corrupt leader, Yeltsin, who was willing to bomb the parliament for power, to throw out the people's rights and to embrade the corruption of Milton Friedman-school western corruption, and the USSR took a wrong turn - like choosing a Bush (Yeltsin) over a Gore (Gorbachev). That's a better lesson to draw. (Read Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine' for the history of that era).
Was this the unavoidable inevitable conclusion to a free society?
Real democracy is fragile. Why is that? One main reason is because the interests of the "haves" are at odds in part with the interests of the public. The "haves" can't have as much if the public can protect a better distribution of wealth. Take a look at other nations, such as in the Central and Southern Americans, where a small number of families can own 90% of the land and wealth. They don't think it's in their interests to have that land and wealth more distributed among the people, reducing poverty.
Now, they might be short sighted; better distribution of wealth might lead to more productivity that is good for the nation - but they like owning most of the wealth.
In the US, there was some balance of power early on; there really weren't especially wealthy people at the time the nation was founded. The industrial revolution brought the chance for the concentration of wealth to get much larger - and the government was largely corrupted as a result. The nation slid to the Great Depression, after which major reforms happened that helped the nation better handle the new wealth, creating a strong middle class, with unions, social programs, etc.
The wealthy got tired of this and starting in the 60's and 70's began to lay the foundations that led to the theoretical (think tanks) and political (Southern Strategy giving Republicans a big edge, electing the far-right Reagan) realignment of the nation to the right, selling the public on 'de-regulation' and a new massive shift in wealth to the top, leading gradually to the recent crash.
You ask was this inevitable? No - but lots of building blocks allowed it to happen, from the corporations in the 1880's gaining the power to twist the 14th amendment from giving equality to blacks to instead make corporations 'legal persons', to the massive increase in the concentration and corporatization of ownership of the media in the US, to the financial corruption of our election system, leading to a largely ignorant and ideological public allowing bad policies to continue, virtually unable to resist.
When the financial industry in the US, an overhead industry that should be as 'efficient' and limited as possible to facilitating the economy, is receiving 30% of all profits in the nation, the tail is wagging the dog, and there's going to be corruption and harmful activities, which is what we've seen with the industry creating harmful 'derivative' products to extract excessive money from the nation, building a house of cards because it was profitable.
Had the public found a way to prevent the abuses listed previously such as the financial corruption of the political system, it could have continued the sort of FDR/Truman/Kennedy governments that better represented the public interest. But the ideology of the right won out here for now, just as it did in the USSR, losing their democracy in large part.
I don't think inevitable is right, but I think 'highly likely' might be fair. The fact that 46% of Americans preferred McCain to Obama in 2008 is not a positive indicator.
Basically in a free society, you function on a type of ?honor system?.
That is, where everyone does the right thing, for ?their? sake as well as ?yours?.
That is a healthy political culture, but it needs the support of the public - to be taught and followed by citizens and government. You have to recognize the conflict in interest between the 'haves' and the public - and the common interests. Either the government is going to serve the haves - as it has since Reagan - or it's going to serve the public, as it did more under FDR or JFK. And that's largely the result of systemic decisions - just as our founders gave the public the system of elections at all.
You really have an issue here in defining the 'right thing'. Whose? The wealth's 'right thing' or the public's 'right thing'? The middle class's or the poor's?
The US has never come close to having a really 'pro-poor' government (the closest it has been was probably had Robert Kennedy had been elected). But it has had some balance at times, where the poor and the middle class have had some priority, compared to much less priority in the Reagan to present period.
Look at congress, have they long lost that honor system in doing the right, sound thing?
Or the financial system? Once someone figures out an angle, a loop hole, doesn?t it
appear they take advantage of it, for the short term gain. Personal gain?
The issue really isn't the individual people; if you are offered a lot of money to lobby for the needs of the wealthy, if you don't take the money someone else will. If one congressman doesn't accept the donations in a finanically corrupt system, the next guy who does and can pay for great attack ads will replace him. This sort of 'institutional corruption' - thesort Eisenhower warned about with the military-industrial(-congressional) complex, or the overpowered financial industry - is a problem.
It has to do with the 'health of democracy' for the public interest to put limits so that weapons spending (and the starting of wars) isn't driven by the industry, the market regulation isn't driven by the industry. As bad as this is for the conflict with the interests of the US public, it's far worse for any justice for foreign people who don't get to vote when they come into conflit with US corporate interests.
Is the concept of a free society actually a fantasy?
Of course not. Compare Stalin and Hitler with FDR and Churchill for that answer.
But every day that we tolerate apartheid in South Africa (as we did for decades) or the lands with Palestinians (as we have for decades), is a day we're continuing to corrupt it.
Haven?t all the best educated of our society long become like wild animals.
Steeling from the other, taking advantage whenever possible.
No morality or ability nor desire in considering the consequences?
Are we all not like wild animals, Harvard educated or not, in the end?
When was this ever not the case? Was it when the greeks fell into the same pattern while unjust wars raged, whatever some side figures they're now famous for said? Was it during Rome, when conquest was sold as 'defensive', republican culture fell to Emperors, and concentration of wealth had the usual effects, and there was no shortage of slavery?
Was it during the middle ages of feudalism? The era of European conquest as the wealthy of Europe spread slavery and empire around the world?
Was it in the 20th century as the US occupied the Phillippines for many years or warred against freedom in many cases such as Viet Nam or was excessively militaristic in the cold war, while other nations were far worse from Germany to Russia, from China to militarist Japan, from the death squads in El Salvador to the tyranny of Saddam Hussein?
It seems to me that just as the fall of the USSR was a sign of *better* politics, we are now at an especially good time for freedom, where there is less tolerance for tyranny.
But we're still not able to understand the 'real agendas' that exist when it comes to the interests of the 'haves' versus the public interest. But there are more and better books, at least, even if read by few, discussing these matters. I can easily list 25 books on these things, where previously there were very few - the occassional books such as by Thomas Paine (The Rights of Man), Walter Lippman (Public Opinion), Mark Twain (The Gilded Age), Sinclair Lewis (It Can Happen Here), General Smedley Butler (War is a Racket).
Billions of our tax dollars have been giving to banks and businesses.
Now we hear CEO's still are paid millions out of that (our) tax money.
You should pay less attention to the misuse of the bailout funds than to the inherent and far larger corruption that extracts wealth from our society in normal operations.
And in response, all we hear from those in charge "that is awful".
Like they either can not or will not do anything about it, except to decry the practice.
Like they have no control over anything, anymore.
Which is quite consistent with what a corrupt government - not inherently corrupt, but corrupt because the power of the 'haves' allows them to win elections - would say.
I don't think so, but that doesn't mean that the 'fixes' don't reflect a corruption of the power of the 'haves' to ensure that they get the benefits.
They're the ones who have the resources to be hiring people to put plans in place for their interests, while the public has no such people, their views influenced by corporate media.
So while it might not have been a 'setup', the corruption of the fixes is likely to happen and not to get a big public reaction. What's the public supposed to do, form some third party?
If they can't even keep control of the two main parties they have now from the 'haves', they're hardly going to be able to form a viable third party. Ask Teddy Roosevelt.
So, what should you do? IMO, the public has a lot of power they don't use. Stop spending money on things against the public interest; shift your dollars to better things. Use local banks over the largest ones. Donate to liberal groups to provide some counter to the well-funded right-wing think tanks that serve the wealthy (and the people duped into the right-wing ideology). Donate to good politicians so that not all their money has to come from 'corrupt' sources who stand to benefit financially. Support good regulations.
Buy and read and most importantly, spread to the vast majority of people who remain ignorant good books. How many here have read the Klein book (The Shock Doctrine) I've plugged so much? Thom Hartmann's "Screwed" about the attack on the middle class, David Cay Johnston's books on how the wealthy manipulate the system and don't pay a 'fair share', Kevin Phillips' "Wealth and Democracy" and many others?
ignore iphones and look at real purchases like cars and homes. They are tanking at incredible levels. There is no country I'd rather be and I think the problem is going to impale all countries to varying degrees. The US still has a peaceful population and is better poised than most others to withstand this, pretty much on all levels.
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