This is a country where the haves help the have nots. The House’s passage of sweeping health care reform proved that such a spirit is still alive, as it is during wars and depressions. But the massive holdouts in the House vote show that the last thirty years of reactionary policies has weakened the altruism of America. How could over 200 Congressmen act exactly like their blinkered forebears who voted against Social Security and Medicare when those reforms were passed?
The answer is that “greed is good” has turned from being a satirical phrase in a Hollywood movie to a general philosophy among the well-to-do. Far from feeling obliged to help the have nots, the haves in this country are racing to widen the gap between them. Urban and suburban housing remains shamefully segregated. Incomes for CEOs are at an outrageous proportion compared to worker’s salaries, not to mention the immoral bonuses given to bankers using public money that was given to them as an outright gift. This remains true even when CEs, fund managers, and traders lose billions of their shareholders’ and clients’ money.
In short, we aren’t all in this together. President Obama repeatedly calls for bipartisanship and national unity, but it goes into deaf ears. Or should we say cynical ears? Wall Street traders and Washington power brokers who are in the pocket of special interests have become used to a moral laxity amounting in former years to corruption. Influence peddling used to be a felony. Now it’s business as usual, and government officials justify their low wages (by the standards of the rich) while in office by planning for huge windfalls when they retire from government to sell themselves on the open market.
When you also consider that fewer than half of 1% of the population bears the burden of military service with its risks and sacrifices, the picture of an unequal society cannot be swept under the rug. It used to be considered a scandal in aristocratic Britain when about 2% of the population owned 90% of the wealth. Shift the focus to modern day America, and the figure is 1%. The income of average workers remained unchanged during the Bush years while the wealthiest Americans enjoyed enormous gains, abetted by grossly unfair tax breaks.
If this trend toward inequality continues, what will a future America look like? It will be more segregated, with workers being robbed of the fruits of their productivity (even though American workers’ productivity is highest in the world and growing), corporations running free in their immoral tactics while writing their own regulations in Washington, and influence peddling totally out of control. I mention this sad litany because the House’s health care bill is a sign that altruism and a sense of social fairness do exist. They aren’t as passionate as in the Great Depression or World War II, but Barack Obama is reminding a younger generation that we really are all in this together. Those aren’t empty words. They are the basic idea that keeps a society functioning, building its ideals, and enjoying a collective identity with justice at its core.
Published in the San Francisco Chronicle
And look how the very people that love war, push for increased military spending & troop levels, and ” supporting our troops are also the same people trying to cut veterans spending and abandon them when they return. They push for anything that increases their profits and cut anything truly related to humans.
Will “conservative” middle-class voters ever realize they are being used while their country is being sold off by their leaders? The party of Reagan has long since died.
It sounds so simple. Maybe it is…but many people are afraid that President Obama is nothing more than the left’s Reagan. And so much of this Health Care Reform Bill appears to be the clasic bait and switch; a monstrosity that will cost us many times more than promised. However, despite that, I would be first in line to sign up if the President, the House and Senate were also going to “sign on” to this program. I see a double standard where our leaders are passing a bill for us poor masses but would never subject themselves and their families to this same government HC program. Seems disingenuous.
“Justice is at the core of our Identity”…Yes!!!
Where shall our Freedom lead if not rightly directed…?
Freedom is not free in this human experience without right and just action…
President Obama is a just and good man who will lead this country further in understanding the true meaning of Freedom. We will have reform and we will as a human race continue to evolve. for this is the mandate of the Divine Mind of God..
I share with you a portion of the Declaration of Independence which speaks of self evident principles. With right and just action at it’s core..
Thank you Deepak…
IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
To finish reading follow this link to the entire Declaration of Independence
The link to the Declaration of Independence is
http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/index.htm
Peace and Goodwill to All.
Gyanama
Inequality is a judgment. Fair taxes is a judgment.
Wealth is a judgment. Right and just actions come from people, not from governments. What is right is a judgment. What is just is a judgment. Somewhere I read that we should shed judgments and simply realize that there is no sinner/saint duality. There is only God, only recycled energy. Have I misunderstood or have you become like so many others who teach one thing, but live contrary? I beg you to help me understand your teaching in this regard.
What do we mean by self evident? What is natural to your being? Is the consciousness of God at war? If there is no leading of right, then there is no leading of wrong either. So in the mean time what do we do while having the human experience? Good is the attracting force that leads one into the ultimate understanding and freedom from all duality judgements….