Forum Post: the US of A, a failed democracy

The US of A A Failed Democracy

Today I saw in a newspaper something that every thinking person knows, but no one actually admits. All of our politic ans are bought and pad paid for. Alas, it was in a letter to the Editor rather than the headline it should be. Your organization calls itself Occupy Wall Street. But to what avail? Do you think that you can shame these people, appeal to their sense of fair play? They have none of that. They are evil incarnate. Their goal in life is only to acquire additional wealth at the expense of the other 99%. If I were religious, I would call them the spawn of the devil. Yes they are the puppet masters pulling the strings attached to our politicians. Not only Washington, but state and local governments all dance to the pull of their strings.

Now, I wonder, why is it that so few are able to openly state this obvious state of affairs? I can only summarize that in admitting it, we are accepting that our democracy is one big scam. It's like cancer and incest was years ago. As if we speak of them, we are somehow opening our lives to them. We do not want to admit that what was once the greatest country on earth has become one great big lie. After all , we all have to live here and nobody wants to think that they are living a lie.

I'm afraid that the lie is getting too big to ignore any longer. For the first time since the great depression, our children can not expect to do better than their parents. Instead of upward mobility our country faces downward mobility and no end in sight. How is it that we have allowed 1% of the population to control 90% of the wealth? Well, our bought and paid for politicians saw to it. What do they care about the rest of us? They will receive their bloated government pensions and surely find positions as lobbyists or in the enterprises of those who bought them in the first place. They will become even wealthier while the rest of us struggle day to day.

I'm not suggesting that our founding fathers did not have the right idea. After all, it worked quite well for a long time. We managed to rise from an obscure little republic to become one of the greatest nations the world has ever known. They did not envision, however, the role money would play in the years to come. Also, they were blessed with honest to goodness Statesman. Men who would rather go down in flames than to go against what they believed. We have not seen a Statesman in many generations much to our demise and if any exist today, they would not sully themselves in our political process.

So there we have it. A failed democracy where the rich get richer, the middle class disappears and the ranks of the poor overflow. And what do our politicians recommend that we do to address the national debt? Why of course, cut Social Security, Veterans benefits, (the same people who risked or gave their lives for these evil people), and keep the tax cuts of the Bush administration for the rich. We will soon resemble South America. We already have one of the most corrupt governments in the world, they just don't take their bribes on the street where they can be seen.

Of course there are many other pressing issues. Our national debt, two wars that have gone on forever, illegal immigration and a drug problem on which we have spent billions to no avail, etc,etc,etc. None of these will ever be addressed in a reasonable way, however, until we fix our broken political system.

What to do? I make no claim to have all the answers. Someone smarter than me needs to lead a crusade to tackle these issues. I suggest that the web might be an answer. Much as our president used the web to garner money and support, perhaps we can do something similar. Locate candidates for office that refuse funding from anywhere except what can be raised from the general population via a multitude of web sites. Fund a web site that examines the funding of our current crop of thieves, their voting records and expose their hypocrisy for what it is. It would require a great many people and a massive amount of research. Most important of all, it would have to be factual and capable of being defended. Any hint of spinning the truth or pure propaganda would undermine the legitimacy of such a site.

I realize that this is not a comprehensive solution worked out in any great detail. Just an idea and a plea for enough concerned people to step forward and work on a comprehensive plan to take back our country.