To Keep Americans Safe, We Have To Get Billionaires and Money Out Of Politics
By Thom Hartmann A...
Jim Jones, who only killed 900+ people, was a piker, perhaps because he just wasn't rich enough to be truly effective. Billionaire Donald Trump has beat him more than 130 times over, with far more to come.Canada, a country run by competent leaders and actual civil servants at the provincial and federal level, largely has the coronavirus under control and have largely closed their border to Americans.
The Guardian is reporting how Mexican border towns are asking Americans not to come, for fear of further spread of the virus there.
Parts of California are experiencing a surge in coronavirus infections, but can't perform tests on people because they have run out of reagents. Our billionaire-led federal government, of course, has refused to invoke the Defense Production Act to make more reagent and testing kits.
The billionaire running our education department, Betsy DeVos, is trying to force teachers back into the classroom nationwide regardless of their age or health, and regardless of the consequences of school children bringing the coronavirus home with them.
The billionaire Trump chose to run our commerce department, Wilbur Ross, says that the coronavirus spreading in China will be good for the American economy.
Over at popular.info, Judd Legum is reporting that billionaire-led Facebook is spreading far and wide the nonsense story that if you wear masks you could suffer from an oxygen deficiency.
Billionaire Rupert Murdoch's Fox News is relentlessly promoting defiance of reasonable public health measures, leading to an explosion of hospitalizations and deaths in those states were Fox News is popular.
Arizona, where the governor is deeply in the pocket of billionaire interests, has now declared that some people are going to get treatment and others won't, based on a complicated formula about who is most likely to live the most years after they leave the hospital.
Multiple billionaires and their companies, it turns out, have received piles of cash from the monies Congress appropriated to help small businesses and average working people through this economic crisis.
Back in 2000, when George W. Bush lost the election by a half-million votes but the Supreme Court put him in the White House anyway, the media was celebrating the fact that he and Dick Cheney were both oil industry executives. They talked about how a "CEO presidency" would be a good thing for America. It didn't work out that way: instead, they lied us into two wars, gave away trillions of dollars to billionaires, and destroyed our reputation and credibility around the world.
Billionaires and the super rich have spent 40 years, since the beginning of the Reagan Revolution, telling us how wonderful America would be if only rich people ran the show.
That's called oligarchy, not democracy. Now that we have seen their vision put into affect, it's time to reconsider.
Until we get money out of politics and and return competent leadership to all levels of government, Americans will continue to die in numbers even greater than we've seen in all the wars we've fought since 1945.
-Thom
Comments
#2
# 1poster asked; "When does the greed stop?"
Answer; When "we the people" re-regulate. So, don't hold your breath.
The oligarchs have "bought and paid for" the majority of both parties, and this upcoming election can't change much, unless there's a hugh responce by the electorate.
We'll see..
#3
deepspace: Mild (moderate)disagreement.
Lincoln was a republican. During most (all?) of Eisenhower’s presidency the top marginal tax rate was around 92%. There have been republicans who have called for a balanced budget as a matter of principle. However, others have authorized extremely expensive actions overseas, which have cost the average USA-ians quality of life (those who returned alive and those who stayed behind but ended up taking care of those who returned) , total loss of life, and a few trillions of debt (for generations to come) for unspecified pseudo-patriotism. The kind of pseudo-patriotism that allows me to send my neighbours’ child at the other side of the planet to fight, while I invest in companies such as B & root (any resemblance to Brown and Root “purely” coincidental). One can find also so-called Democrats who have made a difference in their lives by advocating change for the “masses”.
I fully agree that greed is a common trait in our collective psyche, and each one of us has displayed it in various degrees at least once. (For example the occasional gluttony for chocolate or ice-cream. Persistent excessive smokers who gave up (for good) the habit). I will agree that “unfettered greed” alone is responsible for all the ills, if “unfettered” is used in such a philosophical way that it is unlimited (completely unrestricted) so that it encompasses all vices and excludes all virtues. (“virtually all ills”, is pretty close to “all ills” therefore requiring the minor correction to “virtually completely unrestricted”).
Greed as a vice is accompanied by others such as “self-indulgence” or the quality of “uncharitable”, but also by virtues like ascetiscism, moderation or the quality of generous. Human thought has been evolving “slowly” (for us maybe, but “rapidly” in geological references of time (how long from a trilobite to something resembling homo erectus?and then homo sapiens and homo sapiens sapiens?) and possibly “painfully” (learning more from mistakes (trial and error) than serendipity (getting it “right” the first time). If USA is nowadays the peak (in the path of time) of western “civilization” (whatever that means) (according to scoptic Ghandi some decades ago, it (western “civilization”) sounded like a (potentially) good idea to him) (I think it was a line from the movie, and possibly not from his real life), her success (USAs) has been based (my subjective opinion) on the two “opposites” of “democracy” (“we are all in this(s**t) together”, “one for all”, “ask what you can do for your country”, camaderie feeling) and “capitalism” (“run for your life”, “all for one”, ask what your country can do for you”, feeling of atomic (personal) freedom). It has been the harmonic interplay between these two “poles” that made a group of humans (it could have been any other country, it just happened first on USA soil) progress much faster than the others. I think that nowadays we are reaching the point where the art of politics is to find every time the “proper” balance. Who said that political “solutions” are absolute and remain the same in time without evolving? “One size fits all (times)?”
I speculate that this model of balancing “democracy” and “capitalism” evolves much much slower than the its interpretation at a specific period of time (and specific geography) of human (global) history. I shall thankfully be reminded that my interpretations are subjective, while I keep the right (?) to believe in an objective reality. (Is this belief subjective or objective?)
ventila: I find your short anser much more elegant than mine (even though accidentally repeated, it is much shorter than mine. Much more elegant. Thanks).
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Biden will have perhaps the most difficult job of any president before him, cleaning up the near-hopeless mess left by four years of radical Republican fascism, even worse than the widespread disorder after eight years of the Cheney-Bush, economy-busting war regime that Obama had to face.
But in the relentless barrage of Trumpian lunacy dominating the headlines ad nauseam, let us not fail to keep our eye on the gravest danger facing all of us at this late date, magnitudes worse than any other:
"When does the greed stop?"
Billionaires exemplify that one trait all too common in the collective psyche of humanity -- the unfettered greed that is ultimately responsible for virtually all the ills of civilization, and that is on track to kill not only the two hundred thousand-plus in Trump's Un-united States of America by this election day but the potentially hundreds of millions! by the future election days (if any) of our children, grandchildren, and their children.
According to all the scientific data available to this generation of Homo sapiens, it seems that our very survival, and likely that of most other species clinging desperately to Mother Earth, primarily depends on the evolution of human thought in the aggregate and a deep understanding of why our inner dilemma of selfishness and greed is universally destructive in every possible way -- so that we can end it altogether as a guiding force in society.