I’ve been sitting here for a while writing, re-writing, and what it comes down to is these three words: America is broken.
I’ve really tried to believe that America, “the land of the free, the home of the brave” is everything its cracked up to be, but at every turn I’ve been proven wrong.
If anyone should be on the side of America it’s me. I’ve had amazing financial and business success, gone to the best schools, golfed on the best golf courses, eaten at the nicest restaurants, owned the nicest cars, on and on. Still, it did nothing for me and now more than ever I see how broken it is.
We are actively invading countries and taking away civil liberties (ours and theirs). America's standard of living is going down and our national debt is going up. Our healthcare is atrocious. Our public educational institutions are awful and more expensive then most of the worlds. We are practicing torture and holding people without trial. We are at war with drugs and terrorism, neither of which we can negotiate with or end.
What are we doing? How did we get here? This isn’t America, it’s some weird fifth dimensional twilight zone episode.
Don’t blame Bush either. He’s an easy target, possessing the I.Q. of a urinal puck, but we (well not me) elected him and haven’t removed him. Even in the face of sheer overt deception nothing. Clinton gets a hummer and is impeached; Bush invades one of the largest oil producing countries in the world under false pretenses and nothing. Lambs to the slaughter I tell ya.
I think the problem is much larger than Bush, the cabinet, foreign policy, economic policy, or our feeble energy policy. It has to do with what America and Americans have become. More to the point it has to do with capitalism. This country may have been founded on the principals of democracy with equal representation for all, but it’s become defined and run by capitalism.
I’m not talking about white washed, middle of the road, capitalism either. I’m talking about the kind of extreme, unbridled capitalism that Karl Marx warned about. (It would do you good to read some of his stuff, not because he’s right about communism, which he's not, but there's a lot of good stuff in there on capitalism, labor and the class divide – don’t worry they won’t throw you in jail for it yet, but watch the hits on my page go up from Langley, VA. seriously).
I don’t know how we don’t see it. The average person is not represented in our system. Nor do they have any power. If it represented the average Joe you would think that healthcare would be free, college would be paid for, minimum wage would be something you could live on and our work weeks would be getting shorter not longer. That’s the way it works in the rest of the modern world.
As it stands the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, that’s not a cliché it’s a fact. Last year Exxon had more profit than any other company in the history of the world ever. As we are plundering our natural resources and destroying our environment we are also sinking deeper into debt.
On top of that, the race for our next President looks more like the dot com frenzy then a discussion about real issues, it’s about the buzz word “change” and money leaders, but where’s the beef. With a media owned by corporate conglomerates I’m not sure we can have a real honest open discussions about issues anymore. General Electric (NBC) Westinghoue (CBS), Disney Corp (ABC), Time-Warner (CNN), News Corp. (Fox).
But again, it’s not about them it’s about us. Were the ones letting it happen. If I’ve seen one thing in 15 years of running companies it’s this, people will sacrifice their beliefs in a heartbeat if the alternate is even close to thinking about finding a new job. Once you’ve crossed that line it’s a slippery slope downhill. If it happens to you, you need to stick up for yourself the very first time, every time, and not back down.
Capitalism plays hardball, all day, every day. That may be the way our culture wants to go, hard driving, A-type, heart attack, die early, living, but then again, that might just be the tail wagging the dog. It doesn’t seem to be working very well for most Americans. Hopefully it will get better, either way, I hear the scuba diving in Belize is pretty nice and they have universal healthcare. =)
