I just know a lot of folk are going to razz me for posting this long-winded intro, and that's OK, I deserve it because I'm not very good at making my remarks brief and I think its an enormous subject to think and talk about....
So here goes....please bear with me
For as long as the people of any nation have subscribed to a system of electoral process as vehicle to endow authority upon ruling bodies, that process has been plagued by corruption and dishonesty.
I’m not suggesting for a moment that the rule of self-declared tyrants or fanatics employing “beliefs” and/or threat and/or use of violence and destruction to achieve their aims (authority to govern) is either a reasonable or even remotely desirable alternative. An electoral process capable of actualizing equality with fairness employing justice and integrity as cornerstones of its foundation is the more prudent course.
Justice integrity and fairness cannot be served however when wealth and the power born of wealth embraced within the electoral concept is abused. The facility to influence large numbers of voters through manipulation of media in addition to chicanery in the form of meting-out wealth, promises of prosperity, establishing hierarchies of status and reserving exclusive access to potential for self-sufficiency and independence have been and are the hallmarks of an electoral system that has established a chasm of injustice and inequity of vast proportions between the financial elites of any society and the greater majority of its citizens.
It is a systemic problem and a problem that can only be addressed through examining the predicates to injustice prejudice and inequality that plague our “democratic” societies.
Why is it for instance that it is only when the moneyed of any democratic society seek to expand their influence and control over others that moral concepts and some “ineffable” ‘higher-purpose’ is cited as rationale for sending the young people of any society off to die in war?
Why is it that there’s so little acknowledgement for instance that no one can remain isolated and insulated against conflicts that embroil millions across the face of the planet? Regardless of citizenship we all breathe the same air and drink the same water.
Why is it that some societies choose to enslave others on the basis of race or beliefs and exhibit a preparedness to abandon their subscription to values like tolerance and compassion and instead conduct ever-escalating acts of genocide and self-destruction while practicing inhumane atrocities as mechanisms enroute to establishing and maintaining “power”?
It is perhaps an indictment of all of humanity arising from the very nature of who and what we are as living beings. Is there a kernel of self-interest blossomed into the exercise of greed and cruelty that compels us to disdain for the lives of others?
We could examine just about any nation-entity from the ancient Greeks to the French to the British and Spanish and so on in our exploration however the great impediment we’d confront in using this examination of history is that our examination would by its very nature be influenced to some degree by various interpretations and the biases accompanying them.
We have the current dynamic of the United States and its immediate history beginning let’s say at the end of WWI to present day that we can access in our examination. I suggest this as our subject only because there are many people alive today who’ve been participants in this construct and experienced its evolution over a significant time.
Are there additional “players” to be necessarily considered as we explore this dynamic?
Indeed there are.
Are there examples among the societies of mankind that we can identify as having failed or are in the process of failing because those societies subscribed to self-defeating philosophies and an ethos that purposefully ignored and ignores the larger dynamic?
Certainly.
Let me present a proposition for your consideration.
We have watched as socialism has sputtered and failed in Russia and as it morphs in China; we have witnessed the collapse of dictatorships and grudgingly acknowledge the role capitalism has played in establishing supporting and maintaining dictatorships from Marcos and Pinochet to Somoza and Suharto as well as countless others.
The question begging for an answer is, how can a world power, a “super-power” synthesize its support of brutal regimes around the world with its avowed and robustly expressed position in support of freedom and self-determination?
Quite simply it can’t.
Or more precisely, wealthy industrialists and individuals who’ve achieved positions of power and authority consistently defer to their personal needs and philosophies regardless of consequence or outcomes affecting the poor the disenfranchised and the weak.
The United States represents a dichotomy of sorts, wherein tremendous generosity and great compassion exists right beside embedded prejudices of race and religion, subscription to moral theses that raise preservation of life and well being to lofty heights and moral ambiguity that declares a gallon of gasoline or a chord of lumber of greater importance than peoples lives.
The United States has elected, when its industrialists and power-brokers feel it necessary to suspend human rights and ignore international agreements and laws. At the same time no other nation on the face of the planet can lay claim to the overwhelming generosity the United States has exhibited time and again.
There is something wrong in America, and the way we can tell there’s something wrong is by surveying the huge numbers of poor and desperate folk in America. We can attempt to understand exactly why the land of promise that America once was has become a nation feared and scorned by many, but we can only come to fruitful meaningful and accurate conclusion if we are prepared to deal honestly and objectively with the facts we can establish to agree upon.
If you want to discuss this issue, I’ll give it my best shot, but let us deal in fact and not fantasy, in truth and not conjecture. Canada is a land of great promise hobbled by climate and a much smaller population living in a nation even larger than the United States. Some comparisons are valid and indeed appropriate however we must exercise some care in making comparisons.
I promise to be civil to those who practice civility and will make every effort to frame criticisms and opposing perspectives courteously and hope that you will too.
