Beyond checks and balances
The nation’s founders wanted a government of checks and balances. What we have now are checks with no balances. Deadlock.
The next to go, thanks to a small group of folks with a whole lot of money (and hence power), are the checks.
The super-rich are on a course to take over the country.
But what kind of unchecked country do they want? What kind of life do they want for themselves? And what will it mean for the rest of us?
Do they really want to live in private, guard-dog patrolled fortress-mansions? Do they aspire to endless jaunts on private golf links? Is the goal a yacht in every harbor? Is it fleets of lofty helicopters, Lear jets and armor-plated limousines? Is it endless pool-side hours with vats of sunscreen and margaritas at the ready?
Is it the assurance of luxury for their equally vain and selfish progeny?
And do they really want lives filled with paranoia about retribution from angry masses who have been evicted from their homes, left without jobs and deprived of health care and security?
Do they want a planet beset by drought and famine — a cinder in space, a barren globe awash in toxic, rising oceans?
Do they want a country of spreading ignorance caused by a crumbling school system? Do they seek endless wars abroad and blood in our streets?
Are the rich and powerful really willing to spread disease, suffering, ignorance and anarchy to feed their own private profligacy?
It would seem.
Nor are we blameless. We have bought into a value system of consumption and mass deception that now has produced a “checks and balances” government of, for and by the rich.
Soon, we will be forced to act beyond the bounds of checks and balances. I have no idea what the tipping-point actions will be (mass demonstrations? boycotts? riots? strikes? out-and-out insurrection?), but I do believe this tired, values-challenged, rigged game must end.
While we work on getting rid of it, we must plan for its replacement. It’s easy to imagine. It is committed to long-held universal values: peace, a sustainable planet, equality, education and knowledge, health, adequate food and shelter, honesty, and trust....
Such values should not be subjected to “checks and balances”; they must be established and defended as sovereign rights.
The next to go, thanks to a small group of folks with a whole lot of money (and hence power), are the checks.
The super-rich are on a course to take over the country.
But what kind of unchecked country do they want? What kind of life do they want for themselves? And what will it mean for the rest of us?
Do they really want to live in private, guard-dog patrolled fortress-mansions? Do they aspire to endless jaunts on private golf links? Is the goal a yacht in every harbor? Is it fleets of lofty helicopters, Lear jets and armor-plated limousines? Is it endless pool-side hours with vats of sunscreen and margaritas at the ready?
Is it the assurance of luxury for their equally vain and selfish progeny?
And do they really want lives filled with paranoia about retribution from angry masses who have been evicted from their homes, left without jobs and deprived of health care and security?
Do they want a planet beset by drought and famine — a cinder in space, a barren globe awash in toxic, rising oceans?
Do they want a country of spreading ignorance caused by a crumbling school system? Do they seek endless wars abroad and blood in our streets?
Are the rich and powerful really willing to spread disease, suffering, ignorance and anarchy to feed their own private profligacy?
It would seem.
Nor are we blameless. We have bought into a value system of consumption and mass deception that now has produced a “checks and balances” government of, for and by the rich.
Soon, we will be forced to act beyond the bounds of checks and balances. I have no idea what the tipping-point actions will be (mass demonstrations? boycotts? riots? strikes? out-and-out insurrection?), but I do believe this tired, values-challenged, rigged game must end.
While we work on getting rid of it, we must plan for its replacement. It’s easy to imagine. It is committed to long-held universal values: peace, a sustainable planet, equality, education and knowledge, health, adequate food and shelter, honesty, and trust....
Such values should not be subjected to “checks and balances”; they must be established and defended as sovereign rights.
Labels: checks and balances, plutocracy, rich and poor, Universal Declaration of Human Rights
posted by Rick Seifert at
8:48 AM
1 Comments:
It was easier and more successful to address those problems when we believed, as a nation, that "one nation, under God" was the direction for us to take.
In our arrogance we have forgotten the "Golden Rule" and that there IS a difference between right and wrong.
Greed and the "gimmee" generation have expected, i.e. demanded that our government is for them, without their awareness of the integrity of the passing generation(s)who made this great nation - well, great!
Eilene Manning
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