(And now for something completely different...well,
not quite.)
As we celebrate the life of, IMHO, the most spiritually important and legitimately righteous leader in our country's history, this weekend, Martin Luther King, I thought I'd bring the following Mother Jones' article--IMHO, written by the most important, living person on the planet, Nobel Prize-winning economist, social and environmental activist Joseph Stiglitz--to the community's attention: "Moral Bankruptcy."
If this diary encourages just one person to read the piece, I will take great comfort knowing that. If more than just one person reads Stiglitz' article, all the better. IMHO, it's all about really practicing what Dr. King preached...when and where it matters, today.
The article, itself, and (its timing) what it tells us about where we're at as a society are the sole/
soul purpose for me publishing this diary.
Sometimes, less is more...so, please, if you have a few moments, click on the link, above.
Here's an excerpt from it...
Moral Bankruptcy
by Joseph E. Stiglitz
Mother Jones January 2010
...Exaggerating the virtues of one's wares or claiming greater competency than the evidence warrants is something that one might have expected from many businesses. Far harder to forgive is the moral depravity--the financial sector's exploitation of poor and middle-class Americans. Our financial system discovered that there was money at the bottom of the pyramid and did everything possible to move it toward the top. We are still debating why the regulators didn't stop this. But shouldn't the question also have been: Didn't those engaging in these practices have any moral compunction?
Sometimes, the financial companies (and other corporations) say that it is not up to them to make the decisions about what is right and wrong. It is up to government. So long as the government hasn't banned the activity, a bank has every obligation to its shareholders to provide financial support for any activity from which it can obtain a good return. The predecessors to JPMorgan Chase helped finance slave purchases. Citibank had no qualms about staying in apartheid South Africa.
But consider, too, that the business community spends large amounts of money trying to create legislation that allows it to engage in nefarious practices. The financial sector worked hard to stop predatory lending laws, to gut state consumer protection laws, and to ensure that the federal government's ever laxer standards overrode state regulators. Their ideal scenario, it seems, is to have the kind of regulation that doesn't prevent them from doing anything, but allows them to say, in case of any problems, that they assumed everything was okay--because it was done within the law...
Bold type is diarist's emphasis.
Food for thought as we approach King Day: "WE are the change we've been waiting for."
(P.S.--I really don't have a lot of time, today, so this is about all I could post. Please consider this my encouragement to add a great deal to this very brief diary with some of Dr. King's words in the comments, below. IMHO, LIVING with the spirit of Dr. King is about the struggle for achieving what is righteous...right now...even if it means spending generations or centuries to achieve those goals. As Martin Luther King so sadly reminded us, life is short. We are all remembered for what we accomplished during our brief time here on Earth.)