Truth is timeless. Not only have things not changed, they have gotten worse. Hedge's article is a worthwhile read.
Chris Hedges, Oct 20, 2008
The Idiots Who Rule America
Our oligarchic class is incompetent at governing, managing the economy, coping with natural disasters, educating our young, handling foreign affairs, providing basic services like health care and safeguarding individual rights.
snip
“Their inability to see the human as anything more than interest driven made it impossible for them to imagine an actively organized pool of disinterest called the public good,” said the Canadian philosopher John Ralston Saul
snip
Our elites—the ones in Congress, the ones on Wall Street and the ones being produced at prestigious universities and business schools—do not have the capacity to fix our financial mess. Indeed, they will make it worse. They have no concept, thanks to the educations they have received, of the common good.
snip
Democracy is not an outgrowth of free markets. Democracy and capitalism are antagonistic entities. Democracy, like individualism, is not based on personal gain but on self-sacrifice.
snip
The national treasury meanwhile is being drained on behalf of speculative commercial interests.
snip
Will there be a national crisis that allows those in power to instantly sweep away all constitutional rights in the name of national security?
Long interview with Chris. Why Is America in Decline?
I am re-reading Vonnegut's God Bless You Mr. Rosewater because I am spending so much time hanging out in Non-Profit, Charitable Foundation land. The book is about Charitable Foundations. Well, how people behave within foundations. It's hauntingly hysterical reading. Haunting because the humor is all too true.
I don't suppose Mr. Vonnegut thought very highly of Charitable Foundations, and I am learning why, not that many don't do lots of good things.
Some noteable quotes:
Senator Rosewater, Elliot's Father: I've spent my life demanding that people blame themselves for their misfortunes." (page 62)
Elliot, the Senator's crazy son: "I think it's a heartless government that will let one baby be born owning a big piece of the country, the way I was born, and let another baby be born without owning anything." (page 102)
Elliot was deemed crazy because he was a progressive that cared "for the least of these" insteas of being a sink-or-swim Libertarian or Republican.
One more quote from Elliot's father that sounds like the Koch Cabal mission statement below:
Senator Rosewater: I see two alternatives before us. We can write morals into law, and enforce those morals harshly, or we can rturn to a true Free Enterprise System, which has the sink-or-swim justice of Caesar Augustus built into it.
I emphatically favor the later alternative. We must be hard, for we must become again a nation of swimmers, with the sinkers quietly disposing of themselves. (page 208)
Aren't we, in fact, seeing the Republican trying to accomplish both alternatives?
The Koch Cabal wants to run this country sans government. They want to be the government.
Here's a mission statement Copied directly from Koch's mega Libertarian non-profit, Donors Trust 2009 990 Tax Return:
RELATING TO SOCIAL WELFARE, HEALTH, ENVIRONMENT, ECONOMICS, GOVERNANCE, FOREIGN RELATIONS AND ARTS AND CULTURE;
AND WHICH ENCOURAGE PHILANTHROPY AND INDIVIDUAL GIVING AND RESPONSIBILITY AS AN ANSWER TO SOCIETY'S NEEDS, AS OPPOSED TO GOVERNMENTAL INVOLVEMENT.
This mission statement sends hubris to the moon.
For instance, I wonder which Richie will love funding a new sewage treatment facility?
I agree 100% with Hedges article.
Idiots, with few exceptions, are running and ruining America, Perhaps "America is being run idiocally" is more true. Maybe both are mostly true.
What most thinking people know to be true is this:
Until unfettered amounts of money are removed from the electoral process, only the well-heeled will get to rule the rest of us and they are, by no means, the best and brightest, just the richest or most connected.
I will end with Bill Moyers on Plutocracy
Dominionism in Action: Ted Cruz and Rand Paul getting Blessings
A disturbing look at the theological roots of Senator Ted Cruz: Christian Dominionism