We Are Settling for a Child's Bargain

Even the symbols of Amerikkkan politics are child's toys. When will we find the courage to end the cycle of destructive, fear-based politics and throw out the people who wish it upon us? When will we grow up?

Richard Jehn / The Rag Blog

America's Difficult Adolescence
by Carol Davidek-Waller

Nothing shows the immaturity of our nation more than the way we select our leaders. The majority of our power rests on this simple act of citizenship yet we permit it to be treated like an episode of American Idol.

We allow entrenched power to narrow our choices and even determine which qualities are important for the men and women we grant the power to make decisions over our lives.

In the sixties and seventies, populist leaders were assassinated outright. Today their careers are destroyed by a White House spy network that would have been the envy of the Kremlin, as well as their commandos in the media who host right-wing mullahs, hypocritically fanning the fires of outrage of a 15th-century morality.

Americans may be great innovators, but we do not produce many great leaders. In the decades since the Kennedys and King, there has been a dearth. Can we really afford to throw away those we do have because they do not live up to a moral code that is at odds with human biology and that most of us fail to live up to at some point in our lives?

The same right-wing tarts who preach an America as a Christian nation experience amnesia when confronted with living Christian values; love, tolerance and forgiveness.

These people do not deserve our trust. Their concerns do not reflect true spirituality but rather the pursuit of personal power. They take an unholy pleasure in destroying anyone who stands in their way.

No one but a naïve child, mesmerized by their frightening single-mindedness, would surrender their future to them.

The US Constitution makes no mention of political parties, yet today they wield far more power than any group should in a true representative democracy. They are private corporations who operate corrupt machines that shut out voters, steal elections and stand between us and the candidates we need and deserve. Yet we continue to give them our money and our energy, even though they betray us time and again.

War is an anathema to ordinary citizens. Our children, our brothers and our sisters are stolen from us and their lives thrown away on useless military adventures decade after decade. We pay crippling taxes to fund these debacles and endure ruinous inflation. We still haven't learned to turn our backs on those who would lead us toward disaster. We listen when the client press laughs at Dennis Kucinich's proposed Department of Peace.

A just society cannot exist unless there is economic justice. We allow a system of legal bribery to buy the services of our representatives. We shake our heads at the personal indiscretion of men like Eliot Spitzer and allow him to be driven out of office while the real evil-doers who they are pursuing--the men and women who abused their power, profited from the housing bubble and left taxpayers footing the bill--go free.

We have to stop thinking that the gross injustices that exist in our society are not our problem. They are our problem and, to the extent that we don't act, our fault.

We are settling for a child's bargain. Everyone is bigger and more powerful than we are. We sell them our vote for the promise of safety and security that is never delivered. And why should it be? The powerful only retain their privilege by keeping us fearful of each other and our global neighbors, and by insisting the way to solve our problems is to annihilate anyone that stands in our way.

We cannot continue to wander in a perpetual springtime of childhood and hope to live our lives in dignity. If we do not grow up and take on our adult responsibilities right now, the lives of our children and grandchildren will be unspeakable.

Source / Eat the State

The Rag Blog