Commentary By Ron Beasley
James Fallows discusses our dysfunctional government in Why bipartisanship can't work: the expert view. It's a great summary of the current political system but he misses the point - it really doesn't matter. Politics is the great American sport and it makes about as much difference as a football game. Politics is not about ideology - its little more than a team sport. After the first year of the Obama administration the change he talked about has not occurred. The reason is simple, policy is not made in the White House or the halls of congress - it's made in the boardrooms of a few large corporations and those boardrooms are occupied by sociopaths who don't care about anything but their own power and wealth.
- We still have unending war, not to defend the nation but because war is profitable.
- Economic recovery was for Wall Street not Main Street and Paul Volcker's plan regulate banks is dead on arrival.
- Card to make it easier for workers to organize died an early death.
- The promise of health care reform ended up being nothing but a blank check for the corporations that are responsible for the problems.
The political battles between the Democrats and Republicans are about as relevant as a football game which is probably why the Beltway pundits look like they belong on ESPN.
I note an element of frustration in your note which I think is understandable. I've absolutely no real suggestions for dealing with it - chants of organize just now seem impractical given the real odds of having any serious effect. Incidentally I think the actual long run damage done by Obama was to glide on the perceived notion, he did capitalized on, of actually being different than standard party politician. Interesting now that the punditry turns that belief in someone back on the believer - hey anything for a buck, eh.
ReplyDeleteI've a couple of links for interesting reading that could help to explain - i.e. least it's a theory - for the current dysfunction system that seems present in USA (here, I think it han'ts completely taken hold but is creeping there no less).
Both links relate to Sheldon Woln:
a Review of the 2008 book Inverted Totalitarianism by Chamlers Johnson (link to 1st chapter at bottom of review)
http://bit.ly/cECGI4 and
a short article in the Nation by Woln from 2003 roughly outlining the concept:
http://bit.ly/aEcaUW
you wrote: ...sociopaths who don't care about anything but their own power and wealth
ReplyDeletethey are NOT sociopaths. they are ambitious americans and many other americans would do the same thing in their place. greed does not equal mental illness.
when the electorate stops believing that their rep/senator is OK but all the others suck, maybe we can make progress. in other words, the low information voters are killing us.
HyperIon
ReplyDeleteI disagree, I think many if not most of the CEO's of the largest corporations are indeed sociopaths. They have demonstrated they don't care about their companies, the country or their children and grandchildren - by definition sociopaths.