Whatâs Wrong Today
The Wrongologist woke up this morning
thinking that all politicians are useless.
That is, if you expect them to lead
the country out of the mess we are in today.
Are politicians the problem? Or is it
a problem with the political system(s) in which they have evolved? Or, are both
inextricably linked in one steaming pile of super-problem?
And
political paralysis exists throughout the globe:
US â Legislative Gridlock. Complete inability to
see the real problems, much less implement solutions. Last year’s debt ceiling
debate exposed real cracks in the US system and drove us near to a breaking
point. It will not be long before we fight over the same issue again.
Euro Zone â There is apparent paralysis in crafting
a response to a problem that the rest
of the world can see. Yet, while the Euro politicians recognize it, they
wonât take responsibility for it, nor do they offer something dispositive to
solve it. Here goes Greece, there goes Spain, more to come while the dithering
goes on.
Greece – The home of democracy. But the current
state of Greek politics makes the Monty Python’s “Life of Brian’s”
political revolutionary parties look organized.
Middle East â The recently liberated Arab
nations are fighting hard to move towards differing forms of consensus
democracy, having shed their dictatorships, but little is happening that is expressly
designed to improve the lot of the people.
You could argue that there is bound
to be paralysis when there are limited solutions. But the bickering between
parties in all of these countries points to the ascendancy of self-serving
political priorities over those of the nation as a whole.
Letâs focus on the US, where our present political
system has failed. We have nominal leaders: Obama, Romney, Boehner, Pelosi,
McConnell and Reed. But, we have leadership paralysis. Of course there was
rarely a demand for this crew to do much or to bring about change when times
were good, so their uselessness was obscured.
It is when things go wrong that the ability and mettle of our politicians
is tested.
Until the 1980âs, politicians worked
together. But easy growth (funded by both profligate spending and profligate lending)
caused our parties to begin to act and look like Jabba the Hutt, who
you remember was a crime lord in the Star Wars franchise, an enormously
fat, blob-like creature who could barely
move around in an environment of humanoids.
Bloated, self important, living in bubble
created at the expense of its subjects (that means us, folks).
These Huttsters have proven to be completely useless in these times
of crisis.
Given the political landscape, all we
can do is hope. Hope that the parties can work together, or that a true leader
can move us to a consensus around policy and from there to a workable political
coalition, and from there to programs that make a difference.
This requires a leader, not just someone who can win an
election.
Sadly, it is not ignorance
that causes our politicians to ignore solutions to lead us out of the current
economic mess.
They
like the mess.
You know the truth. Their economic interests are not aligned with ours. Getting
elected to national office is like becoming a partner in a law firm or
investment bank. It is an opportunity
to make serious money.
Thatâs why incumbents
fight so hard to stay in office; it is a ticket to wealth, where the you donât even have to pay the costs of keeping
the job, those are paid for by your big donors. You return the favor by
giving them leverage in legislation.
âLeverageâ is the
incremental profit they make on the loopholes and carve outs politicians write into
the legislation that the donors want. They make back hundreds of times their
investment in the pols.
This is why the politician doesnât stick his/her neck out. Their real constituency
is very small and they work hard to keep them satisfied. So, when a position needs
to be taken on a controversial issue when public opinion is inflamed, there is
no reason to do something that might cause the nominal constituency (actual
voters) to be pissed off or disappointed with them, keeping the constituents
complacent is primary, regardless of the polâs true beliefs about the issue.
Politicians live to
raise money. The more money they raise, the more money they can make. Their
backers, the large corporations, banks and the wealthiest Americans are sitting
on mountains of cash, cash that will become all the more valuable if the world
undergoes another bout of crisis and/or deflation. Maybe they think that we can
even undergo a little bit more recession and then recover.
The
important thing is that today, politicians don’t seem to want growth.
The only impact that unemployment has on the personal lives of our politicians is
that it provides their overlords with an ever cheaper source of labor.
Donât believe it? The alternative is to believe that the best and brightest
politicians really doubt that
they know how to fix the economy in our lifetime.
Want a more believable
idea? The economic royalists
have virtual control of our government and there is pure cynicism at the heart
of politics.
If they succeed this
fall in putting more of their surrogates and servants in office, they may
achieve actual control.
Thanks to the Roberts
Court we have Citizens United
and a clique of mega millionaires, who are not accountable to the public, but ARE
in charge of most of our politicians and the results (or non-results) our political
agenda.
Power
without accountability is tyranny. Power without a democratic transfer is a coup.
In 2005, long before the rest of us saw what was
going on, George Carlin said it best:
âPoliticians
are put there to give you that idea that you have freedom of choice. You donât.
You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They
own all the important land, they own and control the corporations, and theyâve
long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the State Houses, and
the City Halls. Theyâve got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all
the big media companies so they control just about all the news and information
you get to hear⌠They want obedient workers. People who are just smart enough
to run the machines and do the paperwork and just dumb enough to passively
accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer
hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that
disappears the minute you go to collect itâŚ.â
(See the whole rant here– itâs worth it)
This
unholy alliance between bankers, corporate interests and politicians must be
broken.
Doing
that will require leadership and revolutionary change to the political process.
More about this next
time.
