Who Wins...Who Loses?
You do… if you don’t consider the possible election outcome. Conservatives and liberals in the American lifeboat all sink together. Why is this? Because the truth of the matter has always been a house divided will fall (Luke 11:17).
The 2010 political race is a bellwether that reveals the travesty of American class warfare. The philosophy of human dignity and true freedom is what is at stake for the working and middle classes.
Is it surprising to anyone that people who could most benefit from social programs are the most ardent opponents of them? The ultra-privileged few oppose social programs as a point of pride, as if they were not lavishly assisted by others. Oftentimes, there is a deliberate choice by the wealthy to keep workers at a subsistence level to maintain their appearance of superiority.
Without resources to adequately fund education, infrastructure, and an administrative system by a government system, the alternative is a pure profit motive where trust would be solely placed in the hearts and hands of big business at the expense of a common good motive. Limited capitalism with governmental restraint of its adverse “self-only” mechanisms is a virtue.
Full human development, like health care services, is a basic human right, something that we want for everyone in a moral society. This requires a pooling of resources, i.e. taxation and insurance programs.
So why the opposition by many who make up the American mainstream? Joe Bageant, a Winchester, VA author notes, “These days, working-class Americans are conditioned to respond not as individuals whose opinions may differ radically from the opinions of their neighbors….They are conditioned to be, as essayist Lewis Lapham wrote, ‘happy villagers glad to wave the flags and wage the wars, grateful for the good fortune that placed them in the care of a sublime leader.’”
Do we really want the establishment of postmodern neo-fascism in America? Big business corporate titans cloaked by the actions of extremists buoyed by the support of the uninformed masses lacking the critical thinking skills to see that there really isn’t much interest in returning favors.
The observation by Author Chris Hedges that, “We stand on the cusp of one of the bleakest periods in human history when the bright lights of a civilization blink out and we will descend for decades, if not centuries, into barbarity” is no idle threat.
The U.S. spends far more than any other nation on earth on the military, 46.5% of the world’s total expenditure. Other nations highlighted in the study show significant restraint for the practice with China, France, UK, and Russia at 6.6%, 4.2%, 3.8%, and 3.5% respectively. (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)’s 2010 Year Book ).
Military weapons and soldiers are sadly becoming our chief exports. How many of us truly want our sons and daughters offered as a sacrifice to the military industrial complex?
Freedom is secured with shared intellectual responsibility by all for a sane direction of American democracy, one nation working together, both locally and nationally, providing goods and services to people at home and abroad.
During this election, protect your right to an access to 21st Century information, i.e. a critical thinking education with consequent quality of life benefits for all Americans.
The constitutional preamble elucidates the vision of, We the people, that is primarily what government means, a due respect for many voices from a diversity of social identities that make up the American social fabric. If we lose human respect and affirmation, we gain instead shared degradation. We lose our individual, state, and national soul, and our freedom.
We all would do well in considering the wise words of the well-admired First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt who noted, “One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes.” Choose wisely, our present and future depends on it.
Pamela Sanders Ellis, Ph.D.
Posted by Pamela Ellis at 11/1/2010 9:22 AM 
Categories: Social and Political Action
Tags: human development postmodern neo-fascism military industrial complex politics 2010 elections class warfare
Categories: Social and Political Action
Tags: human development postmodern neo-fascism military industrial complex politics 2010 elections class warfare
Comments