The Downward Spiral of American Society

The Downward Spiral of American Society
Dave P Shaw – November 2012
(Exclusive to L.A. Beat and Mike Malloy)

America is in trouble. Mitt Romney received almost 50% of the nation-wide vote. He started his campaign with a substantial advantage. People were inclined to vote for Romney because Barack Obama was a vulnerable candidate. A recent Harvard University study and a separate Associated Press poll came to the same conclusion: Over one-half of whites in America are racists.

Candidate Romney promised to give the rich another tax reduction, reduce Medicare benefits, and limit the pensions of middle class workers. This was a winning platform! It was not the reason he lost. He lost because:

1. Romney called 47% of the US population free loaders.
2. He flip-flopped on so many issues the voters could not figure out who they were voting for. The most egregious example was his rejection of the Republican national health care model, which Romney implemented while he was Governor. The Democrats were able to brand his position as blatant hypocrisy.
3. He alienated Latinos (who favored Obama by 70%) with policies that can only be characterized as insensitive, at best.
4. He was clearly wrong in criticizing Obama for the bailout of the automobile industry and lacked the common sense to admit his mistake.

Elected officials and mainstream media conspire to hide the fact that our representatives are purchased by corporate America through unlimited political contributions. The corrupting influence of money effectively excludes any thoughtful consideration of critical issues that threaten our way of life.

The 2012 Presidential campaigns spent over $2,000,000,000 “informing” the voters. As a result of this massive spending, almost one-half of the electorate was willing to vote against their economic self-interests. They failed to grasp the fact that Mitt Romney’s only constituency is the corporate Oligarchy that could care less about the middle class and poor.

We are in this sorry state of affairs because the Fascists on the U.S. Supreme Court gave a green light to the outright purchase of elected officials. Money is speech. It is the law of the land. Today “free” speech is beyond the financial means of 99.9% of all Americans.
The candidates and mass media consistently collude to never mention that our way of financing and conducting elections needs drastic and immediate change or our vote will soon become irrelevant and democracy will be all but dead. How can you trust the politician who tells a bald face lie about preventing voter fraud when in fact, they are intentionally and systematically doing everything in their power to suppress voter turnout? I am astounded how such hypocrisy is tolerated and even supported! The very essence of participatory democracy is being thrown in the trash can by the “Republicans”. These same people love to preach to Americans and the entire world that America is the vanguard of democracy and freedom. What trash talk! These so-called “Christians” who only have contempt for the poor, have more in common with the Theocracy of Iran than the Democracy of America.

The so-called “fiscal cliff”, the economic and human consequences of global warming, and the cold war with Iran were barely mentioned during the Presidential campaign. Instead we watched debates where even the minor issues were ignored by a mass media that had a laser focus on style and presentation as the metric of who won the debates.

Global warming, its devastating effects, and what must be done now to avoid global catastrophe was not even a footnote in Presidential and congressional campaigns nor is it on any future legislative agenda. This is in spite of the fact that man-made global warming is destroying the planet.

The Fascists of Corporate America pretend to be Republicans so they can claim a false credibility. They continue to lie about global warming and deny the fact that climate change is caused by humans, which is established science. These same people are the ones who poison our water, air, and food in the name of capitalism and freedom. Corporate America decides what we like, the price of gas and the amount of toxins we are exposed to in the name of “freedom”. How many climate change-related disasters do we have to have before people wake up and recognize they are being manipulated?

America is no longer the shining light that leads exploration of new frontiers and pursuit of the new human potential. Today religious leaders are just as absent as our political leaders. They are blind to the problems of the modern world because their belief system is rooted in antiquity, when they never even dreamed of the values and moral implications associated with pollution, birth control, genetics, stem cell research, gay marriage, or quantum physics, just to cite a few obvious examples. Today we have men of God issuing decrees using phantom moral prescriptions they allege come directly from the Bible, their only source for what we should believe and how we should behave in the modern world.

America needs a political and philosophical transformation in terms of its values and beliefs. How is that going to happen? Stayed tuned. I know I will.