There is a widespread discontent among most of us that the country is going down the drain. People are scared and angry. Too many people can find no work at all, and unemployment is not going down.
In fact, this caps off a long-term decline in the earning power and outlook for the whole middle class. The national debt grows, helped by two undeclared and unpaid for wars and huge tax reductions for the very well-to-do.
While we all share the grief, the public is not at all united about who or what to blame. Instead of blaming their predecessors, Republican challengers seem mostly to focus on government itself.
They are competing with each other about easing business regulation even more and lowering corporate taxes. They want to dismantle the very structure of government as we know it. Their cry is that government is out of control, intrusive, oppressive, and needs to be brought to heel, as a danger.
They would cut services back to cut deficits no matter what. They would sweep away needed regulations in the name of freedom. They scorn almost any intervention addressing the growth of corporate power, or the growth of an under-class below the chasm of wealth dividing Americans.
So how do they imagine the world would be with only their miniature government? They do not examine the consequences in their call to arms, but treat it as if it were a utopian vision. Implied is a kind of private-sector panacea. But not even Ron Paul fills in this blank future.
One can conjecture a noble world of individual striving, like in Olympian sports. It is a story of where total freedom to compete would lead _ to victors, to achievers, to progress, to winners.
But ... wealth for all?
There are issues of worker safety, consumer safety and public safety, with food, medicine and equipment. Remember the furor around overturning Ford Explorers? Or Thalidomide? There once was child labor, a work week of 60+ hours, and destructive endeavors like over-fishing or clear-cutting forests. There is still usury in credit card interest rates.
What would happen to the many who have to depend on Social Security? Where there are winners, there is advantage. To the victors go the spoils, and let the devil take the hindmost.
There is more than a whiff of extortion in the profit motive. A strong word, but it is really spelled m-o-n-o-p-o-l-y, not unknown in our economic history. What is not addressed in their vision is cheating. The full picture of human need goes way beyond the "fire" of competition.
Using an analogy of "water" evokes a different connotation. We search for water more than strive for it. We plan how to use and distribute it, as in irrigation. Searching connotes inquisitiveness.
Water is shared as a basic necessity, is given as a form of caring. It refreshes. As a universal need, we associate it with justice. Let justice roll down like water.
George W. Bush even tried to insert the word "compassionate" into his rhetoric. Being kind and open to learning are essential traits that are needed to offset the assertiveness or aggressiveness of competition, and the two cannot really be separated for long without leading to social conflict.
Systems without such balance tend to spawn reform regulations in a democracy. In some industries, companies such as Endicott-Johnson provided community amenities and housing for employees. It pioneered what came to be known as Welfare Capitalism. But ever since slavery, there has been a long history of an exploited group deprived of full participation _ poor people.
When those numbers grew in the Depression, safety-net remedies had to be put into place. Richard Nixon contributed in 1970, with OSHA and the EPA. Now the balance has again come to tilt in favor of those with wealth.
Industry has undercut the working class to get higher profits from overseas manufacturing and global markets. It does not appear to be a matter of economic cycles, but rather a shift of wealth and a departure from the national interest.
Before wages paid bought the products built. Now the cash flow leaves the larger American community out of the loop. Corporations are profitable; small business is stagnant. Working Americans are bypassed, betrayed and abandoned.
If the government is the devil, it has certainly been left to care for the hindmost, though badly criticized for its efforts.
William Masters can be reached at wmasters@thedailystar.com.
William Masters
'People are scared, angry' that the country is going down the drain
- William Masters
-
-
Time for lawmakers who put needs of society first
Richard Lugar, after six terms as a Republican senator -- known for his middle of the road rationality and his foreign policy finesse -- has been ousted by a Tea Party extremist backed by outside right-wing funding.
-
War not worth gambling with lives of soldiers
Are you not tired of our war in Afghanistan? It had a point, once, after 9/11. Bush couldn't distinguish his myopic personal agendas from the nation's needs and let Osama escape, dropping the ball entirely, causing many deaths.
-
Titanic was a microcosm of U.S. economic disparity
Haunting reminders of the Titanic tragedy have wafted over us with the centenary of its sinking. The maiden voyage of an impressive, state of the art vessel, was a little like that of the Challenger space shuttle, at the cutting edge of developing technology. But the shuttle carried our pride in science and space exploration, not hundreds and hundreds of people.
-
William Masters: Nation stands divided between 'us' and 'them'
In February, Trayvon Martin was shot dead as "suspicious" by a volunteer neighborhood watch man. The case has aroused community reaction in Sanford, Fla., and is still echoing across the country.
-
A quarterback can't win the game alone
What is the relationship between democracy and wealth? Democracy is a political system, while wealth relates to economics. We have equal political rights, but we don't all have money. Extreme differences destroy the continuity of community solidarity.
-
Playing Left Field: Some blur lines between laws of church and state
We have freedom of religion in this country. A clear separation between churches and governmental agencies is constitutionally mandated. Government power may not favor or advance a particular religion.
-
Humans need to look at long-term impact on Earth
Global warming is real and we are smugly oblivious. I recall the USS Nautilus making a journey to the North Pole decades ago, and poking its conning tower dramatically up through the ice right at the pole itself, an arrival theretofore possible only by dog sled and arduous effort.
-
Playing Left Field: Meaning of 'liberty' lost in GOP's translation
COLUMN BY WILLIAM MASTERS .... Now, during the Republican presidential primaries, we hear a lot about liberty. It is a leave-me-alone type of liberty, suggesting the license to do what one may choose in the sacred call of business activity. Much is sought in the name of freedom.
-
Government no longer about power of people
In my time, the idea of conservatism has been turned upside down. Men in my family wore neckties even when just reading the paper at home.
-
Americans should respect right to bear arms
Early one morning a while back, I answered a phone call from Wayne LaPierre, head of the NRA, warning that the sky is falling _ no worse: that the U.S. is participating in a U.N. treaty effort to deal with the irresponsible international transfers of small arms.
-
Inequalities breed social dysfunction
In my most-recent column, I presented recent epidemiological evidence that the inequality built into a society underlies the sense many of us have that the country is going in the wrong direction.
-
Inequalities breed discontent in our modern society
So many Americans feel a dispirited sense of complaint. The conservative ranks have gravitated to Tea Party anger, while more lately, a less-defined segment has turned out to "occupy" public areas for mutual support as the amorphous "99 percent" is filled with discontent about the elite 1 percent reaping the lion's share of wealth.
-
Freedom should not belong to the rich alone
"I pledge allegiance to the flag ... " intones every first-grade kid, in unison and sincerity. When I was in the first grade, we faced the mortal crises of Pearl Harbor and fascism in Europe.
-
There's no such thing as completely clean energy
Some local people cry "Drill, Baby, Drill," reminding us of our nation's need to be freed from dependency on foreign oil. And we are regularly treated to TV ads praising "clean coal" in generating electricity.
-
Consider competence, congeniality when voting
NetSummary
-
'People are scared, angry' that the country is going down the drain
There is a widespread discontent among most of us that the country is going down the drain. People are scared and angry. Too many people can find no work at all, and unemployment is not going down.
-
'We are all dependent: Both upon the Earth, and on an economy'
If we don't change, change will bury us. That will be because of the changes we ourselves inflict so causally upon this one and only Earth.
-
'Corporations are not people; they are tools that entrepreneurs use'
"Corporations are people, my friend," quipped Mitt Romney, in rebuttal to a crowd shouting that corporations should be a source of revenue instead of taxing people.
-
Thoughts of a 'bleeding-heart' liberal
This is the beginning of a biweekly column, as The Daily Star strives to remain fair and balanced in relation to the opinions of the day.
-
Time for lawmakers who put needs of society first
