AP / Dario Lopez-MillsMexican protesters wear Obama masks during the
president’s 2009 visit to Mexico. Disenchantment
with the hope-bringer is not limited to these shores. i understand the frustration and anger of the tea partiers... they've been denied entrance to the corridors of power, are pissed about it and rightfully so... and yes, most certainly they've been co-opted by super-rich, elite handlers - who prefer to remain virtually unseen - into believing that government is the problem and the private sector is the answer, when it is precisely that private sector and its obsession with capitalist ideology that has been and will continue to pull the strings of its government stooges, whether the stooge is the crazed "socialist," barack obama, or the bona-fide whack-job, sharron angle... those who fervently want the fools who will likely be elected in little more than a week to carve government down to where it can be drowned a bathtub (a la grover norquist) will only find that their newly-elected heroes are just another brand of puppet and that the rape and pillage of the world's wealth by those same super-rich elites will continue apace...
i have held a lifelong passion for the common good and well-being of those who have to work for their livelihood... during my years in corporate life, it was abundantly clear to me that it was the workers on the front line, those who carried out the nitty-gritty work of the organization, that indeed were the heart and soul of the business... yes, senior management, through strategy and big-picture thinking, charted the course, but they were no more or less important than those who actually made the damn thing work on a day-to-day basis...
since taking up my intense focus on work in developing countries, emerging economies and conflict zones seven years ago, i have seen nothing to change those views and, in fact, have only had them strengthened... the people from other countries i have had the privilege of working with and the good fortune to call friends have the same fundamental needs and desires that we all have - a roof over their heads, food to eat, clothes for the kids, a means to earn such a living, and the right to go about their daily lives in peace... those fundamentals hold whether the person is u.s., afghan, kosovar, or jordanian...
i understand the tea partiers because i understand how it feels to have no one speak for me... name me one political leader anywhere who has taken up the banner of the common good of the people of the world... for that matter, name me one in the u.s... i have been a lifelong democrat but i can't even say that word these days without a sneer on my lips... i feel betrayed and abandoned and almost hopelessly alone in my values and beliefs...
yes, i did vote... i sent in my absentee ballot almost two weeks ago and i checked off a straight democratic ticket... maybe i still think that lipstick on the pig is at least a small improvement and that my belief in pigs' ability to fly will somehow manifest in reality...
meanwhile, here's chris hedges...The legitimate rage being expressed by disenfranchised workers toward the college-educated liberal elite, who abetted or did nothing to halt the corporate assault on the poor and the working class of the last 30 years, is not misplaced. The liberal class is guilty. The liberal class, which continues to speak in the prim and obsolete language of policies and issues, refused to act. It failed to defend traditional liberal values during the long night of corporate assault in exchange for its position of privilege and comfort in the corporate state. The virulent right-wing backlash we now experience is an expression of the liberal class’ flagrant betrayal of the citizenry.
[...]
The collapse of liberal institutions means those outside the circles of power are trapped, with no recourse, and this is why many Americans are turning in desperation toward idiotic right-wing populists who at least understand the power of hatred as a mobilizing force.
[...]
Capitalism, and especially corporate capitalism, was once viewed as a system to be fought. But capitalism is no longer challenged in public discourse. Capitalist bosses, men such as Warren Buffett, George Soros and Donald Trump, are treated bizarrely as sages and celebrities, as if greed and manipulation had become the highest moral good. As Wall Street steals billions of taxpayer dollars, as it perpetrates massive fraud to throw people out of their homes, as the ecosystem that sustains the planet is polluted and destroyed, we do not know what to do or say. We have been robbed of a vocabulary to describe reality. We decry the excesses of capitalism without demanding a dismantling of the corporate state. Our pathetic response is to be herded to political rallies by skillful publicists to shout inanities like “Yes we can!”
i've had to accept the particularly distasteful fact that my own sources of livelihood, from teaching an advanced leadership seminar in an mba program to working for usaid-funded projects in economic development, are severely tainted by many of the same issues i decry above... for sure, it comes as no surprise that universities, particularly colleges of business, are just as much slaves to our puppet-masters as anyone else but it's hard for me to teach about the obligation for leadership to serve the common good when that is about the LAST thing that is on everyone's mind... as for usaid, well, that goes without saying...
sigh... and so it goes...Labels: 2010 election, capitalism, Chris Hedges, common good, corporate military industrial government complex, elites, Grover Norquist, liberal failure, super-rich, Wall Street
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