In Case You Didn't See This....

The following is a comment by a reader of Bob Herbert's column in today's NYT, "That Sinking Feeling."  Thanks to the comment's author for pointing out the obvious: we're acting like a bunch of sheep!

That Sinking Feeling…

James Madison long ago questioned if we were utterly without civic virtue? “To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people is a chimerical idea.” If it is so, then we are truly wretched.

Former British Labour MP Tony Benn clearly elucidated how the majority of Americans, whose interests are so grossly being underserved, and because they have lost their political will, have forgotten what it means to have a truly representative government:

"Because people in debt become hopeless and hopeless people don't vote.... If the poor...in the United States turned out and voted for people who represented their interests it would be a democratic revolution. So they don't want it to happen. So keeping people hopeless and pessimistic.... See I think there are two ways in which people are controlled. First of all, frighten people. And secondly, demoralize them. An educated, healthy and confident nation is harder to govern, and I think there's an element in the thinking of some people- we don't want people to be educated, healthy and confident because they would get out of control. The top 1 percent of the world's population owns 80 percent of the world's wealth. It's incredible that people put up with it, but they're poor, they're demoralized, they're frightened and they think perhaps the safest thing to do is take orders and hope for the best."

“However the elections turn out, the Obama administration needs to begin focusing much more intently on the economic plight of ordinary Americans.” I wouldn’t count on that Mr. Herbert. They are complicit tools of the corporate oligarchy, the one percent, who now control this country.

What do you suppose it will be like when voters realize that, because defense and national security, as vital parts of our “debt-and-credit industrial complex,” are exempt from deficit budget issues, Social Security, Medicare, and other social protections are being tossed over the side, and they find themselves unable to stay above water, after the elections?

France’s transport ministry last week issued an advisory that a fuel shortage at the Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris required airlines to arrive with enough fuel to get home, as hundreds of thousands took part in another national protest against President Nicolas Sarkozy's bill to raise the retirement age. This week the protests are escalating, adding to widespread travel disruption, alarm about petrol supplies and the closure of schools. One has to admire the French. Unlike us, they don’t let their economic and political masters run rough shod over them without a huge protest.

What is needed is what our political and economic masters fear the most, an educated, healthy, confident nation willing to initiate large and clamorous protests, like the French, willing to deny all support to these corporate toadies. If the majority of Americans simply acted out of self-interest and voted only for people who represented their interests, it would be a democratic revolution.

Are we so utterly without civic virtue? If so, then we are truly wretched.