America, like every nation on earth, is led by the rich and the powerful, or the elites. That is not surprising and it is not alarming. How could anybody be considered powerful unless they were in a position of leadership?
But, America's elites have heretofore ceded power to the judgement, or will, of the American people. They have willingly done this on the strength of two assumptions:
1. That the American people are generally decent, and if given access to honest information will do what is good and what is right.
2. That doing what is good and what is right leads to happiness and Justice for all.
Somehow these assumptions have lost their appeal and we are in a position where the elites, hungering for the spoils of war, have lied to the American people in order to encourage them to support an unjust war for ignoble reasons.
This explains why America is in it's last throes of international respectability, and why we have broken laws we promoted. It explains why we have tortured and renditioned.
Our elites must have lost their faith in strength through Goodness, influence through Goodness, and perhaps even happiness through Goodness.
At home they have robbed from the poor to give to the rich using trickle-up economics packaged as privatization. They are very likely not so stupid as to think their schemes will become a tide to rise all boats, yet they do not seem so smart as to realize their schemes will not secure liberty for themselves or happiness for their families.
Isn't it obvious to everyone that the Bush twins are unhappy? Isn't it obvious that Condi Rice is searching for happiness in shoe stores (as if Imelda Marcos were her guru)? Isn't it obvious that Dick Cheney suffers poor health and that a grimace is as close to a smile as he is likely to get?
When "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" was enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, it was about more that playing with a Wii console and watching Oprah on TV. It was a commitment to live for the Good, since experience taught that goodness and happiness were indivisible companions.
Money is a paltry dividend for an investment of happiness. You cannot buy-back one single life lost in Iraq with all the gold in the world.
When you have everything, and yet nothing, that is a life not worth living, and a way of life not worth holding onto.
I can see the suffering of the rich and know full well their response to it is to lash out bitterly at a world that rewarded all their hard work with emptiness.
They need only see their purpose, their talents, are not meant to be a tool to prey on the weak. They are meant as a source of hope, a helping hand towards enlightenment.
They are not, to speak in metaphor, drowning. They are fish.
Charlie Chaplin made a film called "The Great Dictator" to insult Hitler at a time when most of the world viewed him favorably. But, he did much more than insult. He put forward ideas for leading fish to water.
Excerpt from the final speech of The Great Dictator, which you can read here: Link
"The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.
Greed has poisoned men's souls; has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge as made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in man; cries out for universal brotherhood; for the unity of us all."
I hope you do not swallow the hook, line, and sinker the next time some salesman comes along peddling privatization schemes and domination strategies. Look first at what is lost and what is gained.
Is your money that good?
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