Two things are on my crowded mine: the Snowden affair and the one-percent affair. On the first item, I hate to agree with Dick Cheney, but in a war with terrorist that might be just small cells of maybe to or three people, the end justifies the means.
We do have to be careful that in protecting the freedoms we so value that we don’t go so far in the opposite direction in protecting ourselves our liberties shrink. I believe it was Eisenhower that warned against this.
But, to do nothing, risks being destroyed. The trick is to balance what is in our national interest and security with those freedoms we hold so dear. And if Snowden believes he is doing justice a service, he’s wrong. He’s undermining those national interests and that security by stirring up a national debate that may undermine the secret efforts to keep us protected.
Cheney calls Snowden a traitor. He is right. The fear is now that Snowden may be either a spy or a misguided individual who probably right now is being debriefed by the Chinese, who most certainly are not our friends, certainly within the highest levels of the Communist Party.
Then there is the former Mitt Romney advisor that argues the top one percent wage earners are at the top because they are more intelligent and have created that wealth because of it. He reasons the smart beget smart kids who will also walk among the one-percenters.
In other words, if you are middle class or poor it is because you were born into those circumstances and chances are good that your class status reflects a lack of intelligence that doesn’t allow you to escape and get into the top one percent.
I agree with his general philosophy, but what he overlooks is that many of the top one-percenters do nothing to lift up the other 99-percent. They accumulate the wealth and refuse to share it. Many, in fact, including Romney, have offshore accounts where the money is sheltered from the heavy tax burden that would shred their money if kept on the mainland.
It is my belief ‑ and I probably won’t see this in my lifetime – that the capitalistic system will some day implode with the lower classes rising up to toppled the one-percenters. That is if the Chinese don’t get here first.
There will always be an inequality in our capitalistic system, but the continuing enlargement of power brokers who influence the laws of our land, tilting them toward the one-percenters, will some day come home to roost and our country will be torn apart.
Greed has already smashed what was once the greatest economic power in history. It will never be rebuilt to where it once was because of the greed of the one-percenters and the power brokers who blaze the path for them to retain their wealth and add to it.
So, yeah, there is a general human basis that saddles the poor that makes it extremely difficult for them to escape their economic conditions, but over time those who are left behind will rise up to get their share.
And then it will start all over again.
Be well pal.
Have a great day.
You are loved.