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Will GREED prevail, or do we Work for Change?

Our economy produces tremendous wealth but it also produces tremendous poverty. Sure, some people can be lazy, but when large numbers of hard working people live in poverty and the middle class is shrinking, it is a systemic, not an individual problem. There is plenty to go around, but it doesn't adequately go around. It goes to the TOP, and leaves the masses to fight over the crumbs. True, it has been this way through the ages, but that doesn't mean we should be satisfied with such a system. I believe we can do better.

Why don't people realize how inequitable our economy and culture have become? The media keeps us in the dark. The mainstream media has been bought up by the SuperRich. The primary channels for information and expressed opinion are controlled and filtered by a small, powerful group of the SuperRich whose interests are not representative of the majority of Americans. Even when there is no direct political message the programming is tailored to the perspectives and sensitivities of large corporations. The business of media is to sell advertising. Programming is simply the hook to hold an audience until the next commercial. Serious examination of ideas of any kind is seen as counterproductive because it may alienate or bore part of the potential audience. The result is nonstop sensationalistic binges of Reality TV, Jessica and Kobe. The growing media monopoly dilutes and distorts the national dialog, and thereby destroys the basis for democracy. We must find ways to rebuild community and learn to talk to each other directly.

Think about this distorted distribution of income, wealth and power when you read your daily news. (I hope you do read your daily news rather than rely on the TV infotainment that masquerades as news). What are its implications for politics, US foreign policy, why we go to war, tax structures, campaign finance reform, the policies of the IMF, the WTO, and the World Bank, the outsourcing of jobs, factory closings, sweatshop labor, "guest worker" programs, etc. How does welfare for the poor stack up against corporate welfare?

Is this inequitible dirtribution "good" or "natural" or "inevitable"? What are the alternatives? The economy is a complex system, but it is essentially a human invention. It can be "managed" (or influenced) in many ways. If it is not managed intentionally, then it is managed (or manipulated) by those who hold political and economic power, typically to their own advantage. It is not enough to create a strong economy. It is just as important to ask how the benefits of the economy are distributed through the population. A truly democratic society needs to find ways to manage the economy to benefit the population as a whole. This is not being done.

The only way to make the government for the people is to make it of the people and by the people. That means we, the people, must wake up. We must wake up our neighbors! We must talk to each other directly. We must bypass the media culture and rebuild true community. Democracy does not start in the voting booth. It starts by building a movement at the grass roots level that values people over profits.