What It’s Really All
About and The Big Picture
Being born and raised in California, I feel I have a certain
right to comment on what’s going on in California right now… there’s a
great deal of history to what’s happening.. people always think that current
circumstances are the result of relatively recent events.. and politicians often take
advantage of the short memory of Americans.
More often than not, it’s like the
power blackouts in the Northeast… it didn’t happen overnight, it just became
apparent. Like many things in our
governments, it’s not popular to suggest that we spend tax money on things that
guarantee a certain standard of reliability and standard of life, for that matter, so
politicians often let the less glamorous issues… like infrastructure and human rights
and consumer rights and the environment… they let those issues go until there is some
sort of disaster, and then they use the disaster to make themselves look like heroes.
Of course, to politicians, issues are like
new products to sell. George Bush can tell Congress to give him an energy bill, but that
doesn’t mean it will get passed, and even if it does, the Republican dominated
Congress may choose not to fund it, and the blame game
and the new political products are put into production and distributed via
the airwaves for the purpose of spreading innuendo and accusation as truth… At the end of the day, there is a great deal of
talk, proposals are made that no one has any real intent of acting on, and the issues are
never actually discussed based on the needs of the citizens.
More importantly, at the end of the next
day, after the headlines die down, legislation is passed that spends our tax dollars to
pay for something that, in fact, does build or re-build some important part of our
infrastructure – in a way that bills us directly so that utility companies can make
large profits without spending their money to “deliver” their own product. This
is one more place where our government has sold us out in the façade of free-markets.
The American implementation of Free-Market
Economics is like Communism, Socialism, Marxism, Democracy and any other form of
government or economic system: in theory, it should work, but only if the leaders lead its
citizens and honor the intent of the government as it was created, and not as it serves
them. It should work, but only if it is not corrupt, and only in a perfect world.
But,
we do no live in a perfect world, and those who believe that self-regulation is effective
can look around and realize that it doesn’t work, because people are not perfect.
That is not a criticism. It is a simple acknowledgement. To refuse to acknowledge it is
either denial, advantageous or delusional.
So, what’s all that got to do with
California?
Personally, I just can’t help noticing
the people Arnold Schwarzenegger is surrounding himself with…I mean, talk about your
sequels, in this action packed adventure you’ll get the best from the Reagan, Nixon
and Bush Administrations all at the same time. Not to mention good old Pete Wilson.
While Arnold is talking like a liberal, the
people advising him, with little exception, are the same old cronies who led California to
the economic and social chaos it’s experiencing now. So, I’m more than a little
skeptical.
But, California does, in fact, make a perfect microcosm to observe if you’re
serious about looking into the future of the United States, because what’s happening
there now is on the edge of happening all over this country. All over the world, really.
There are lessons to be learned by what is
occurring, but I fear they will be overlooked in the mainstream because they will not be
flattering to the power structures of our two-party system.
But these kinds of issues will continue to bubble up.
I’ve been saying for quite some time
now that the issue of Democracy, itself, would be the greatest issue of the 2004
Presidential election. California offers us a preview of that issue, and the debate that
will occur because of it.
The California Recall is more about the Rule
of Law than the Will of the People. In this case, an ambitious and fairly wealthy
politician used his wealth and a technical
interpretation of an antiquated law to force a new election and essentially pay for the
retrieval of signatures for the recall petitions. If this was about the will of the
people, no one should have needed to pay to have people collect signatures. That’s
called “the selling of Democracy”. It may be legal under the rule of law, but it
has nothing to do with the intent of the law.
But
that’s the strategy being used throughout our governmental and judicial systems these
days. It has nothing to do with the will of the people. It has to do with the purchasing
of a government.
PS to Arnold: Shall we talk of Yellow Journalism, sissy Democrats or the
$9 billion you hid from Californians on behalf of Enron that made you the right Republican
for the job, and made Democrats Clinton and others do everything but tell the media that
Gray Davis (who was suing Enron on behalf of the citizens of California) was incompetent?
Eenie, meeny miney mo.
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