I’m Fed Up… American Democracy Is On The Path To Suicide - Dick Rauscher

As I head into the Christmas season. I find that I need to vent. I’m fed up. I’m tired of being politically correct. I’m tired of keeping a smile on my face and being positive. Right now, I don’t feel very positive. I’m feeling powerless, frightened for our future, and very frustrated.

I try hard to stay positive when writing this blog. I try to focus on solutions and hope and possibilities. I try to focus on the issues, not the personalities. I believe a positive attitude is important and necessary if we want to solve the problems and crises that are threatening our World and our Nation. Runaway growth in debt. Global warming. Climate intensification. The intentional erosion of our Democratic values and freedoms. The growing apathy of the average voter. The greed and growing wealth inequality between the 1% and the rest of us. The list is overwhelming. It leaves most of us feeling hopeless and powerless.

I’m fed up with our Nation’s current leaders. Our democracy is on the path to suicide, and none of our elected officials in Washington seem to have either the courage or wisdom to stand up for the health and future of our American Democracy. The courage and wisdom to stand up and speak out….to call a spade a spade. Where are the will, the courage, and the wisdom to move beyond rigid political ideology and stand up for the principles that made our Nation great? The Democratic principles and values that reflected the dreams and visions of our founders. The values and principles that are the bedrock and foundation of our democratic Republic. And I’m talking about both parties. Except for Elisabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, I don’t see effective moral leadership in Washington. I don’t see courage. And I don’t see wisdom.

I’m fed up. Where are the politicians that fight for our Nation? The leaders that fight fearlessly for the values and principles of our American democracy? I see self-serving politicians that are more concerned with their own greed, their own power, their own careers, their own retirement programs, their own privilege, and their own party ideologies. Where are the political leaders that stand resolutely with the people who sent them to Washington to represent their needs, their dreams, and their values? And I don’t mean the political ideologies of their “base”……the political “base” that seems to need the distracting red meat our politicians throw them so they stay loyal to their party’s political ideologies.

I’m fed up with politicians that are no longer honoring the Constitution. Politicians that are no longer fighting for our American principles and values. Politicians who are more concerned with party ideologies than the welfare of our nation. Politicians that openly bicker and fight from positions of rigid ideological beliefs that only gridlock our democratic system of discussion and compromise. Where are the leaders that focus on the principles and values that our nation was founded on? I’m fed up with political ideologies that have become more important than the well being of our Nation.

I’m fed up with politicians that are dismantling our system of economic checks and balances whenever those checks and balances conflict with the greed of the 1%, or the multi-national corporations…… while the needs of the middle-class are all but totally ignored. The wealth inequality between the 1% oligarchy and the middle-class is growing and threatening the democratic foundation or our nation. Their wealth grows while 60% to 70% of all American families are struggling to exist on what is considered to be less than what economists consider to be a living wage……while the “dark money” of the oligarchy conveniently parked in off-shore accounts to avoid paying taxes on their obscene levels of income, continues to “buy” our political system and corrupt our nation’s political process. I’m fed up that our politicians can only wring their hands and say “oh dear, what can we do”?

Many politicians and philosophers throughout history have reminded us that we can have a Democracy or we can have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few…….but we can’t have both. I’m fed up with politicians who intentionally ignore this wisdom.

I’m fed up with Washington politics when politicians that are accused of gross sexual predatory behavior…..including our President, Moore, Supreme Court Judge Thomas…..but nothing is being done. It’s just business as usual.No one in power is being held accountable. It’s no wonder, so many Americans feel powerless. The powerful oligarchy of the 1% and multi-national corporations have bought our political process. So it makes sense that none of our politicians have the courage to do what’s right. It would threaten their own access to wealth and power. It would threaten their own careers.

I’’m fed up when I think about the tens of thousands of people that have been killed by lenient gun laws, but tragedy after tragedy, nothing ever happens in Washington….even though the majority of American voters have been demanding stricter gun laws for generations! Yet everybody, including our politicians, gets all wigged out when a crazy person goes on a killing spree and kills a few people. Talk about distracting, blatant emotional manipulation of the voters. It’s no wonder the voters in our country are feeling discouraged and powerless. They are! It doesn’t matter what they want when what they want threatens the privilege, power, and careers of the politicians they sent to Washington to represent them.I’m fed up with our nation’s blindness to the power of greed! It is destroying our Democracy.

I’m fed up with a Congress that allows itself to be deadlocked over conservative ideological beliefs that openly support the 1% including the current tax reform legislation that supports, the 1%.I’m fed up with politicians that bow to the greed and power of the 1% when they vote to eliminate the checks and balances designed to protect the nation’s financial systems.

I’m fed up with politicians whose silence openly supports the dismantling of EPA regulations designed to protect our nation’s future. They know, and we know, the petroleum industry is supporting this dismantling of EPA regulations with their “dark money”! ……and nobody is doing anything about it. The American voter is not stupid. We know our politicians are being bought off. I’m fed up with politicians who seem to think we’re either stupid or don’t care.

I’m fed up with conservatives who talk about fiscal responsibility and smaller government, yet openly support the massive and growing federal debt.It’s no wonder the middle-class has given up worrying about Washington politics.…..or why they feel powerless….they are! What the “people” want and support is not important to the politicians. They simply pass more legislation and laws that remove regulations in order to increase the wealth of the 1% and the multinational corporations….again, the source of the dark money that keeps them in office!! As long as our politicians can take care of the big donors who pay for their political campaigns and keep them in office….. “business as usual”will continue. And I’m fed up with their arrogance…..and their self-serving greed.

I’m fed up with a political system that blindly elects a President who is clearly struggling with a severe mental illness. Our President fits the Diagnostic Manual criteria for pathological narcissism…. diagnostic criteria supported by our nation’s Psychiatrists and Psychotherapists. He’s been accused of sexually predatory behavior against women. Yet nobody talks about it. Nobody does anything to remove him from office. All our politicians seem capable of is wringing their hands and saying “oh dear, oh dear,…what can we do”. And we wonder why people are feeling powerless and disengaged. We wonder why less than half of our nation even bothers to vote. (Of course, the 1% don’t want a voting citizenry. That would only complicate their primary goal of maintaining their power and remaining in office.)

As an ordained pastor in the Christian Church, I’m fed up, dumbfounded, and dismayed by the actions and behaviors of those who call themselves “Christians”……..

• yet vote to have immigrant families torn apart and removed from our country,

• openly support political leaders who have been accused of predatory sexual behavior as if those behaviors don’t matter,

• remain silent or even openly endorse the greed of the 1% and the multinational corporations; including the petroleum companies, who continue to condemn future generations to possible suffering and even possible extinction.

Where is their support for the common good? Mutual benefit? Where is their support for laws and legislation that care for the suffering of the poor, the starving, and the homeless? Are they so blinded by their rigid ideological religious and political beliefs that they fail to see that they are not following in the footsteps of the Jesus they say they worship? I’m more than fed up with them. Their behaviors make me ashamed to call myself a Christian.

I’m fed up with a government that appoints incompetent people to head up our nation’s public offices…..especially those appointed to our educational system. Our educational system already fails to teach about the importance of democratic responsibilities that are part of living in a Democratic nation. Too many of our citizens fail to vote. Too many of our citizens are not well educated. They not well informed as evidenced by the fact that most American’s fail to read….even one book a year! Like compliant sheep they have been psychologically divided by competing, rigid ideological religious and political belief systems…..and they’ve been taught and encouraged to demonize anyone who disagrees with them. I’m fed up writing about the fact that rigid, inflexible religious and political ideological beliefs always create a self-inflicted ignorance. The more rigid the ideological beliefs,……the more ignorance the holder of those beliefs will manifest.

And finally, it’s no wonder, so many of our citizens feel powerless to create positive political change in Washington. Most Americans are simply too busy surviving to bother with the problems threatening our Democracy, global climate change, our nation’s rapidly growing debt, becoming an informed citizenry, actually voting, or ending our never-ending six trillion dollar war against the very terrorists that we helped to create. A war they are paying for and financing.

I am fed up with all the ignorance, greed, stupidity, and lack of true leadership I see in Washington. And don’t get me started on the global issues of global warming and climate intensification deregulation that is also supported by the same greed that has corrupted our leaders in Washington.

Conclusion

Ok, I definitely feel better getting all that off my chest. Ho, Ho, Ho….Merry Christmas for most of our nation……and my concern and empathy for those who actually care about the slow suicidal slide we are witnessing in our American democracy.

My ranting and comments define what I believe are only some of the important challenges and realities that face our Nation. I recognize that for many of my readers I have probably understated the importance and severity of the threats our nation is facing. Our insistence on never-ending economic growth, our dedication to never-ending consumption, and the greed that drives our nation’s political and economic policies referred to as “capitalistic business as usual”…….clearly, and unequivocally reflects a nation that is slowly committing economic and political suicide.“Business as usual”, is based on uncontrolled power and greed. And it needs to be replaced. Now.

Unless we can rise up as a “people” and collectively demand that our politicians embrace economic and political change, and more aggressively protect our constitution and our democracy, I am convinced that our future as a Nation is not only becoming dangerously fragile….it is headed toward suicide. The only question in my mind is whether we exterminate ourselves and collapse internally from the facts listed above……or whether Mother Nature does the job for us.

If we can find the collective will as a Nation to stand up and fight for our survival……history is a testament to the reality that we are not powerless. Social change happens slowly, but it always requires the collective courage, energy, and wisdom of people willing to fight for their collective future.

We are running out of time on all of the issues I have listed above.