Betrayal of the American Promise

Editorial Note:

This is a revisit of the current state of politics. Admittedly, this posting published in November 2011 still holds true. Recent negotiations of the latest stimulus bill only illustrates the perversion that is politics and leadership of our elected official, such as Mitch McConnell, and appointed front person of the White House Secretary of Treasury Steve Mnuchin--end note.


Apparently, the republicans and the democrats on the Super Committee are not serious in reducing the deficit. Nor are they apparently serious about keeping the "American Promise" to future generations.

The promise that each successive generation will do better than the last. The promise that America's meritocracy elevates the individual and enshrines the community for the betterment of its citizenry but also illuminates the world with hope.

Unfortunately, the polarization of the two party system in American politics has created dysfunction that may imperil future generations' dreams.

In past generations of American politics, the political parties understood the necessities of pragmatism. Pragmatism ruled the day and despite the ardor of argument and contentiousness and controversial viewpoints common sense eventuated into reality regardless of political and corporate interests.

In 2011, corporate interests rules the day instead of the pragmatic visions of equality and the betterment of future generations. Case and point, the decision by the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) in regards to Citizen United v Federal Elections Commission (183 page ruling here) opened the floodgates of overt corruption and successfully subverting the definition of "person."

When the US Supreme Court codified that "corporations" were the same as a "living person"; and, that corporations were held as sentient beings and therefore are entitled to the full protections of individual citizens in terms of free speech, it set into motion the political paralysis that this country is faced with today. Not to rehash the slippery slope of arguments and precedent that led SCOTUS to the Citizen United decision, but the illusion that corporations are sentient beings was flawed and counter-intuitive to reality.

People (persons) are biologically alive entities; people are ephemeral; and, limited in function and form. Thus, free speech for the individual is the only characteristic that can be eternal and transfixed into the currents of time.

Corporations, on the other hand, can survive beyond their creators and override an individual's (or individuals') speech and rewrite the individual's free speech. The corporations self-interest usurps the people individually and communally by its influence and can affect and effect a communities' traditions as well as the communities' self-interest writ-large (see pizza as a vegetable example).

Although corporations influences on the political process preceded the ruling of Citizens United decision, the entombing the nature of a corporation as a person put the American Promise in jeopardy and set the stage for policy and political betrayal by American institutions, government, and our leaders.

Now, our leaders are telling the American public that the Deficit Supercommittee, which was created during the manufactured debt-ceiling crisis in the summer, that pragmatism, policy compromise, and fiscal responsibility are not possible. Each of the political parties are blaming the other for their dysfunction and the lack of results (see this Sunday's Meet The Press show as an example).

Is it any wonder then, that the public from both end of the political spectrum, the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movement (no longer relevant as a political force has been transformed into the left-wing democrats), and those in the middle are so angry? The middle class, college students, people of color and even the elite are in danger of America's falling into a dystopian failure.

A world where fear and dehumanization of the person becomes transformed by the Frankenstein's nature of the corporation. A world where our political leaders betrays the needs of the people and places the country's future generations into despair and the American Promise into a pine box....