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Many people are raised with an orientation, indeed an imperative sense, that puts compassion and ethics -- ones values and principles -- as central to their dealings with others. This foundation becomes part of their identities and shapes the directions that their lives take.
One does not have to look only at charitable institutions to find this to be the case. One can see it in the teacher who works day after day against daunting odds to uplift materially disadvantaged children living in extreme slums. Further, the Girl Scouts, who devise a special project at a senior center, exemplify this mind set when they earnestly strive to bring joy to the elderly of whom many are on their last legs. Likewise, the social workers tirelessly toiling to help families whose homes have been foreclosed and the countless volunteers who gather supplies for victims of disasters typify this focus.
Therefore, one has to wonder about the morality of numerous U.S. government and business leaders, especially the ones who routinely put their own limitless self-gain above the needs of others. What sorts of people are these? Just how did their families and society in general fail them in matters of conscience?
In considering the answers, one often winds up incredulous and outraged by their actions. After all, what kinds of individuals lie about their underlying motives while they systematically destroy the people, the culture and the country of Iraq primarily in order to wrestle control of their oil for companies that favor American interests? What sort of individuals condone torture as their nation's covert plan to help ensure that domination of the Middle East can be better assured? What sort of individuals publicly talk of service to society and change in which we can all believe while expanding resource wars in order to secure geo-political supremacy over regions rich in fossil fuels at a time during which scientific evidence inarguable points to the need to direct national focus on benign forms of energy?
Certainly, they are aware that this redirection of plans is a necessary precondition for future generations to not face a living hell on Earth due to climate change effects. Surely they must know that they have no moral or legal right to invade other lands for coveted war spoils regardless of the degree that they seem essential to have. Do they?
It is especially worthwhile to ponder the responses to these kinds of questions as one, also, considers that these same individuals, of whom many are U.S. Congressmen, annually allocate fifty-four percent of the federal budget to military related endeavors. Simultaneously, they are mandated to hand over nineteen percent further to the ongoing payment of interest on monies currently owed to maintain their present scale of funding for armed service, bailouts and other reckless ventures.
These circumstances leave a whopping twenty-seven percent left for ALL other U.S. programs unless, of course, further loans beyond the ongoing intended ones are taken out, i.e., to purchase Swine Flu vaccines. With these additional costs in mind, one can anticipate that legislators will continue in arrangements to borrow staggering sums of money to sustain their disastrous spending patterns, as is mentioned in "The U.S. Federal Budget Pipeline: Where Do The Dollars Drain?" All the while that individual States, like California, and individuals continue to be devastated by the indirect consequences.
In a similar vein, one questions about the morality of people who keep supporting big business practices and amassing wealth for themselves [1] like modern duplicates of mad King Midas while an increasing number of their fellow Americans wind up jobless and homeless. Meanwhile, a backdrop like this leads Ramsey Clark to suggest, "But we're not a democracy. Its a terrible misunderstanding and a slander to the idea of democracy to call us that. In reality, we're a plutocracy: a government by the wealthy."
Accordingly, U.S. employment positions continue to transfer to offshore sites to bolster a plan for maximum profits for the already grossly enriched at the expense of the populace at large. Analogously for companies on U.S. soil, cutbacks and closures have a similarly deleterious effect in terms of under and unemployment.
In relation, the public, obviously, cannot make lots of purchases while an inadequate supply of money is coming into households during which time store shelves are overstocked due to past practices wherein the market became saturated with far too many items for a wide variety of products. Consequently, the manufacture of goods grinds to an almost complete halt and the economy continues to tumble.
Yet no Works Progress Administration (WPA) and extended Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) programs are put in place to make up for the financial deficits that average people are experiencing even though the move could, indirectly, jumpstart spending. Further, the groups that stand to fabulously benefit from the status quo remaining as is continue to do so even as the masses flounder.
As Paul Kane points out in "Lawmakers Reveal Health-Care Investments" [2]:
"The list of [lawmakers] who have personal investments in the corporations that will be affected by the [health-care] legislation -- which President Obama has called this year's highest domestic priority -- includes Congress's most powerful leaders and a bipartisan collection of lawmakers in key committee posts. Their total health-care holdings could be worth $27 million, because congressional financial disclosure forms released yesterday require reporting of only broad ranges of holdings rather than precise values of assets."
"Health care is not the only industry that is both heavily regulated by Congress and heavily invested in by lawmakers. As The Washington Post reported Thursday, more than 20 members of the House leadership and the House Financial Services Committee hold investments in companies that received more than $200 billion in federal bailouts."
"On the Senate banking committee, at least a half-dozen senators had significant investments in companies that benefited from the $700 billion bailout legislation that the panel helped draft last fall. Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) reported $18,000 to $95,000 in investments in Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae bonds, and also that he sold at least $15,000 in Fannie 'step-up' bonds at the end of last year. The committee's ranking Republican, Sen. Richard C. Shelby (Miss.), reported holding $260,000 to $850,000 in money market and retirement accounts with Countrywide, Citigroup and Wachovia."
Now contrast their bounty with these stark facts of which all were derived from Michael Moore's investigations. [3] (One can agree with his overall perceptions or not. Either way, it does not change the basic actualities.)
