The student loan crisis now facing the people of the United States of America is only a symptom of a much larger problem. Our democracy has been hijacked by our CHOICE of economic system.
Capitalism has been allowed to run amuck to such a degree that 1% of its people now control more wealth than the bottom 95%. That just shouldn't be so in a country that has prided itself on fairness and justice and yet it is so.
The truth is this problem has been growing for many, many years. It didn't happen overnight. There are many causes. We can point to many instances in the last 70 years or so and say it started here or there but let’s leave that discussion for another time.
Because time is of the essence it is necessary to become solution centered and fast. America needs to put the bickering aside along with all the lobbyists and sell-out politicians and reclaim its destiny as a light to the world.
Ironically, the solution to our current dilemma has already been proposed. Over 60 years ago then President Franklin Delano Roosevelt proposed a Second Bill of Rights during his State of the Union Address on January 11, 1944.
He foresaw the coming problems in American society if the economic rights of all Americans were not protected. President Roosevelt's economic bill of rights would have guaranteed every American respectable employment - with a living wage, freedom from unfair competition and monopolies (foreign or domestic), adequate housing, access to medical care, education, and Social Security. All the things we struggle with today.
Sadly, President Roosevelt passed away just over a year later and these rights were never seriously entertained by Congress. The loss of these rights has devastated the lives of millions of Americans and I believe they are worth fighting for today. Our survival as a country may yet depend on it.
Now, I know there are many people reading this who just can’t wait to scream at the top of their lungs that such ideas are socialist or even communist. They will proclaim that even entertaining the notion of taking care of our citizens in this way would be un-American. And those people would be unequivocally WRONG.
Despite the fact that it took our forefathers hundreds of years to realize that all our people deserved the same rights this great country was founded with the promise of opportunity for all. All President Roosevelt sought to do was further define those rights and to protect them. The premise for his new bill of rights was to make sure that the government of the people was there to serve the people – not the other way around. Any person of sound mind must agree that such an intention is as American as apple pie.
Now that I have addressed the unabashed flag waivers concerns about socialism and communism lets deal with how we pay for such measures.
First and foremost we must choose an economic system that rewards hard work and honesty but which also does not cause us to lose sight of human dignity.
Capitalism only partly rewards hard work – so long as it is the kind that is driven by opportunism. Capitalism only rewards honesty when it can be made into a tradable commodity. Capitalism is driven be the profit motive and when unregulated will trample the dignity of anyone in its path so long as there as there is a profit to be gained.
This is the system that has served America for so long – and so well. So long as corporate profits soared and people had jobs it didn’t matter what the cost of this economic behavior was to the guy down the street or around the world. Our collective guilt is that so many of us saw benefits of this economic system in the past that we have all been willing to turn away from any crimes committed against our fellow man be it for oil, diamonds, raw materials, food, water etc.
There must be a better way – a better economic system that serves the cause of democracy and human compassion. There must be economic systems that are no less patriotic and yet more focused on human dignity.
As a patriot to our great country and a believer in the great goodness inherent in the American people I now know that purist capitalism as we now have it is no longer in the best interest of our people or the world for that matter. Capitalism is killing us and the planet because it is based on an endless consumption of all that is within our reach. I just hope we all come to realize this before it is too late.
To give credit where it is justly due please see Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story for more on this topic. Mr. Moore is credited by Wikipedia with discovering the lost video footage of President Roosevelt's speech about the aforementioned Second Bill of Rights. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Bill_of_Rights)
So America - what do you have to say for yourself now?
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