I'm with you here - "This society you and I live in has pretty much lost itself at this point. In my opinion, it's immoral. TV is fights, porn, and mind altering prescription drugs. You're old enough to remember back when "nobody" locked their cars or their front doors, "nobody" swore on television, and "everybody" went to church on Sunday."
But then, "Why do you think things are different now? " is the key question.
I don't think it's unions.
But I also own a tech company, and none of my employees are unionized, so maybe I don't qualify for an opinion on that. I get pissed off at laziness, fire the bozos, and consider water seeks its own level, as far as personal compensation goes... I see the degradation of our society as having a national cause starting before Nixon, because that's the first liar and crook I remember, and a lawlessness that continues to this day, with disregard for fundamental American values, cynical covert deception in high places, and increasing militarization and taxation.
That bureacratic entanglement, and willingness to deceive, makes things like LBJ's Great Society become a source of further lies and lack of initiative, paying people to make excuses, whether welfare or the military, covered over by the media. Heinlein said, "90% of everything is b.s.", certainly true with bureacracies like today's fight over Homeland Secretary, huge budget, 140,000 people, but less responsibility, not more. Citizen's education is lacking, public media is lacking, and leadership is woefully lacking the means and will to improve either. The excuse-making has become the primary purpose for government -- there is no outcome-based government, except for lobbyist parasites who write the laws for our lawmakers.
Certainly the leadership we have in Washington is an embarassment to anyone interested in either good government or good education. The last administration was beset with political pornographers delighting in disgusting the public for political advantage, damaging the public arena for any substantive discussion, and winning the next election. There are plenty of things to win elections on, especially with the last administration, there certainly was no reason to stoop to pornography. That was hypocracy.
So, the question is how to improve things, that have gotten to the point of not just bureacracy but terrorism.
First, dismantle secret government. Reform the intel services, and make it illegal to tamper with the media with government dollars. Mindf* the US public with their own tax dollars isn't very American. Political ads are bad enough. We don't need tampering with the news.
Second, make full disclosure outcomes of every program, not just the propaganda. From education to worldwide militarization, what are the results? In Columbia, what did $1.4 Billion buy? 25% more drug production, that's what. And on and on.
It's the rape of the American taxpayer by kids in the military candy store, making excuses and lying about outcomes.
It's up to the public to be aware. But without getting the government's cladestine operatives out of the media, and unleashing the watchdogs of independent non-military-conglomerate-owned media, we'll get more of the same.
Not to just pick on foreign intel-types like the Moonies, or the CIA, but this is your money at work, corrupting American values in as powerful a way as tv violence, for example:
sonic.net
salon.com
geocities.com
thomasash.hypermart.net
"By 1953, the dirty tricks department of the CIA had grown to 7,200 personnel and commanded 74 percent of the CIA's total budget. The following quotes describe the culture of lawlessness that pervaded the CIA:
Stanley Lovell, a CIA recruiter for "Wild Bill" Donovan: "What I have to do is to stimulate the Peck's Bad Boy beneath the surface of every American scientist and say to him, 'Throw all your normal law-abiding concepts out the window. Here's a chance to raise merry hell. Come help me raise it.'" (1)
George Hunter White, writing of his CIA escapades: "I toiled wholeheartedly in the vineyards because it was fun, fun, fun... Where else could a red-blooded American boy lie, kill, cheat, steal, rape and pillage with the sanction and blessing of the all-highest?" (2)
A retired CIA agency caseworker with twenty years experience: "I never gave a thought to legality or morality. Frankly, I did what worked."
Blessed with secrecy and lack of congressional oversight, CIA operations became corrupt almost immediately. Using propaganda stations like Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, the CIA felt justified in manipulating the public for its own good. The broadcasts were so patently false that for a time it was illegal to publish transcripts of them in the U.S. This was a classic case of a powerful organization deciding what was best for the people, and then abusing the powers it had helped itself to." |
