This is just a piece of an article or serious work I would like to focus on, solutions for our system of government. Husband and son and I were out shopping today and as usual when we are all in the vehicle together, we tend to have serious conversations about issues, mostly regarding what is going on in the world out there. Especially lately! Since the vehicle we've been using has no radio, ha ha. We wind up communicating out of boredom. It was a part of our lives when our kids were younger -- they were homeschooled. I think some of that is missed now and its trying to make a comeback in our lives, this ability to debate serious issues at hand ... without what has become this conflict of wanting to kill each other over our differences of opinion. It used to be a really constructive process, our discussions and even disagreement. I pride myself on the fact that now that they are young adults, the one thing that my children got most out of homeschooling, was their ability to think outside the box. I'm grateful for having had the opportunity to realize it in my own thinking and awakening process and having been a catalyst for their growth.
Anyway...
How did we get on to the subject ? It helps me to go back and reconstruct the conversation.
Oh yeah, I remember now. He said he had been talking to a guy who had been an engineer for an oil company and was now getting involved in the environmental protection scene and some of his unrealistic views. From an environmental and also economic standpoint. Eventually we got to talking about political and economic systems and their differences and their strengths and weaknesses.
They are always downing Capitalism, my very Liberal Snowflake (yep) husband and son. I admit, in my Snowflake days ... sort of, you could probably categorize me as mostly Liberal who believed in a system that was a combination of Capitalism and Socialism. Just in terms of my social and spiritual consciousness. If I had to describe my perspective, I would say that I am extremely liberal regarding certain things - Education, Health Care and Energy Policy. But in terms of economics, I would probably be considered pretty conservative. There is a reason that Mutual Funds used to be illegal!!
But. Capitalism, just like any government system is a tool. A template. When tools or templates are ... misused and abused by the corrupt, its not right to blame the tool. Look at GMO technology for example. It could be used wisely to help Mother Nature correct things in a very balanced way. Or it can be used to totally fuck up the gene pool, starting with the human food supply. Less interference is generally best. It all depends on how badly things are out of balance.
I believe in government! Good government, that is. Although I feel that we still have yet to see it manifest. I believe that the true role of government is facilitation of quality of life. Take the Preamble of the US Constitution as your mission statement, only take it a step or two further ... to protecting the balance of all life and the environment as part of the picture defining human quality of life. Good leadership means putting us all on the same page to meet those goals fulfilling it.
Anyway. I believe that what is wrong with our current system is that ... Look. Capitalism is one of the best things we've got to work with. Its strength is freedom. It drives incentive for success in people better than anything else. By success ... I am talking about having the freedom to find one's right place within a balanced system. I also think that we need to shift from an ever spiralling unchecked and infinite growth economic systems model, to one of maintenance and level security.
See ... "Capitalism" is a self functioning natural system. The beauty of it is, without conflict of interest and special interest, wind it up and let it go. It will, for the most part, correct itself naturally. Just like all living systems and energy. When things get out of balance, things change ... things happen to rebalance the whole. Normal crashes in the system, ie, stock markets and real estate ... these things are actually GOOD, because just like storms in nature, they normally function to rebalance everything. The poor greatly benefit from these things!! When the poor benefit, we all benefit and the whole system finds more balance ... and fulfillment of greater quality of life and stability is met overall. Also the fact that when these rebalancing dynamics HAVE happened in recent years (ie Recession, not exactly something I understand all that well) they've been more volatile threats to the whole than they would have been without so much long term monkey-wrenching and rigging of the system, what has been taking place on the part of lobbyists and lawmakers for so long.
Are you frustrated with the fact that the elite control so much wealth, and the gap between rich and poor is so huge? That is because the natural balances to the system have been hijacked in this country, by economic policy that is based on special interest. Just look at the imbalance!
You have to level the playing field for everyone. Something I really really want people to understand is that, if you create a system that works for everyone, you can't ever lose!! Rather than systems with dynamics that work against each other, where special interests wind up being 'pitted' against everything to get their way. Its kind of like that saying, if one of us is enslaved, then all of us are enslaved. The wealthy may have money, but at some point money becomes worthless when it is so far out of balance with everything else and the system breaks down. Everyone is affected eventually. There's no escaping it. You can't eat money.
Milton Friedman said, "The only way to eliminate greed is to remove the incentive for wealth." By wealth, I assume he meant the stockpiling of money and resources and the consciousness behind it that has intent to deny our fellow human beings a fair share of the world. We are seeing an age when the accumulation of private resources has created destabilization of governments, because people now can literally buy public office, or use their personal wealth to do things like, sabotage the voting system of countries, especially really large and powerful ones like the USA. I think what is necessary (and what is coming, with Uranus in Taurus) is a major paradigm shift, regarding how we have defined our human economic and political systems. Even a rewrite of our sacred US Constitution.
The elephant in the room is corporations. They have to go.
Small privately owned business and non profits need to completely replace them.
Why? Because corporations pose the biggest threat to functional government (and private business, among other things). ALL conflict of interest needs to be eliminated from the places where it compromises the whole!! The system itself has to be protected in order for it all to work. Our Founding Fathers were thinking along these lines when they established the government to not be subject to private lawsuits. That's right folks, if you didn't know this already, you cannot sue the United States Government.
What is conflict of interest? Conflict of Interest happens when public position is used for private gain. Or in the case of corporations, use of power and public trust that works against the entire system. How do you safeguard the system from corruption? I'll tell you. By enforcing Conflict of Interest Law to start with.
THIS is how the United States government can get beyond the Federal Reserve, by the way. The Federal Reserve is a privately owned corporation that has a board of directors that privately profits from its operation, regulating the system of currency and exchange for the entire US government. It is the biggest and most glaring conflict of interest of our times.
Ps. do you know who started conflict of interest law? Take a guess.
If you guessed John F. Kennedy, you guessed right.
LR 7/22/2018
There is so much more to say!! I'm working on it. In the meantime, recommended reading (and for me as well): ANYTHING by Thomas Paine (The Invisible Hand) and nobel prize winning economist, Milton Friedman.
Pics, credit Google Images and my private photo cache.
I couldn't resist!! Something from childhood Saturday morning public education infomercials between cartoons. I'm probably going to have this song in my head now for a little while!
The Preamble of The Constitution, Schoolhouse Rock
