In the 2008 presidential election year the two party candidates have carefully avoided any of the unsettling realities that might jeopardize their chances to attain our highest office. They offered no answers to the loss of productive jobs, because they had no satisfactory answers. When American corporations were allowed to move capital abroad, instead of being required to reinvest at home, our industrial base contracted, then virtually evaporated. The substitution of low paying service jobs for higher income blue collar and small business positions, ended middle class aspirations for many. This condition established a second world standard of living for a large segment of our population, deprived of opportunity by the corporate desire for higher profits. New industries that will strengthen our nation and provide our citizens with production jobs is one way to raise our standard of living, rather than see it continue to become lower.
Presidential candidates now require hundreds of millions of dollars to present their personae to the electorate. Most of that money is provided by corporate investment to secure future cooperation from grateful recipients. Different levels of funding apply to all aspirers to office. The higher the office, the more money is required to sell the candidate to the public. The concept of grass roots candidacies due to prodigious cost, with the exception of small town Selectmen, is as obsolete as the biplane. When Ralph Nader continued his campaign for the presidency, he was blamed by many liberal democrats for Al Gore's loss to George Bush. This is a testimony to non-democracy, when only two political parties are considered acceptable to those of the liberal persuasion. We can only conclude that the good of the nation is not the first consideration from many of the suitors who purport to serve it.
As our economic woes continue to grow, a mortgage crisis that already has cost one million families their homes, threatens many more families, yet our candidates have not made it a priority to demand urgent home owner assistance. Some short sighted citizens say families who can't pay their mortgages deserve to lose their homes. In a nation of decreasing earnings, diminishing industries and an economy critically dependant on consumer spending, the forced departure of families from their homes will deplete the national tax base, reduce family spending and further burden the tax payer with the cost resulting from the loss of homes that could have been prevented. Bailouts of failing companies to preserve the stability of the economy is not unusual. It is also important to bail out large segments of the population for the sake of the economy. We are approaching a state of dire emergency and the candidates discuss certain issues that may be vital, but shouldn't be exclusionary.
The costs of the occupation of Iraq are not being shared by our putative allies, despite the fact that if we succeed in establishing democracy in the mid-east it will benefit them. So the already overburdened American taxpayer must support nation-building, while at home our economic base is eroding. Our future president, whoever he or she may be, is not presenting a new initiative to involve our allies in sharing the cost of the reconstruction of Iraq. Our blood and treasure is being expended to provide a new government with security as it rebuilds a nation. Were this venture to succeed, it would possibly transform the autocratic states in the mid-east that do not address the needs of most of their citizens, from exporting terror to importing the benefits of globalization.
America can no longer afford the simultaneous costs of being an international policeman, preparing for the next major war by developing enormously expensive hi-tech military platforms, and sustaining a population confronted with diminishing economic opportunities. It is purposeless to ask: 'Who owns America?', because the answer is simple: it is not the people. The citizens who were taught to believe in the constitution have been betrayed. At election time their votes are sought. Otherwise, they must fend for themselves in a society dominated by powerful corporations whose concern is profit, not the well-being of the people. Our prospective president depends on major contributions from special interests dedicated to profit, not the well-being of the nation. Our concerns for the future will be forgotten in the exigencies of office. As we aspire to build democracy in Iraq, we also require reconstruction of democracy at home. The American tragedy is that our leaders speak at the people, but do not work for them.
We are once again poised to accept rhetoric as an ersatz substitute for a viable action plan to regenerate the sagging fortunes of our people. We desperately need new jobs that will stem the submergence of the middle class into second world subsistence and offer better opportunities than service jobs. If the candidates cannot offer meaningful answers rather than campaign promises, we must learn to recognize that we are being misled. Of course universal health care is urgently necessary. But how will it be paid for? The government doesn't have the money, while the candidates are spending millions on electioneering, not healthcare services. Americans are smart enough to recognize their problems, they just don't have the means for solutions. Instead of specifics, we are given sweeping generalities that will be easily forgotten when the realities of elective office emerge.
None of the candidates dare to tell the public that the war in Iraq ended in 2003. Then the battle for democracy in Iraq began. Common sense tells us that only those who benefit from war, desire war. If candidates object to fighting for democracy abroad, let them offer a sensible withdrawal plan that will not require more sacrifice later. In short, we the people who are growing poorer, while the rich are growing richer, need more from our candidates to lead us out of confusion. The fervor that greets candidates is an indicator of our hunger for solutions to difficult, complicated problems. Speechmaking will not alter the reality that confronts America. We need constructive change, not superficial promises that excite, but don't satisfy.
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Author Information:
Recent essays by Gary Beck about foreign affairs,
political issues, literary topics and homelessness
have appeared in AIM Magazine, Elimae, Outcry, Purple
Dream, CC & D Magazine, Bergen Street Review and Fullosia Press. His recent fiction has appeared in
Enigma, Dogwood Journal, EWG Presents, Nuvein
Magazine, Lit Up Magazome, Babel, Vincent Brothers
Review, L'Intrigue Magazine, The Journal, Short
Stories Bimonthly, Bibliophilos and many others. His
poetry has appeared in dozens of literary magazines.
His chapbook 'The Conquest of Somalia' will be
published by Cervena Barva Press. His plays and
translations of Moliere, Aristophanes, and Sophocles
have been produced Off-Broadway.
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