By Ken Kreps
©2004, all rights reserved
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The conservatives, particularly the neo conservatives (neo-cons), will tell you our country is in fine shape and only needs four more years of George Bush as President to realize its potential as the best and brightest nation in the world. Liberals will counter with a multitude of reasons why George Bush, the conservatives, the Republican party and all right leaning individuals are pushing this country into a downward spiral, from which it may never recover.
If you’re one who believes all is right within our country, you should read no farther because most of what I say will no doubt offend you and might even ruin your day as you simmer and stew over what I’ve said. On the other hand, if you also think there are major problem in our nation, please read on, knowing that you too may not be in total harmony with my opinions and beliefs.
Having said that, I have divided my beliefs into three main categories, under which, or because of which, the main problems facing this country lie. These categories are God, Business and Greed.
GOD
Some of you are, I’m sure, already offended that I would even label a section about what is wrong with America under the heading of God. I have created a God heading, not because there is anything wrong with God or the belief in God, but because of what is happening in our country in the so called name of God.
I will be as straight forward with this as possible. I believe in God and while it may not be the traditional belief that many organized religions have in God, I nevertheless believe in a higher power than man. I have close friends that do not believe in God at all and I have other friends and relatives who are devout believers. To both I say, what you believe is your business and I support your right to believe whatever you choose.
I also believe strongly in the separation of church and state. Our founding fathers were wise enough to see this and to include language in the official documents of our land, which upheld that belief. There is a segment of our population that sees it differently. Again, they have a right to believe whatever they wish. They do not, however, have the right to impose their religious beliefs on the rest of us, on our laws or on our country.
First, there is the “God test” that many of our politicians are put through when they express their intention to run for public office. Case in point: In a Newsweek magazine interview of Howard Dean (back when he was leading the polls for the Democratic nomination for President) he was asked the following question. "Do you see Jesus Christ as the son of God and believe in him as the route to salvation and eternal life"? That question had as much business being in a Howard Dean (or any other political candidate) interview as one about how often he brushed his teeth or would the ground hog see his shadow on February 2nd. In fact, it had less, as it was a very personal and private question and had no bearing what so ever on his qualifications (or lack of same) for the office of President of the United States.
The religious right (for lack of a better name) seems to think they have been anointed to set the rules under which our country operates.
They oppose gay marriage for strictly religious reasons. They say gay marriage will rupture the very fabric of the American family. Just how gay marriage is going to manage this is a mystery to me. Consider this. If the religious right came out against blacks marrying either each other or marrying other races, they would be criticized and ridiculed as racists and bigots because they would be wanting to discriminate against a group of people because of an act of birth. None of us get to choose what race into which we are born. Similarly, homosexuals are homosexuals because of an act of birth and much research into genetics has been done which verifies this conclusion. None of us get to choose the sexual preference, with which we are born. Yet, the religious right wants to deny the legality of a union of two loving same sex people because they believe it to be wrong. They have every right to that belief, as narrow-minded as it might be, but they do not have a right to impose that belief on the laws of our nation or our states. Two people who truly love each other, regardless of their sex, have every right to a lawful marriage.
Unfortunately, invoking the name of God in public affairs does not stop with gay rights or gay marriage. John Ashcroft, our Attorney General, has openly stated that first, he first obeys God’s laws, then the laws of our country. Say what? He is the chief law enforcement officer in the nation and he puts the laws of our country second!
As a Democrat, I wish I could say the “rush to God” by our public officials is confined to the Republicans, but sadly it is not. Joe Liberman has gone on record, as saying freedom of religion does not mean freedom from religion. He believes it is the duty of every citizen of this country to believe in God. I believe in God, but I’ll be damned (relax, that word is used in the Bible) if I think that means everyone should. I also love jazz, but would resist any movement to make jazz the official, and only sanctioned, national music. I have no right to make you listen to jazz if you don’t want to, just as I have no right to make you believe in God if you choose not to do so.
Nor does it stop there. A close inspection of some state’s policies for eligibility for running for state office is a belief in God. I kid you not. If Charles Manson were to profess his belief in God, he would have passed that part of some states rules for political candidates.
In the name of God, legal abortion facilities are harassed and in extreme cases, their employees are physically attacked and a few have been gunned down and murdered.
Wacko religious zealots like Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and John Hagee are constantly stirring up their followers with inflamed rhetoric about the Godless liberals and how they are taking over the country. Robertson has publicly championed the re-election of George Bush on what is supposed to be a religious television program. He has stated that God wants George Bush to win the presidential election. If this is not a clear violation of the separation of church and state, I don’t know what is.
Robertson, Falwell and Hagee are not the only religious spokesmen who commit this type of skullduggery. Across the radio and television airwaves, with hate and venomous rhetoric, others constantly deride gays, abortions, liberals and anyone or anything else that does not fit neatly into their tunnel-vision definition of right and wrong. To quote a line from the fine 1954 movie, “Bad Day at Black Rock” starring Spencer Tracy, “You’re not only wrong, you’re wrong at the top of your voice.”
Political candidates see the handwriting on the wall and, knowing the deck is stacked, profess to be god-fearing individuals with a long history of church attendance. Because of the pressure from the religious right, to do otherwise would amount to political suicide.
Recently a political action group of Godless Americans was formed to represent the thirty million (their figures) non-believers in our country. I have no desire to participate in their group as I’m neither atheist nor agnostic, but I can understand how the actions of the religious right has driven the non-believers in this nation to form such a group.
Folks, the bottom line is this. My religion may not be yours, but neither of us have the right to invoke the name of God in order to coerce or force the other to conduct their life in a manner which we deem acceptable to the dictates of our particular religion.
If one needs further proof of the dangers of religion carried to the extreme, they need only look at the Muslim faith. While the vast majority of Muslims are law-abiding good citizens, a deranged small percentage of them willfully murder innocent people while professing they are doing it in the name of their God, Allah. It really doesn’t matter which God you worship. Forcing your will on people in the name of any God is just plain wrong. I know of no other way to say it.
Finally, the God I know teaches tolerance and love of all people, and not the hate and venom, which is coming out of much of the religious right on an almost daily basis.
Business
I have nothing against the idea of business or the ethical practice of business. The United States was built on free enterprise and, indeed, many immigrants to this country came with the belief that in America, you could go as far as your talents and work ethic would take you. In the beginning, and for years thereafter, this was true and many fortunes were made from the ground up. To be sure, even back then, there were the business con men and scoundrels who were more interested in swindling someone out of their hard earned cash rather than work for there own. But, by and large, a person could become self-made and the sky was the limit. A depression hit in the late twenties, the stock market took a major dive, fortunes were lost and times were rough for a while, but we bounced back. We endured great sacrifice and won a horrible world war in the forties, after which the prosperity train was on track again and jobs and money flowed like water as the nation re-tooled from a war time economy to one of peace. The suburbs were created, as the middle class could afford to move to a better neighborhood a little farther from town. The automobile business surged as the people in these suburbs needed a way to get to their jobs and to the leisure activities many of them could now afford. The good times were truly here.
Then it all began to turn sour...slowly at first and then more rapidly. Large companies, doing better than ever, were not content to make their often large and steady profits. Instead, they had to have more…a lot more. Large investors in these companies put more and more pressure on upper management to increase profits and the value of the company stock. The tried and true motto of the customer is always right slowly morphed into the stockholder is always right. In a move largely un-noticed by the general public (until it was too late), businesses began to be run for the benefit of the stockholders, with an attitude that the employees, and often the customers, be damned.
And then it got worse…much worse. First, there was what companies called, downsizing. It was just a little trim here and there to make companies more efficient they said. A few jobs lost, but what the hell. They told us, “In the long run it will be better for everyone.” It wasn’t and American business continued its onslaught against the American worker and the American public.
Next, came mergers. Companies began gobbling each other up like an out of control version of the early computer game, Pacman. We quickly learned that mergers weren’t really mergers at all. Instead, they were buyouts, but the word merger had a much softer sound to it. Now, instead of downsizing we had entire departments and regions eliminated as two, or sometimes more, companies became one. We don’t need two sales forces, so one has to go…we don’t need two accounting departments, so one has to go…we don’t need two purchasing departments, so one has to go. Wholesale layoffs became the word of the day.
Then the management of several big companies took it even further. They cheated! If downsizing and mergers worked so well, why not cook the books and squeeze even more profits out of the company. Companies like Enron and World-com and others did exactly that. Profits went up (on paper, at least) and the already grossly inflated salaries and stock options of the highest company officials went up with them. Even more money flowed to these companies until…oops, they got caught and off to jail they went. Wait a minute…most of them didn’t go off to jail. A few did, but most didn’t. Ken Lay, the chief honcho of Enron, still walks the land, a free man, as do many other high officials of these thieving companies.
OK, you say, at least that’s it. It surely can’t get any worse than that! Think again. Three words made it much worse. one of those words was outsourcing. The other two words were George Bush, who was appointed by the Supreme Court as the President of the United States in 2,000.
John F. Kennedy wrote a number of fine books. George Bush professes to not even read books. John Kennedy served his county in time of war. George Bush used his daddies’ influence to jump past 500 applicants and get into the Texas Air National Guard where he flew jets to protect Texas during the Vietnam War. But more about George Bush a bit later.
Greed
The word outsourcing has been around for a number of years, but only in the last few years has it taken on a whole new meaning. Originally, it meant a company had signed a contract with a specialist company to handle one or more departments of their business. Hospital emergency rooms would outsource (or contract) all the work and employees for that department to an outside company for a fixed fee. This company would supply all emergency room employees, doctors, and all supplies. The hospital need only supply the space in the building, which the emergency room occupied, and the basic equipment. The hospital had the advantage of having a fixed cost for their emergency room (making for much easier budgeting) and the outsourcing company, if they were operated efficiently, could turn a nice profit. In all cases, both the hospital (for it’s non-outsourced departments) and the outsourcing company hired American employees. More departments such as accounting, food service, security and others were soon being outsourced by all manner of American companies. The job market suffered little if any from these types of arrangements as jobs lost at a company were quickly picked up by the outsourcing company, often using the same employees.
Then came the growth of the Internet and the advent of cheap long distance phone rates. Companies, seeing that even more profits could be obtained by paying foreign workers as little as one tenth what their American counterparts were making, fell all over each other to outsource functions of their companies overseas. Employees from countries like India, Mexico and China stepped forward and were hired by the hundreds of thousands. Consumer telephone customer-service work, computer programming, manufacturing and a number of other skilled and semi-skilled positions flowed like water out of this county and into others.
Jobs were lost and often, American employees were forced to train their replacement before giving up their jobs. Some company towns lost thirty percent or more of their workforce. Lives were disrupted and jobs were lost forever, all in the name of corporate greed; adding even more dollars to the company bottom line. All of us had to contend with bad customer service and other offshoots of outsourcing. I do not have a prejudice bone in my body and I firmly believe that no citizen of one country is inherently better than a citizen of another country. However, I do believe a telephone customer service person serving the United States should have a good command of the English language. Many of the foreign personnel did not, often making a trouble call to customer service a real adventure.
Soon, in a snowball effect, companies that didn’t want to outsource were forced into it in order to be competitive. Greed ran almost unchecked in many sectors of business and outsourcing was just another way to increase that all-important bottom line. No regard was ever given by these companies to the growing number of unemployed.
Which brings us to George Bush, our current President. When George Bush arrived at the White House he was literally in the hip pocket of Big Business and in particular, the oil business. It was money from large companies that financed his 2000 campaign. He owed them a bundle and once in office, he quickly began to repay them.
Handed the presidency by a 5-4 Supreme Court vote, George pushed through a tax cut that brought great benefits to the wealthiest American and did little for the rest of us. He liked his handiwork so much that two years later he gave the wealthy still another tax cut. He started what he called a war against terrorism, even though it was against a country not proven to have had anything to do with 9/11. He said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction that could be launched in as little as 45 minutes. They didn’t. To date over 2,000 American service men and civilians have died along with thousands of Iraqi citizens in George Bush’s war. We captured Saddam Hussein, but the acts of terror around the world continue. In a flagrant display of political reward, Halliburton, vice president Dick Cheney’s old company, was awarded a no bid contract worth billions of dollars to help rebuild Iraq and support our armed forces there. Since then, Halliburton has been caught inflating prices and over-charging the United States government by millions of dollars in still another display of unbridled greed.
But "crooked as a dog’s hind leg" Halliburton, as despicable and blatant as their actions might be, are not the only benefactors of our illegal war on Iraq. The big winners are spelled O-I-L. The oil companies (bush’s biggest campaign contributors) stand to reap enormous profits from the rich Iraqi oil fields. They have channeled large sums of money into his 2004 re-election campaign. Hey, don’t spoil a good thing. Let the good times roll!
Unfortunately, It didn’t stop with oil. Environmental laws were severely weakened to allow polluting industries to continue their assault against the health of Americans. Laws were passed which actually made it easier for U.S. companies to outsource jobs. Sane gun laws were vigorously opposed by Attorney General John Ashcroft as he, in contrast, told us how the Patriot Act was necessary, even though it violates some of our basic constitutional rights to privacy and illegal search and seizure. History tells us that once a right is given away for whatever reason, it often never returns.
Meanwhile, George Bush keeps telling us that his administration is creating jobs. Trouble is, no one seems to be able to find them. He’s resorting to trickery to cover lost job statistics. He wants to re-classify flipping hamburgers at a fast food place as a manufacturing job. I flipped hamburgers at a root beer stand while in high school and never even knew I was in the manufacturing industry. Imagine that!
Bush has done nothing to bring what jobs he can back to this country and he has done nothing to create re-training programs for those workers whose jobs will never return. If you’re a member of the wealthy class, you get a lot from George Bush. If you’re an average guy, you get only lip service. The Bush administration has done little to disguise its rampant and blatant quest for wealth and power for itself and for its supporters. It is clearly the worst example of the overuse of political power in modern times. I can almost hear the boys at Tammany Hall clapping with appreciation and admiration now.
While the wealthy are more prosperous than ever, the budget deficit is at an all time high. At the end of Bill Clinton’s administration the budget surplus was at an all time high. That jarring statistic, by itself, clearly defines the rampant failure of the Bush administration.
What can be done about the problems with America? The only answer to religious and political dogma, run away business practices, and governmental and corporate greed lies with the American people. We let them do it to us and we can stop them. We must all get active with political action groups that oppose this kind of power grab. When I say all, I mean every one of us. There are many such groups. I favor moveon.org, but they are by no means alone in the fight to stem the forces that would hijack our country. Find one that most appeals to you and join them. Volunteer your time. If you can’t volunteer your time, give money. Best of all, if you can, do both.
Stand up and be counted with your votes and with your dollars and we can take back America. Remain silent and our country will no longer be the land of the free and the home of the brave. It will, instead, be only the land of the wealthy and the home of the powerful. For years people have said, “It can’t happen here.” Now it’s our job to make sure they were right!
©2004, 2005 by Ken Kreps. This article may not be re-published in electronic or print media without the express written permission of the author. All rights reserved.
Ken Kreps lives in the Pacific Northwest with his wife. He has written a number of published articles, essays and short stories, as well as numerous consumer and business pieces. Ken has also written scripts for Imagination Theater, an award winning audio drama series heard on over 150 commercial radio stations across the nation.
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