given our love to label...what do you suggest we label this

Perspective for your consideration … What does it look like when it’s fixed…?

Given our love to “label” … what do you suggest we “label” this … ?

Reflecting back to my college days as a business student my professors would be pulling at their hair ranting this type of action is tantamount to socialism. How can this be when for the past 35 years or more our political leadership and prominent educators label our economic course as … “free-enterprise-for-profit-corporate-capitalism” … willfully designed with little or no government (pubic) oversight or participation…?

In this moment it is so tempting to point my finger and rant at the action of others all the while willfully refusing to acknowledge my own participation in as well as support for this course of action. It is both amusing and prophetic to acknowledge I chose to have one foot implanted in each camp (a) staying the course to achieve the business mantra of the era – profit maximization - on the one hand, (b) while intellectually acknowledging and supporting “public” participation and oversight. The reflection of that man looking back at me in the mirror, with a knowing smile on his face, echoes what is true for me. One, I did not achieve the goal nor achieve the status as a giant of capitalism as guilt entered when I was about to grasp that proverbial brass ring. Two, deep within me resides the need to be a champion for those unable to defend themselves, not a capitalistic attribute. For years I bounced like a ping-pong ball back and forth between capitalism and socialism to borrow a couple of contemporary labels. Might you have too…?

A label I could be inclined to ascribe to this newspaper article is … “gamesmanship” … a tragic and pathetic effort to perpetuate a dying, diseased and fundamentally flawed socio-economic mantra based on fear and deceit. The “shell-game” being enacted before our eyes is to have “us” – that’s you and me – unconditionally believe and accept that all forms of profit are privatized while all forms of loss are socialized. We are asked to believe the giants of capitalism are to be not only rewarded, but exonerated from any form of liability, accountability or responsibility for any of their actions.

The foundation of our political system to which we have historically paid “lip-service” noting a philosophical difference between – Republicans vs. Democrats, Liberals vs. Conservatives, Right wing vs. Left wing – is likewise dead, dying, diseased, disabled and fundamentally flawed to its very core. Understandably “we” have great difficulty giving up belief in systems which we have been educated to believe portend to express a specific truth. Except for the spelling … Republicans vs. Democrats, Liberals vs. Conservatives, Right wing vs. Left wing … are one and the same, their allegiance being solely... to those holding the reins of power in the “free-enterprise-for-profit-corporate-capitalism” environment in the moment.
We have been educated to see “differences” even those devised solely by propaganda and therefore illusory. It is exceedingly difficult to set aside our personal bias, prejudices, perceptions, evaluations and beliefs and choose as did Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz and dare look behind the curtain to see who is actually manipulating and making the puppet move and speak. But more than that, we “fear” the unknown and will most often choose positions and directions which are NOT in our best interest either short term or long term.
Isn’t that interesting…?

This “gamesmanship” can only endure in a climate fostered and supported by fear. Exposed to the clear light of day the illusory dark forces scamper as rats abandoning a sinking sink as is being increasingly witnessed.

Americans, I believe love to make things complex. Reality is really quite simple. And the complex is merely simple aggregated, nothing more. Were “we” with honest intention coupled with faith to choose to leave this current “gamesmanship” - the universe would open a door.


… People should never be afraid of their government, government should always be afraid of the people …