American's
need to wake up, and when they do they need to start caring about what
has happened to this country. Our Democratic Republic stood for well
over two hundred years, but in recent times the democratic principles
upon which it was built have eroded faster than the polar ice caps.
There is no democracy when our congressional, two party system functions
only as the paid servants of the moneyed interests that control them,
and there is no democracy when the voice of the people falls on the deaf
ears of the people that were elected to represent them.
America
has become an oligarchy, run by the NRA, the Pharmaceutical Industry,
The Military-Industrial Complex, the Banks and Financial Institutions on
Wall Street, and a few others.
When our founding fathers established the United States of America back in 1776, they established America as a Democratic Republic. Central to the Constitution that they created was a system of representative government. A system in which people elect their lawmakers (representatives), who are then held accountable to them for their activity within government. Representative government has, from that time onward, been widely accepted as the only practicable form of democracy. The key is that the elected officials in a Democratic Republic are to be held accountable to the people who elected them. In other words, they are to represent the needs and the desires of those people.
Clearly that is not happening in America today, and I'll give you a few examples. Let's take the whole issue of gun control. As I stated earlier, the NRA is one of the moneyed interests that are currently running this country by buying off politicians. Here's why I say that. According to the NRA's own figures, the NRA has a current membership of approximately 5 million people. The adult population (people over the age of 18) of the United States in 2016 was approximately 250 million. So the NRA membership, if you do the math, represents around 2% of the adult voting population. According to a 2017 Quinnipiac poll 68% of Americans favor a ban on assault rifles in America and 74% say that Congress needs to do more to prevent gun violence. So why is there absolutely no Congressional action ever taken to curb gun violence by our Congress, even after mass shooting upon mass shooting? Why aren't our elected representatives acting on the needs and desires of the majority of the very people who elected them? Could it be the millions of dollars that the NRA distributes to those representatives each year (98% of which goes to Republicans) to protect the interests of the NRA? You bet it does....and that's not democracy. When an organization that represents just 2% of the voting population dictates the laws of the land by buying off the people who were elected to represent the majority, we do not have a functioning Democratic Republic anymore. Not at all what the founding fathers had intended.
The pharmaceutical industry is another one of the major moneyed interests that are really running this country these days. In America we have the highest health care costs in the world and much of it is due to the extremely high cost that we pay for medications. I can vouch for this myself as I currently take a medication for Crohn's disease that retails for approximately $1800 for a one month supply. Being on Medicare I currently only have to pay just under $700 per month, out of pocket, for that medication. Big bargain? Not when you realize that in Canada, or Mexico, or anywhere in Europe, that very same drug retails for under $250 without health insurance. With health insurance in those countries it is virtually cost fee to the consumer.
It's easy to understand, then, why in America medical expenses account for approximately 62 percent of personal bankruptcies, according to a recent Harvard University study. We are the only modern, industrialized, technologically advanced country in the world without a universal health care system despite all of the studies that show that universal health care works great with much lower cost to individuals and to the respective governments of Canada, Australia and virtually all of Europe. Additionally, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll conducted on June of 2017, 57 Percent of Americans favor a Medicare for all type of health care system. Why are health care costs so high here and why, if the majority of Americans favor a move toward universal health care, are we not moving in that direction in the United States Congress? Could it be the huge amounts of lobbying money that big pharma puts into the pockets of our elected officials in exchange for allowing them to continue to profit off of our sick and elderly populations. You bet it is!
We can begin the process of taking our
country back by voting out the vermin in Congress this November. Do
some research and then make informed voting choices on election day.
Research the campaign contributions made to our elected "officials", and
don't vote for anyone who has taken large sums of money from the NRA,
Big Pharma or Wall Street Bankers, etc. Start writing letters to those
"officials" and let them know what you plan to do in November. Urge
them to support legislation to overturn "Citizen's United", the Supreme
Court decision that has allowed this oligarchy to take root. (If you
are not familiar with Citizen's United...Google it...now!) Make the
voice of the people rise up again. Don't ignore what's happening
anymore and don't let them ignore you anymore.
All that it
takes for evil to win is for good people to say and do nothing. That is
more true today than ever before. That's why we're in the shape that
we're in today. That's why America is no longer the "shining city on
the hill", the beacon of liberty, the most respected Democracy on the
planet. The rest of the world is watching. It's time to restore
Democracy. Now! In 2018. You can't just "sit this one out". This is
WAY too important.
