This Sucks

This past week, our bickering children in Washington failed to pass either the “Disclose Act” or the incredibly popular plan to aid the multitude of emergency response workers and volunteers who are now experiencing devastating health problems as a result of their rescue work in the wake of the destruction of the World Trade Center.

Posturing for power and control is more important to our “government” than solving problems.

I suppose that even the collapse of America has a bright side.  If we don’t bring down the whole human race with us in the process, perhaps the survivors will finally have learned that unbridled capitalism (“The Market” to Republicans and libertarians) is a fine social model for animal life in the jungle, but it sucks for human beings.

The ability to reason and form social contracts that elevate the quality of life for all of us (the common good) is kinda what distinguishes humans from other animals.

The doing of this by a society or culture is more or less what we’re talking about when we use the word “civilization.”

We judge the success and quality of a civilization or culture on how successful they’ve been in forming these social contracts and raising the quality of life for all.

So in a crisis where it is absolutely essential that America repair our social contract, why are so many working so hard to obstruct the repair and even dismantle it?

How about if all the progressives in both political parties were to join Bernie Sanders in the Social Democrats and leave the other two parties to the corporatists who run them.  They have proven themselves to be totally irrelevant, and yet they still have the keys and are sitting in the driver’s seat.  Time for an alternative.