A LIBERAL VIEW OF THINGS: Greed in America has undermined every cherished ethic

As the school year begins here in Texas, I am struck by the quiet anxiety I’m getting from my friends still teaching. We Texans are struck by the complete abandonment of our children and their teachers by what passes for government in this state.

The vast majority of citizens did not want schools and public education to be budget casualties, but that’s what they got from a Legislature and a governor who clearly are beholden to something other than “We the people…”

This phenomenon of the people being abandoned by their government has been evolving for almost 30 years since the Reagan Administration proclaimed government was the problem. The solution to this government was to cut taxes for the wealthy in a variety of ways, and deregulate businesses and banking so the operators of corporate/banking America could do whatever they pleased.

The euphemism of the day was: “To remain competitive.”

Well, how competitive are we now? With whom are we competing for jobs for our citizens? With whom are we competing for a world-class education of our children?  The outcome to the lie about being competitive so corporate/banking America could deregulate is being felt in virtually every household in the United States today.

Greed has undermined every cherished ethic of sound banking and investment banking. The unfettered search for profit has sent our major corporations scurrying overseas with jobs and capital as fast as they can load the planes. With whom are they being competitive? Those corporations with foreign offices and factories are competing for which market?  Whose citizens are reaping the benefits of this industrial abdication?

People have been elected into office to do the bidding of their constituents; that’s the theory. What we see instead is systematic avoidance of the population’s desires.  Nationwide polls show that more than 60 percent of our citizens wanted a public option for their health-care coverage. Also, more than 70 percent of our citizens favored a balanced approach to reducing our deficits.

“We the people” received none of the above from our elected officials. If we’re a representative government, why don’t our representatives listen to our desires? The answers are relatively simple.

Professional politicians are constantly running for office. Running for office at every level in this country takes lots of money. So, those candidates who are not anointed by a big-money patron or corporation must become full-time fund raisers. That means they have to listen to who is paying them to run for office.  Our little $25 checks are nice, but they don’t carry much weight considering the million-dollar requirements of state or national electioneering.

Guess who the candidate listens to most?

In January 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Citizens United v. Federal Election Committee case that corporations and unions could contribute unlimited sums of money to any candidate or campaign because they were given the status of being people.

How a piece of paper from a state government certifying a corporation becomes a person is beyond my knowledge of biology and reason. This ruling effectively takes the common citizen out of the game either running for office or having anything to say about who does run for office. The name of our country should now be the United States of Big Money America.

There is a recourse to this plutocratic takeover of our country. Article V of the Constitution says Congress or state legislatures can call for a convention to amend the Constitution if two-thirds of either vote to do so.

Then, the amendment must be passed by three-fourths of the states. In order to break the back of the corporate takeover of our country, why don’t we demand that all electioneering and elections be publicly funded with a stringent petition process necessary to get their names on ballots? Furthermore, wouldn’t it be interesting to see what sort of laws evolved if lobbying, either directly or indirectly, of a publicly elected official was made illegal?

You can see the difficulty here trying to get professional politicians to vote for something that effectively makes their jobs harder to retain. We the people have a lot of work to do if we intend to save our country from the assault from within.

Turner is a retired teacher and industrial engineer who lives near Marble Falls. He is an independent columnist, not a staff member, and his views do not necessarily reflect those of The Tribune or its parent company. "The Voter’s Guide to National Salvation" is a newly published e-book from Turner. You can find it at www.barnesandnoble.com/ebooks. He can be reached by email at vtgolf@zeecon.com.