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Sinking ship

Submitted in response to the editorial "Mandarin everyone?" (Jan. 14).

In the backdrop of stories about two wars, terrorism, crime, a financial industry out of control, millions unemployed and absurd stories claiming our President embraces Marxist policies, there is one important and shocking story few have seen fit to address and it need to be told. That story is about American democracy becoming dysfunctional.

There is a lethal combination of factors that has put this ticking time bomb in place. The factors are money, self-interest and the decisions of our supreme court. Worse yet, it could become irreversible and no one can be sure when Americans will wake up or how they will react when they finally figure out they have been duped.

1. We have allowed the power of big "money" in our political system to overpower the fundamental democratic ideals of "people power" and the principles of justice, ethics and fairness we have all been led to believe make us who we are and want to be. Some could say the problem is not about enforcing the law but about what is allowed under the law.

2. Supreme Court decisions equating big "money" to be the equivalent of the right of free speech has tragically corrupted the entire political process. The enormous power of money drowns out the voices of the people and determines who is able to run for political office, who has the ability to win elections and, most importantly, it has created a legal bribery system that controls the entire legislative process. Most notable is when a senator fighting to pass legislation that would help ordinary people was defeated and when asked why he responded, "The lobbyists own this place."

3. We have a constitution is so vaguely written the court too often disagrees on it's meaning. This allows uninformed pundits the leeway to interpreted it to mean what ever it wishes based on political ideology.

4. The Supreme Court consistently ignores and contradicts a fundamental constitutional goal that speaks about "the general welfare of the people" when their decisions entitle major corporations to have the same rights guaranteed to people. The word corporation does not appear anywhere in our constitution. Corporations by their very nature are undemocratic institutions invented by government. People are not a creation of government. It defies logic to compare them as equals under the law or in any other way, no matter how hard one tries.

5. Citizens do not vote and when they do their perceptions are clouded by a news reporting industry that puts rating and profits above their obligations to clearly expose corruption, unethical conduct and ensure citizens are educated and informed.

6. The Constitutional makeup of the U.S. Senate is fundamentally flawed and not based on equal representation by population. Worse yet a super majority is required to enact legislation and one senator alone can stop anything in its tracks

7. A system of gerrymandering handicaps democratic principles of one man one vote and every vote counts the same.

If that is not enough evidence that we are losing our way consider:

• Over 15 percent of American workers are

unemployed.

• One in eight Americans and one in four children are on food stamps.

• CEOs in major corporations earn on average more in one day than their workers earn in one year.

• One percent of Americans own 50 percent of the wealth.

• There are still many who naively believe that when government serves the common good it is equivalent to socialism; that taxes are an evil invention that confiscates the assets of those who benefit the most from our economic system; that there is such a thing called a free market, and the regulation of greed can be left in the hands of self-regulation.

Unless a way is found to expose and confront these problems honestly and directly this ship we all love called America will eventually sink.

Leo Montagna

Northport

February 05, 2010

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