Today’s musing is short and sweet:
We cannot begin to do what we want to do until we stop doing what we are doing.
So what do we want to do and what are we doing that keeps us from what we want to do? Let’s list some things we want to do.
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- Provide security
- Improve healthcare
- Improve living standards
- Provide more jobs with good working conditions
- Improve education
- Improve our infrastructure
- Provide a cleaner and healthier environment
- Protect against global warming
- Provide safe foods and drinking water
- Protect our privacy
- Provide freedom from oppression
Are we doing these things? Most people will answer a with a simple no. Others will answer that we are doing some but we should be doing much more than we are. So, why aren’t we doing more? What’s stopping us?
To find out what’s stopping us, we have to look at what we are doing. So, let’s look at some of the things we are doing.
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- Squandering money on weapons and war
- Giving huge tax breaks to corporations and the wealthy
- Providing subsidies to those who don’t need them.
- Allowing corporations to dictate public policy
- Increasing surveillance everywhere in every form
- Privatizing public services
- Cutting regulations and regulatory enforcement
Are any of the things we are doing contributing to what we want to do? I hardly think so.
The problems are twofold. First, we allow our public officials to be sold to the highest bidder so they no longer represent their constituents (us), but represent their patrons instead. Second, the things we want to do all require money. As it is, our government is borrowing over $1 trillion each year just to cover its expenses, so there’s no money left to pay for what we want to do.
So it would appear obvious.
We have to stop what we are doing in order to do what we want to do.
In the forthcoming elections, be sure to ask the candidates what they will do to stop what we are doing and what they will do to start doing what we want.