Stuck on Spin Again, the idea that politicians with too much power are all crooks is not a new one. It’s a thought that saw print in 1770, and has been addressed down the years by many thinkers and writers. To wit:
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” Lord Acton in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887.
Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat de Lamartine in his essay titled “France and England: a Vision of the Future”, was published in London in 1848 and included this text: “It is not only the slave or serf who is ameliorated in becoming free… the master himself did not gain less in every point of view, for absolute power corrupts the best natures.”
“Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it” William Pitt 1770, spoken to the House of Lords in England.
All of the shrieking, head banging, finger pointing, threats and general shenanigans taking place during this election cycle is simply politics redux, exacerbated by social media that lets us be meaner in spirit and more personal without looking someone in the eye.
When one invests many, many years of his or her life in the heady corridors of power and succeeds it has to come at a cost. Imagine the adulation of hordes of people and powerful interests trying to curry favor with you? Imagine all of them throwing money at you and telling you they adore you. Hey, Hollywood falls for it why shouldn’t politicians?
Clean politicians are like unicorns, it’s hard to believe they exist but look at Jimmy Carter,Bernie Sanders, Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Unicorns, every one.
These are the type of people we desperately want to lead us, but in the real, cold world I don’t believe it’s possible for us to follow them when they show up. Why? We are selfish at heart and want what’s best for us individually, not the country as a whole. Why else would people fight against housing the homeless, making sure everyone has medical care and letting students get in lifelong debt to attend college? Heavens, it might make your taxes go up or cost you personally in some unknown way. Few of us see the bigger picture and are willing to make any kind of sacrifice for the common good.
We live in a global economy that is led by wolves that inhabit other countries. Wolves who don’t believe in our concept of freedom or equality and justice for all. More like justice for some and the rest should die already. Unicorns aren’t really great at dealing with very nasty threats and those very hard core customers who would really like to see America as it is end.
Sometimes we don’t even know who we are and that’s a terrible feeling.
Witness the mess in the Middle East, Saudi Princes don’t give a rat’s ass about anything in America but our expensive consumer goods and they are smiling at us with one side of their mouths and dealing with our enemies like ISIS and a smile on the other side of the same mouth.
Nuclear threats exist. We are in a poker game with Putin’s Russia and Communist China at a minimum, and all are held in check and balance by our strength and resolve at the global table.
There are endless lists of countries who for one reason or another have an interest in America and how we rule ourselves, they would like to own a piece of American pie, and in the case of China, they actually do. Make no mistake people, Bernie Sanders is the most wonderful man who ever lived but I believe in the world economy of today he would be eaten for breakfast.
Together we can achieve anything!
Donald Trump is proving himself an unqualified outsider on a daily basis. If we really want a Bernie to lead us we had better stop bickering, put on our big girl panties and begin to build the world we want over the next four years. It won’t happen by sitting around and complaining and calling each other names and disparaging another person’s choices.
To paraphrase Lord Acton, great women are almost always bad women. Me? I would rather at this point have Hillary Clinton, a known wolf, at the helm guarding our interests from the rest of the pack of wolves. A sheep is not going to get it done at this point. Scream and yell at howl that she’s corrupt but ask yourself, you white boomers, if this was not a woman would you be having a conniption of this magnitude? I don’t think so.
Maybe if we can all go to Unicorn World and actually work together in four years we can elect a president who more closely fits what we dream we can be, if I have a prayer that’s it, let us come together and make America great for the first time.