USA United State of Amorality

What’s the difference between Ignorance and Apathy?

I don’t know and I don’t care.

As we enter 2014, our race to the bottom continues unabated, despite the best efforts of a large swath of caring, committed citizens to bring the nation back from the brink of collapse.The die was cast decades ago when the citizenry slowly and oftentimes unknowingly ceded their rights and abrogated their responsibilities on key issues -- on so many fronts.

Long before Ronald Reagan spoke of the City on the Hill, the seeds of our demise were sowed. Truth be known and made manifest, we were always mercenaries, even before our founding: ravaging the land and exploiting its resources; committing genocide on an unprecedented scale, first kidnapping, then enslaving people across the ocean; undermining governments when it suited our needs. Seldom, if ever, have we acknowledged the sins of our fathers. Rarely do we expose the sins of our contemporaries.  Even when we do, no retribution is asked, or given. We don't even ask them just to do the right thing. Instead, we permit those who are destroying what’s left to amass even larger fortunes on the backs of the masses, the middle class (what's left), the unemployed, the underemployed, the impoverished.

Those guilty of destroying our country are easily identified by the one thing they have in common. They are the elite, and those who strive to become so. Included herein are most, but not all, of the 545.

The symptoms of our decay are obvious: greed, avarice, corruption, arrogance, hubris and more. At the core of it all is the ‘A’ in the newly understood acronym USA. We may still identify ourselves as citizens of the United States of America but we are in reality living in the United State of Amorality.

Before Rush Limbaugh is released to condemn this epistle and its author, before Fox News lets loose its lackeys, consider this:

First, amorality is defined as lacking a moral sense; unconcerned with the rightness or wrongness of something. Because we as a people seem to have lost that sense of right or wrong, we do not react to its (wrong) expression at the hands of those who have applied it for their benefit and to our detriment.

Amorality has played itself out across the globe, literally destroying lives while enriching the destroyers. In 2008, the world’s harvest of wheat was the greatest in history. This phenomenon might have been a boon most especially for the poorest throughout the land. Might have.  A few years earlier, Goldman Sachs, the personification of amorality enticed a two bit regulator to issue a letter permitting institutions to enter into trading commodities. Based on that single page, Goldman and other sociopaths speculated on wheat futures, driving the price of wheat to over six times its norm. Food riots broke out in over thirty countries for lack of food. The cause and effect are obvious and measurable. Yet, while their acts killed thousands of poor in obscure countries, Goldman Sachs revelled in its newfound riches. I repeat: amorality is defined as lacking a moral sense; unconcerned with the rightness or wrongness of something.

Goldman Sachs admitted to selling investments it knew were bad to their best clients, then betting against them to make more. If that were not enough, they made commissions when their damaged clients told them to liquidate the investments. amorality is defined as lacking a moral sense; unconcerned with the rightness or wrongness of something.

Amorality is playing out out in the egregious behavior of Healthcare providers, Insurers and Pharmaceuticals. It is playing out in efforts to destroy our nation’s water supplies through fracking for natural gas. It is playing out in the ongoing negotiations by major corporations to lock twelve sovereign nations, including ours, into agreements designed to undermine the sovereignty of all signatories. These agreements will:

• extend patent life of prescription drugs to fifty years, in effect eliminating over time all low cost generic drugs
• extend copyrights to 120 years
• control your access to the internet, have your internet activities monitored, permit you to be sued for copyright infringements for actions you currently take freely on social media, such as sharing pics and video you found online with your BFFs
• force each nation to rewrite its national, state and local laws to conform to the weakest requirements possible
• eliminate regulations on banks and financial institutions that are deemed onerous by banks and financial institutions (say this aloud; of the bankers, by the bankers, for the bankers. Then repeat out loud amorality is defined as lacking a moral sense; unconcerned with the rightness or wrongness of something)

Do you not yet feel anger? Are you willing to continue along the path you’re walking? Are you not willing to awaken to the loss of your rights to a few?

Second, your responsibility to yourself and your family imposes on you the obligation to 

• get informed, understand all sides of issues
• make decisions that are best for you, your families and your community -- and, by extension, your state and your nation.

If, after you have the information, you still feel it is in your best interest to:

• work for low wages
• elect and re-elect corrupt politicians to represent your best interests (LOL)
• accept the elimination of social safety nets
• accept the elimination of Social Security and Medicare
• accept that water, air and soil quality will erode
• see healthcare for yourself and your family grow out of reach
• allow public services to be privatized, increasing their prices and reducing services

then at least you can say with a clear conscience, “I acknowledge that amorality is defined as lacking a moral sense; unconcerned with the rightness or wrongness of something --  and I am willing to accept the outcomes of amoral behavior.

Whether you know it or not, you were warned by:

Futurist, Author George Orwell

President Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dr.Martin Luther King Jr.

Historian, Activist, Author, Howard Zinn

Author, Activist, Noam Chomsky

Senator Bernie Sanders

Investigative Reporter, Author Christopher  Hedges

Investigative Reporter, Author Naomi Klein

Author Kevin Phillips

Author, Activist John Perkins

Author, Activist Wendell Potter

Investigative Reporter, Author Matt Taibbi

Author, PBS host Bill Moyers

Center for Public Integrity

Wikileaks

Whistle Blowers:

Edward Snowden

Chelsea Manning

Thomas Drake

Daniel Ellsberg

Katherine Gun

Peter Kofod

Ray McGovern

Jessee Radack

Coleen Rowley

A gazillion others

And me

Whether you know it or not, fighting for you are

Senator Elizabeth Warren

Senator Bernie Sanders

the Congressional Progressive Caucus

All of the above, including the deceased. They, after all, spoke out and left records.

A gazillion others

And me

All we need now -- is you.