Betrayal

US public officials have betrayed us. They have betrayed the people and institutions, the promise and potential of a great nation. They have betrayed us by abusing and failing to improve the legacy of America’s founders and founding leaders. They have betrayed us by robbing our public treasury and handing it to their paymasters in corporate, nongovernmental, think-tank, “nonprofit” (all profiteering, privatizing) industries—all the while claiming to be protecting us from demons that exist only in their minds, the products of their invention. They have betrayed us by dumping us on the dole and making us pay for the privilege by privatizing the dole out from under us. They have betrayed us by preferring to see their faces on the television, their posts and followers on social media platforms, and the honorable (with dollar signs) in front of their names instead of rolling up their sleeves, bending their backs, engaging in debates, and doing the hard, off-camera, honest-to-goodness work of providing for the essential health and welfare of the people of the United States of America. They have betrayed us by failing to exert due diligence in courageously caring for (not putting up for sale) the country’s health, education and welfare, and indeed its prospects for future as determined by the quality and innovativeness of work and workers. Their rant about socialism (like their convenient rant on terrorism), defined however they choose at any given moment, has been a tactic of unending distraction—a demonizing, us-them, good guys-bad guys, narrowly drawn, made-for-mind-control, propagandistic, surround-sound song and dance—designed to draw attention away from their failures of insightful industriousness and moral leadership. US officials’ failures and their terminally flawed character and caliber of leadership have placed the whole world in jeopardy, including the United States—which is not an island unto itself, though they would have us believe it is such. … Some of these people would have us believe that common defense in the US Constitution means the United States (meaning “they” or those they order or ply with weapons) should be killing people in foreign countries “so they won’t come over here and kill us.” This is a deliberate interpretation of the Constitution and a misrepresentation of people who have never threatened the United States, have never militarily surrounded and occupied countries all over the world (as does the US), and haven’t a fraction of the weaponry—including nuclear and chemical weapons of mass destruction—possessed, trafficked, and carelessly used by the United States. The framers of the US Constitution were building and envisioning a new nation, and they saw strength in unity and strength in every link healthy in skills and work, in body and mind. Lincoln reinforced and died for this notion. Heirs of Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Franklin, and later Lincoln (though these greats did not foresee or include all of America’s heirs) were charged with realizing or at least furthering a great nation’s promise and potential. Call it ideal, but it was not pie in the sky; it was achievable, is achievable, barring the self-centeredness of public officials—people entrusted with the public good, the health and welfare of the nation and not their own wealth. For their own gain, contemporary leaders, public officials, and their partners in mass media and elsewhere have skewed and grossly misrepresented this America (there are other Americas, though you wouldn’t think so, listening to some of these people). This is betrayal. … Some writers have described America’s domestic and international situation as a national emergency or a national crisis or an empire in the throes of falling but not yet fallen. Many engage in the distraction of blaming not only the Russians and Chinese but something else conveniently contrived as left, right, conservative, progressive, socialist, capitalist, and many cavalier variations on the theme of divide and distract. Never self-reflect, amend, or alter course. “Americans” (those with big microphones and bankrolls, their puppets and sycophants) never blame themselves. It is just not the American way. It is as if they are too weak (morally and intellectually) to say, “Yes, I did it, and I will set about fixing it.” They cast blame instead of solving problems. They are the potential creators and destroyers of health, education, and welfare; of law and leadership; and of peaceful global-to-local relations. The pattern plays out within the United States and across the world. This is the pattern, the blueprint of US officials. … Not one has truly led — not merely postured and blamed. No politician or public official has argued consistently and convincingly among elected colleagues and to the public at large for the substantive overhaul and uprooting of regressive politics and practices at home and abroad. Not one has led the charge for stopping the social, economic, health, and welfare bleeding at home and abroad. … When I began this work, I thought of sabotage. We are in the throes of self-sabotage. Then I thought of hostage-taking. When public officials in Washington decided to pull a government shutdown for more than a month, I thought that’s what was going on—sabotage or hostage-taking. But that wasn’t personal enough. Betrayal is personal and strikes at the heart of our being as a nation and as a people. … This character and custom, this arrest and denial of human health and welfare—denial of aspiration, advancement, and service by all to all—is the ultimate and unpardonable betrayal.