Real Problems Are Too Hard to Understand; Give Us Easy Ones

Someone (Marilyn L.) brought this post by Robert Reich to my attention, and a veil was lifted.

I have pondered why it is that the masses seem to focus on the trivial concerns toward which they are misdirected instead of on the larger concerns that may actually impact the 313 million Americans among 7 billion earthlings. The thing is that understanding international finance or corporate finance or financial markets is hard, and there is a whole crapload of money being made by people who fund super-PACs for (primarily) Republican candidates.

On the other hand, we understand "sin," and are mostly in general agreement that it is "bad" (or, at least, it isn't "good"). We've experienced lust, gluttony, greed, envy, sloth, pride, and anger ourselves. Even people who work on Wall Street, and in finance, don't understand "derivatives."

You put super-PAC money into the hands of America's top ad-men, and a shell-shocked population is going to listen to a consistent story that our god has us on a time-out because of sin and socialism in our community (especially those already gullible enough to believe the entire universe was created for the benefit of American male WASPs). We've been hearing that since we were seven.

Robin Andrea shared this blog post on Facebook about us being too dumb for democracy; and, while it sounds true, I don't like it. I'm still disappointed that more people can't seem grasp anything more complicated than "Dancing With the Stars."

There's real stuff going on around us, stuff that's actually going to change our lives forever for better or worse, and it has very little to do with anything that establishment politicians are talking about. International corporations are not "job creators" unless you're Malaysian or Vietnamese and they haven't roboticized the job. International bankers are not the nice people at your local credit union. Insurance companies don't provide medical care.

There; I've said it and I feel a little better for that.