TO PRESERVE DEMOCRACY

What I now write is not new. Nor am I anywhere near the only one saying it, thanks be to God. Indeed, more and more voices are saying basically the same thing as I am (for which I’m also thankful). However, I haven’t seen anyone say it in this particular way, and here it is.

If we want our governments and our societies around the globe to gain and/or retain more of democracy than is currently the case, private stores of wealth (which are always privately held political and economic power) can be tolerated only up to a point. There has to be a ceiling for private wealth as well as a floor below which we allow no one to sink. Private wealth can never be allowed to the point that one fortune, or a few fortunes, can effectively ‘buy out’ the voices of those of middling and/or little or no means from the government by blatant or ‘legal’ bribery — that is to say, such ‘bribes’ as campaign contributions and/or a ‘revolving door’ whereby the paymasters keep the money flowing to their present or former political slaves!

This is what has happened in the USA over the last forty years or so and it must be reversed if we are to save not only our democracy but, indeed, the very planet itself! It is a ‘given’ that there will be rich, middle and lower in any human society but the rich should not be so wealthy as to be able to both ‘opt out’ of the common wealth and/or privatize it for their own benefit. Nor is there any need for the ‘poor’ to be abjectly so. The market is not doing the job for either; we, through our elected representatives and/or directly as…