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The Villages
Thursday, March 28, 2024

With eyes wide open

Jack E. Brush
Jack E. Brush

Revolutions are typically fought because the people feel oppressed. One of the familiar slogans of the American Revolution brought this sentiment clearly to expression: “No taxation without representation”. And in the Declaration of Independence, it is clearly stated that governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed”. Quite frankly, I can’t remember the last time that our Federal Government was concerned about my consent on any issue. In order to maintain a semblance of justice, the Executive and the Legislative Branches have allowed the Judicial Branch to effectively dictate law. Jefferson continues by indicating that revolution is completely justifiable when any government does not fulfill its obligation to the people. Well, that’s American history. Surveying the political scene today, one cannot escape the impression that these thoughts are indeed history. By that, I mean that the idea of a government honestly endeavoring to represent the interest of the people is–to be quite blunt–dead. We have lowered the bar of our expectations in the political realm to the point that we have accepted corruption as the new standard. Of course, corruption has always been a notorious problem in politics. It was Lord Acton, the 19th Century English historian, who said: “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. We Americans have always known that power corrupts, and we didn’t want a government of absolute power for the very reason that Lord Acton states, namely that “absolute power corrupts absolutely”.

Near absolute power is, however, exactly what the DNC has acquired, and it has done so through the corrupt practices of Hillary Clinton and company. The specter of the Democratic Convention will remain with us for decades. On the eve of the Convention, Julian Assange leaked e-mails that demonstrated beyond any doubt that Debbie Wasserman Schultz and others in the DNC violated all ethical standards by actively promoting Hillary Clinton and opposing Bernie Sanders. As an act of appeasement to the progressives, Wasserman Schultz resigned as Chairperson of the DNC. What happened next was breathtaking. Within hours, she was rewarded by receiving a new position in Hillary’s campaign. The message is clear: Corruption pays off! Furthermore, Hillary Clinton assumes–I fear rightly–that we have lowered the bar so much that we will now accept corruption as the new standard. “No need to worry Debbie. As long as your corrupt practices help me, you’re safe!”

The saddest segment of Day One of the Convention was undoubtedly the passionate attempt of Bernie Sanders to herd his loyal supporters in the Clinton Corruption Corral. In my lifetime, I have never heard a more honest candidate speak than the Bernie Sanders of the Tampa rally that Susan and I attended. For a man of such integrity to insist that we elect a woman as President who can’t even be honest about her own name can only be understood as a symptom of a deteriorating establishment structure. In a Politico Magazine article, Todd Purdum reports a conversation with Hillary Clinton in which she told him that her mother had named her after the famous mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary–the idea being that the daughter was destined for great achievement. Purdum sensed immediately that something was awry. Hillary Clinton was born in 1947, and Sir Edmund Hillary didn’t become famous for climbing Mount Everest until 1953. Admittedly, everyone fabricates a story now and then, but with Hillary, it borders on pathological. As Purdum demonstrates in his article, the recent “Email-gate is only the latest instance in a 25-year habit of dissembling”.

So who really believes that Hillary Clinton will rein in Wall Street? Michael Bloomberg doesn’t think so, and neither does the host of Wall Street bankers who have descended on Philadelphia in order to support their candidate. Meanwhile, Elisabeth Warren, whom I once highly respected, is trying to convince us that Donald Trump is the real Wall Street candidate because his racism will empower the corporate elite. (Senator Warren would appreciate it if we would ignore the leaked DNC e-mail in which a well-known liberal democrat refers to Dr. Cornel West as “trash”!) And who really thinks that Hillary will oppose the corporately crafted Trans-Pacific Partnership? Does anyone really believe that Tim Kaine has changed his position on this issue? No! Nobody believes any of this, and that’s the really disheartening part of the whole mess. The Democrats are forging ahead with their eyes wide open. They know perfectly well that they are electing one of the most corrupt women in politics to the office of President.

In response to one of my recent articles, a reader commented that I must have spent an entire day searching for new words in my Thesaurus. As a matter of fact, I do still have my old Collegiate Thesaurus, although I rarely use it. Nevertheless, for this article I decided to blow the dust off of it and see how many different ways one can say: “with eyes wide open”. Here’s a sampling: knowingly, consciously, purposely, voluntarily, willfully, calculatingly and without qualms. The last one, “without qualms”, really hit me. Why is it that no one has any qualms about sending Hillary Clinton to the White House? Revolutions occur because the people want something better. Have we totally given up on “better”? Hillary Clinton will probably win the election because she is after all the choice of Wall Street, and Wall Street always wins. Or more accurately: We always let Wall Street win. So the next four years will be a period of unprecedented dissembling and subterfuge. To be sure, we have had other such periods in our history. But this time it’s different. We have come to accept deception and corruption as the norm. We are doing this with our eyes wide open. History will not be kind with us. Perhaps, it will give us credit for diversity, but it will criticize us harshly for electing a woman who had not even a hint of integrity.    

Jack Brush is a Villager and frequent contributor to Villages-News.com. In his new book In Search of the Common Good: Guideposts for Concerned Citizens, he develops guidelines for balancing human rights with the urgent need to promote the common good in our society. For more information, seewww.jackebrush.com.      

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