The 2012 election should be about what's going on in America's boardrooms, but Republicans would rather it be about America's bedrooms.
Mitt Romney says he's against same-sex marriage; President Obama just announced his support. North Carolina voters have approved a Republican-proposed amendment to the state constitution banning same-sex marriage. Minnesota voters will be considering a similar amendment in November. Republicans in Maryland and Washington State are seeking to overturn legislative approval of same-sex marriage there.
Meanwhile, Republicans have introduced over four hundred bills in state legislatures aimed at limiting women's reproductive rights -- banning abortions, requiring women seeking abortions to have invasive ultra-sound tests beforehand, and limiting the use of contraceptives.
The Republican bedroom crowd doesn't want to talk about the nation's boardrooms because that's where most of their campaign money comes from. And their candidate for president has made a fortune playing board rooms like checkers.
Yet America's real problems have nothing to do with what we do in our bedrooms and everything to do with what top executives do in their boardrooms and executive suites.
We're not in trouble because gays want to marry or women want to have some control over when they have babies. We're in trouble because CEOs are collecting exorbitant pay while slicing the pay of average workers, because the titans of Wall Street demand short-term results over long-term jobs, and because of a boardroom culture that tolerates financial conflicts of interest, insider trading, and the outright bribery of public officials through unlimited campaign "donations."
Our crisis has nothing to do with private morality. It's a crisis of public morality -- of abuses of public trust that undermine the integrity of our economy and democracy and have led millions of Americans to conclude the game is rigged.
What's truly immoral is not what adults choose to do with other consenting adults. It's what those with great power have chosen to do to the rest of us.
It is immoral that top executives are richly rewarded no matter how badly they screw up while most Americans are screwed no matter how hard they work.
Regressive Republicans have no problem intruding on the most personal and most intimate decisions any of us makes while railing against government intrusions on big business.
They don't hesitate to hurl the epithets "shameful," "disgraceful," and "contemptible" at private moral decisions they disagree with, while staying stone silent in the face of the most contemptible violations of public trust at the highest reaches of the economy.
We must protect and advance private rights of individuals over intimate bedroom decisions. We must also stop the abuses of economic power and privilege that are characterizing so many decisions in the nation's boardrooms and executive suites.
ROBERT B. REICH, Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including the best sellers "Aftershock" and "The Work of Nations." His latest is an e-book, "Beyond Outrage." He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause.
Follow Robert Reich on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RBReich
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 |
|
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
Issues comes from the boardroom: hmmm... not really... thinking that CEO limit salary of employees because they got higher salaries is not true (at least not generally true). From my POV, the key diagnostic is dual
1. the technological revolutions of the past 30 years are bascially replacing the "middle" economy, people who can be replaced by automats and computers... and this is only the beginning... let's face it it will not be long before most of the cashiers, retails clercks, etc... will be replaced by online shopping and computers... low qualifies jobs are disappearing and will not come back
2. economic and technological cycles are accelerating very quickly. The old paradigm where people could be "settled" is disappearing quickly. It's a game of adaptation, of changes, of innovation. And out societies continues to be focused on the past rather than the future, on fighting the advancement of time rather than adapting to follow the path forward.
In the new world that will be shaped over the next 10/15 years, everyone will need to show adaptablity to circumstances, to evolutions, to technologies, to change in human behaviour, ... both at professional and personal levels...
And those who will not be able or willing to do that will be left behind... and it is the majority of the population today...
Right now, the media is rife with commentary and feedback on Obama's declaration of support for same-sex unions. The heart of the matter is to what standard will we give ourselves as the American People? Power morality (those in power declare right/wrong)? Collective Relative morality (right and wrong flap in the wind with the latest opinion poll)? Absolute morality (divine authority declares right and wrong)?
I am thankful to live in the USA with founding fathers that didn't prattle on about a separation between private morality and public morality. Robert Reich would do well to emulate the enlightened men of the 18th century rather than the media of the 21st with trite commentary.
I am by no means saying that the Gay marriage issue is not important. It is. The civil rights of masses of people are being infringed and it's a terrible thing; the thin end of the wedge really. However the truth of the matter is that politicians and those in power don't really view us as 'human'. We're just cattle to them to use the cattle prod on when we aren't where and who they think we ought to be according to their plan.
I know this is a politically correct world but my mind comes back to the age old fix: burn property (stuff) & some bodies too .. walla DEMAND returns for both: stuff & bodies .. problem gone
The good news is that without the protection from government this activity is unsustainable. It would collapse under its own weight. Monopolies and extreme risk banking have a very short half life without government support.
The bad news is that too few people realize this. They believe that by increasing government power they are fighting against rather than supporting these destructive practices.
Government is the largest extractive institution of all. Only politicians can take your money by force and not have it considered a violation of property rights.