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Jim Hightower: America’s Leaders Are Small, But Americans Are Not
“We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
What a paragraph! Whatever happened to that BIG idea of America — the creation of a society that embraces and fosters such egalitarian values as justice, tranquility, common effort, the welfare of all and liberty?
We know, of course, that our nation has never attained the fullness of this ideal, but over the decades, generation after generation has at least strived to get closer to it — and made impressive progress. But today, some 224 years after the penning of the preamble, America’s corporate-financial-political establishment is insisting that it’s no longer possible or even desirable to pursue those democratic ideals that make our country important — and make it work.
What’s happened is that, from Wall Street to Washington, we now have too many 5-watt bulbs sitting in 100-watt sockets. As a result of our leaders’ dimness, America’s uniting and constructive ethic of “We’re all in this together” and “Together we can” is being supplanted by a shriveled, dispiriting ethic that exalts plutocratic selfishness and scorns the public interest as intrusive, wasteful, ideologically impure and morally ruinous. They’re pushing us toward a forbidding Kochian jungle in which there is no “we” — money rules, everyone’s on their own, and such matters as justice, general welfare, tranquility and posterity are none of society’s damned business.
So here we are, the wealthiest nation on Earth, with massive needs and an industrious population eager to get working on those needs, yet our leaders throw up their hands and say, “No can do.”
Heavily financed political forces are rumbling throughout the country to crush the union movement, eliminate wage protections, privatize everything from schools to Social Security, kill poverty programs, unregulate Wall Street, repeal environmental rules, suppress voter turnout, stack the courts, corporatize elections and delegitimize the democratic values expressed in the preamble. They are dynamiting the underpinnings of the middle class and taking away the public tools that ordinary people must have to do the extraordinary things that truly make America great.
Our “leaders” have given up on greatness because there’s no greatness in them.
However, there is hope in the people themselves. We see it in the ongoing Wisconsin rebellion that is rejecting the Koch-fueled autocracy of the imperious Gov. Scott Walker; in the 61 percent grassroots victory in Ohio on Nov. 8 to throw out the repressive anti-labor law that the right-wing Gov. John Kasich arrogantly tried to hang around the people’s neck; in the Occupy protest that is so big and so deeply felt by so many angry/hopeful people that even police sweeps cannot make it go away; and in still more uprisings that are coming — coming from such corners as frustrated job seekers; tens of thousands of misused war veterans returning from the Mideast to mistreatment at home; hundreds of thousands of homeowners being mercilessly foreclosed on by bailed-out bankers; and others who’re simply fed up with the corporados and political flim-flammers who’re knocking ordinary Americans down and holding America back.
What we Americans have the most of is the very thing our failed leaders have the least of: bigness of spirit. They say “no,” but we say “yes” — on everything from repairing and extending our nation’s crumbling infrastructure (a 2009 poll even found that 74 percent of Republicans are willing to swallow a tax hike to get going on this) to reclaiming our democracy by banning corporate money from our elections (84 percent of Americans support a constitutional amendment to do it).
While it can be disheartening to see the smallness of those in power, don’t let it get you down. Better that we turn their failure into our inspiration for more agitation. After all, they’re the ones who’re wrong — wrong about the can-do power of the people they pretend to lead, wrong about the depth of this nation’s historic commitment to egalitarianism and the common good, wrong about what they think they can get away with.
As we head into the new year, our task is to confront their pusillanimity — demand from every candidate for every office to explain why their vision is so myopic and why their idea of what Americans can do is so small.
— Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator, writer, public speaker and author of Swim Against The Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow. Click here for more information, or click here to contact him.
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» on 12.14.11 @ 07:23 PM
You over use the word “common” Jimmy, that’s a dead give away to your real intent. Keep in mind the Koch brothers for all the scathing rebuke you lefty nit wits give them are producers, meaning they make more value or wealth for our economy than they put in their pockets. Meanwhile your greatest left wing, European socialist worshiping, funder, George Soros is a notorious consumer of wealth, meaning he pockets more than he produces for the economy, like a big fat giant leach sucking the economy dry so you loser parasites have some hand out to live off of. Give it a rest you phony, draping yourself in the flag and constitution like you really believe in it. We know you all to well to be sucked into your dim world view.
Oh and as for those dim bulbs in DC, takes one to know one Jimmy and I agree you are all pretty dim.
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» on 12.15.11 @ 04:57 AM
Professor Know It All would have folks believe that the Koch Bros. are the beacon of American productivity. How convenient that in his idolization of them , the Professor neglects to calculate the aggregate cost of their envionmental disregard. Anyone who pays attention will know that they have willfully and negligently spilled, dumped, spread millions of tons of toxic substances into our surroundings. They believe our ponds, lakes , rivers and air to be their personal dumping grounds .Just for the violations that they have been caught , they have paid hundreds of millions in fines. As in any criminal enterprise , you don’t get caught for all your transgressions, so we know there is a lot more of their blight out there.Their corporate motto is “It’s only bad if you get caught.”
So , in Professor Know It All’s view the Koch Bros. are kings . In reality , the true cost of their “productivity” is debateable.
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» on 12.15.11 @ 08:03 AM
I love it when an old crank is the voice of the conservative party. When has it ever not been so?
Instead of venting your infected spleen every day at “Jimmy” or whoever else you’ve decided doesn’t produce enough, why don’t you tell us how we get back to where we were before Bush?
Every effort to regain our position as a growing, productive society should be based on what we were doing, what our leaders were doing, before Monica Lewinsky became the GOP focus and the destruction of our country the result.
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» on 12.15.11 @ 10:37 AM
You know Rambo I have put ideas out there, many and often. Why don’t you practice what you preach?
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» on 12.15.11 @ 12:46 PM
AN50 is just a parrot. He literally parrots the exact talking point of his obese, lying, hypocritical, corporate warlord, Rush Limbaugh.
Meanwhile today marks the end of the military involvement in Iraq - a war that cost us so much money, life and energy. Its amazing to me that the GOP and their sheep focus on the tiny issues that are minuscule in their cost while ignoring the fact that their war cost us more than 1 Trillion and killed thousands…. what jerks.
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» on 12.15.11 @ 05:01 PM
Often don’t agree with this writer.
But this essay captures things 100%.
Small minds, small hearts, petty ambitions in Washington not only are failing our
nation, but are clearly lagging way behind the hopes-needs-wants of average
Americans out in the real world.
They are letting down those of us around today. Even worse, they are betraying
the promise and spirit of America itself.
Shame.
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» on 12.15.11 @ 06:04 PM
We vote them in there Publius. Like it or not DC is a reflection of our country’s voting population. The real tragedy is people like Hightower and his following are so blinded by their own intellectual narcissism that they can’t see it. They point fingers, blame, ridicule and slander, but never look in the mirror.
Washington is a mirror, a reflection of the shallow, selfish, narcissistic, irresponsible culture we have become. That won’t change until we, Publius, you and I, take a hard look at our petty ambitions and small minds. You see the comments above, does it surprise you that Washington is full of the dolts it is? I take responsibility for my shortcomings and given the level of discourse I have seen from you, I no doubt you do too. I can only hope the rest can look past theirs as well.
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» on 12.15.11 @ 10:32 PM
Oh boo-hoo, Bishop. Read Clinton’s book, “Back to Work” - I mean, read more and write less.
You may find it informative. If we don’t understand how we got here, we will do it again.
Not at Costco, I think. They have it at Chaucer’s.
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» on 12.16.11 @ 09:28 AM
AN50 says “I take responsibility for my shortcomings”... now that’s funny.
A narrow minded narcissist who parrots his warlords with the exact talking points they feed is suddenly self aware and reflective? HA HA
Somewhere a Buddha chuckles.
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» on 12.16.11 @ 09:42 AM
You know Rambo you have become a witless clown much like your son Someguy, give it a rest.
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