Something’s Missing
Posted: Thursday, February 11, 2010
by e
Dhammabucha Rocksprings Meditation
I'm not sure what to call it, but something in America is missing. We had it once before, a long time ago, perhaps when we were innocent and maybe a bit naive.
We could laugh then, and life had a comfortable feeling about it. Our homes were warm and friendly places that weren't purchased in order to flip and make money. They were places in which to have children, to raise children, and to be there for our children as they ventured out into the world. And a familiar place in which to die. The mortgage was held by the local bank; we knew the manager and his family well.
There wasn't too much hatred then. Maybe we were satisfied with what we had, just wanting to make a living, not a killing. Perhaps we weren't smart enough to figure out all the angles and get in on the ground floor of investment strategies, and then get out before everybody else took a bath. I think instead we would have warned everybody to get out with us, instead of gleefully watching them all lose their money.
Money actually wasn't all that important. One paycheck provided for the necessities. There was a satisfaction level, a contentment, maybe even a simple trusting that didn't require more and more money in case things went bad. There was trust in our neighbors, trust in our government, and trust in our country.
What happened? When did things begin to change? When was one paycheck not enough - when did the fear begin?
The insecurity began when a shift in power accelerated in congress. Congress, originally made up of poor to middle income people, shifted to well to do people. As a result, policies subtly began changing toward wealth accumulation, or capitalism, and away from a social network and a sharing of wealth, or socialism. And a balanced country needs a little of both.
This shift was subtle because although the new breed of congress still mouthed the platitudes of the middle class and actually still passed social legislation in their behalf, their hearts weren't in it considering their own situation of now being upper middle class or upper class.
We can see the results of this today with our hands-off policy regarding wealth accumulation, and the decrease in appetite for poor, middle class safety nets. In other words, the money is all going toward the monied and away from the middle and poor classes, creating wide gaps in income distribution.
This shift in income distribution began the mad scramble for enough money to make ends meet by the middle class, and ushered in a life lived on credit to make up for the income that we could not maintain. And things changed. Making a living suddenly became a monumental struggle instead of a calm and peaceful way of life.
As two incomes became the norm, appetites became greedy for bigger and better homes evolved, as did the desire to make as much money as fast as one could and in any way that one could, including flipping homes and selling bogus mortgages. Life became a crap shoot.
And that's the way it is now. Maybe "the good old days" will never return, but does that mean that the peace and contentment of those days are lost as well? Will our hearts now forever be disturbed? Since that peace and contentment resulted from values such as trust and honesty that have gone by the wayside recently, wouldn't a return to those values necessarily bring about peace and contentment again? What is the alternative? If the alternative is what we are now witnessing in our country, with hatred spinning out of control, then the future indeed looks bleak. The promise of advantages over others and the opportunity to possess personal fortunes will never replace basic security as a positive force for improvement in society.
We can't change the world. Jobs have gone oversees and our standard of living is decreasing; we will all have to get along with less in the future. But we don't have to get along without less contentment, because contentment is a relative thing. A big house is not contentment, it is rather a burden. Knowing for certain that we have the basic necessities, such as a modest place to live, food, and basic health care is enough for peace and contentment to manifest again.
Wanting more than that creates large income disparities, where wealth, and the power and influence of wealth, takes away even those basic of human needs. This is called greed, where fellow human beings are deserted in lieu of our own selfish designs.
The answer might be in the wealthy taking a good hard look at what their policies are producing, and deciding whether or not it can continue in this way. From a purely selfish standpoint, which is the best most wealth accumulators can muster, they must realize that in time the tipping point of wealth disparity will cause social upheaval, and this would pit the wealthy against the poor in a classic struggle that could prove to be violent similar to the birth of labor unions.
There is still time to move toward main street and away from Wall Street. Wall Street, regardless of its accolades, doesn't work for main street, doesn't work for peace and contentment. Trickle down economics is just a catch phrase for wealth accumulation, because it only trickles upwards, considering the influence that wealth has in our society.
I only hope that we all take a good look at our country and where it is heading, and a good look at ourselves and where we are heading, because . . . something's missing.
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Top-level comments on this article: (3 total)Something is definitely missing, and I think you've done a good job of pointing out what that is. Personally, I don't hold much hope that the wealthy rulers will see the writing on the wall. I suspect there will come a violent upheaval. History tells us this is true, and we don't seem to be able to learn from history.
Very interesting article. I find your question a good one. It is an excellent question to ask.You suggest that it is wealth and capitalism that have taken over and caused our problems. Actually, if you study our country's history, you will find that ever since the founding of this country we have been slowly progressing toward a larger government. We were a country of individual states and we formed a union of the states that created the federal government. That government was granted very limited powers. We were a country whose trademark was less government and greater liberty. Each person took responsibility for their own lives. We watched out for each other without government intervention. That created growth in our economy that made us the most powerful and wealthy country on the globe. But slowly we grew our government.In fact, during Woodrow Wilson's presidency, we formalized a new political philosophy called "Progressivism", a philosophy that looks for bigger government and eventual centralized control of everything in the country. It was this progressive movement that ratcheted up the politics of destroying opponents. As power concentrated since then, so has the stakes of those competing for those powerful positions in our centralized government. The federal government has been looking for loopholes in the constitution to justify continued expansion and power. Both the major parties, Republicans and Democrats have progressive members.One of the symptoms of this is the founding of the Federal Reserve Bank in 1913- centralized control of the federal currency. We centralized banking, and control of it. It wasn't for economic safety, it was for centralized control (power). The control of the currency, especially as a fiat currency, allowed our federal government to effectively steal wealth from the economy without formal taxes. They just print more money (metaphorically). This causes the value of the dollars already in the economy to decline in value. The money "printed" is spent by the government and they benefit from the "shaving" off of value of existing dollars. This is the core reason behind two income families today. We need more money to match the living standard of our parents because our money is worth less, and it is taxed more heavily at the same time (progressive income tax).At the same time, we have been brainwashed as a country that debt is a necessary financial tool that everyone should use. As a result we have become increasingly tolerant of debt. Debt is the instrument that has helped drive inflation. It hasn't created wealth, it has been working against it. It has created a false sense of wealth. Eventually it will destroy weatlh and cause much suffering.Our country was started with a set of values reflected in our U.S. Constitution that set us on a path that lead to everyone's lifestyles as you described, family oriented and content. Those are the values we are abandoning today that are causing our strife. We are starting to believe the lies of the progressive movement that create uncivil arguments through the politics of destruction and anyone that disagrees becomes the subject of ridicule and even threats of violence. Naturally, the response is anger, and both sides of the issues get worked up. We also find it easy to become the victims of others and not take personal responsibility for our situation. We used to be able to have these highly charged disagreements without getting personal. Our abandonment of our original values has changed that.We have forgotten that our form of government needs to be decentralized and run by the people, not powerful leaders that decide what is right for us. Centralizing that power has made it possible to use money to corrupt those in power. It isn't Capitalism that is the problem, it is bigger government in bed with the largest companies that has influenced our laws to favor the large corporations and not the people. Both the largest corporations and the federal government have conspired to centralize power and wealth as partners. We have started buying into the lie that bigger government is the solution to our problems and that building wealth is evil. Money can't be evil, it doesn't have a soul, it is the love of money that is evil.We are not, nor have we ever been "socialists" as you say in your article. We helped our neighbor out of personal generosity and refused government help realizing the debt of obligation it created toward the government. The government is not charitable, every dollar you get from the government comes with strings attached. Socialism creates dependency on a central government. That is the opposite of what this country is about. It is about independence. Don't collapse this term from a political system into a life philosophy. We are supposed to take personal responsibility for our own lives, and be generous to the less fortunate and give them a hand up not a hand out. Socialism is a centralized government, which has always resulted in greater poverty and less freedom.No system of government is perfect, because no human is perfect. So the answer to your question as to what is missing? Our country's faith in God and the values that go with that. The further down this road we go abandoning our original values as a country, the worse it will get. I believe, however, for those who hold to those orginal values, and have faith in God, will be content whatever happens, and if there is enough of us we can turn this country back on the right path.Hi Jim, thank you so much for your detailed response. I like one of your last comments; “No system of government is perfect, because no human is perfect. So the answer to your question as to what is missing? Our country's faith in God and the values that go with that.”
Very good! I believe I stated it this way, “I only hope that we all take a good look at our country and where it is heading, and a good look at ourselves and where we are heading, because . . . something's missing.”
So we agree that our faith in God is lacking. (As a Buddhist of course I might phrase that a little differently if you don‘t mind, i.e. faith in seeing clearly beyond the fog of illusion, ego and self interest).
Also you added, “and the values that go with it.” Again I think that we agree on what Jesus and the Buddha valued. You know about Jesus’ values better than I, and what Buddhists value is loving kindness, compassion, altruistic joy and equanimity. I don’t think we can argue too much there.
Actually, there is a very peaceful feeling when two people stop arguing and find common ground. They become friends rather than enemies. Much better than contention.
We all know that we have to have a fairly large government to handle a very large and complex country and world. It’s not simplistic. And that we need to regulate Wall Street as well as Main Street, financial firms as well as social programs, because of just what you say, our values are skewed. Greed has no boundaries.
Until we come to a point of changed values in ourselves, a healthy mix of “responsible” socialism and “honest, non-greedy” capitalism is necessary, and actually reflects America as it stands.
Thanks again, Best…..e"We all know that we have to have a fairly large government to handle a very large and complex country and world. It’s not simplistic. And that we need to regulate Wall Street as well as Main Street, financial firms as well as social programs, because of just what you say, our values are skewed. Greed has no boundaries. "It is nice to know we can agree. Actually, in my response, you are demonstrating the point of what I was trying to say. We have bought into this progressive idea that the government is the solution to our problems, that we need some kind of central control. That is the trap that has us spiraling down the drain, economically. Since we have lost our wisdom to follow the values that made us great, we are compounding the problem in our personal lives.If we usher in socialism as a fix, we will lose what made this country great and see greater poverty and personal suffering. The solution is changed hearts, not government programs or regulation. The government doesn't allow failure of those who are too greedy, where the free market would have eliminated them and we'd already be further down the road to recovery and be much stronger economically. Good values would have emerged as the wiser path, because they are the right path. Instead, the government has rewarded corruption and grabbed significantly more power over the people. This has people believing corruption wins in the end.Thanks for your thoughtful reply."The solution is changed hearts." Good Jim, I agree. We of course have to begin by changing our own imperfect hearts first before we change the hearts of others.
Metta (lovingkindness).........eExactly! That is the leadership we need.
Good article although I agree with Jim Anderson. Your articles almost always show me a different viewpoint and I appreciate that because that provides me with an opportunity to become more open minded, change some of my old ides and to grow spiritually. Thanks for sharing. Linda DThanks Linda, growing spiritually is key, everything else goes away.
Best..........e
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