A letter I wrote to David Brooks, praise of his Op-Ed piece, The Coming Incompetence.
Brilliant, Mr. Brooks. Just brilliant.
I know you’re basically a conservative. I’m a liberal.
But we can both agree that competence is fundamental.
It is, however, instructive to see how we got here:
- Democrats began taking corporate money and money from big donors,to compete in elections.
- As a result, the Democratic party became just another wing of the Big-$$ party.
- As Marx pointed out, the actions that each corporation take individually to increase profits, has the effect, in the aggregate, of suppressing the market.
ASIDE: Where he miscalculated was in not understanding the power of government to prevent that problem (the subject of another article, Where Marx Went Wrong.)
- The suppressed market is responsible for the major dissatisfaction in middle America.
- Hillary’s secret talks with Wall Street, in my estimation, were the key to her undoing.
Emails would not have prevented Democrats from going to the polls. But the knowledge that she was not on their side did keep them home. - As a result, the Kim Jong Un of American politics took office — a bloated windbag full of lies, empty promises, and a psychopathic need to keep his ego inflated at all costs.
The sad fact is that I cannot blame Democrats for staying home. At least Trump provided the possibility of change. Who could have foreseen that the change would be so bad?
At treelight.com, I’m busy making the case that we can use directed social media to take money out of the election equation. And that, once done, government can return to being the ameliorating force on corporate activity that it needs to be, for society to prosper.
thanks for listening.
eric armstrong
8 Apr 2017
