Is America's democracy broken? Europe's hair-trigger economy The U.S. must embrace a growth agenda America has multiple deficits How to target untaxed wealth … With the release of the president's budget, Washington has once again descended into partisan squabbling. There is in America today pervasive concern about the basic functioning of our democracy. Congress is viewed less favorably than ever before in the history of public opinion polling. – Reuters Blog
Dominant Social Theme: The country faces challenges and visionary leaders must step forward.
Free-Market Analysis: Lawrence H. Summers, former US Treasury Secretary and current Reuters blogger, believes the United States demos is not broken but that the US suffers from a lack of vision.
This is one of those articles that – like many of the articles of George Soros – uses dominant social themes to build an argument from which one can then derive certain conclusions.
And yet … aren't such dominant social themes lacking in logic? First of all, there is no "United States" – or not so far as we know. There are groups of people who seek to dominate other people by using the concept of "country" – and the "patriotism" derived from it. This happens all over the world.
Second, the conclusion that Summers arrives at is that because the country itself and its political processes are suffering, the solution is visionary leadership.
We disagree with this, too. As believers in individual human action, we would suggest that people need vision, not their leaders. The vision of a leader should never fully substitute for one's own particular perspective.
Leaders, too, have their own particular agendas, and those agendas may well work against your interests and those of your family and community.
Here's more from the article:
Revulsion at political figures unable to reach agreement on measures that substantially reduce prospective budget deficits is widespread. Pundits and politicians alike condemn gridlock as angry movements like Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party emerge on both sides of the political spectrum, and partisanship seems to become ever more pervasive.
All this comes at a time of great challenge. Profound changes, as emerging economies led by China converge toward the West, will redefine the global order. Beyond the current economic downturn, which is surely the most serious since the Great Depression, lies the even more serious challenge of the rise of technologies that may well raise average productivity but displace large numbers of workers …
Almost everyone involved with public policy feels as I do that there is much that is essential yet infeasible in the current political environment. Yet context is important. Concerns about gridlock are a near-constant in American political history and in important respects reflect desirable checks and balances; much more progress is occurring in key sectors than is usually acknowledged; and American decision making, for all its flaws, stands up well in global comparison …
… Yes, change comes rapidly to some of the authoritarian societies of Asia. But it may not endure and may not always be for the better. Anyone prone to pessimism would do well to ponder the alarm with which the United States viewed the Soviet Union after Sputnik or Japan in the early 1990s. It is the capacity for self-denying prophecy of doom that is one of America's greatest strengths.
None of this is to say that we do not face huge challenges. The challenges, though, are less of getting to agreement where the answer is clear than of finding solutions to problems like rising inequality or global climate change, where the path is uncertain. That is not a problem of gridlock — it is a problem of vision.
You see? Summers couldn't be clearer. There is a "country" with problems and the solution is visionary leadership.
We should also point out that in mentioning global climate change, Summers is truly providing us with a cornucopia of elite dominant social themes. This article is surely a fragrant bouquet of globalist promotions.
And so long as we as are pointing these out, we should mention that Summers provides us with yet another in stating, "Until our elections are publicly funded and allow each candidate equal exposure, the TBTF banks, the big oil companies, and above all, the healthcare industry, will continue to own our government lock, stock, and barrel."
What bothers us about articles like this is the author's assumption that most thinking people accept these statements as fact.
We have already commented on the reluctance of globalists to recognize what we call the Internet Reformation and how it has changed public opinion. But instead of adapting tactics of persuasion, those who seek to control and influence public opinion seem to be using ever more brutal means of coercion – war, economic ruin and general chaos.
When we read articles like this one, we wonder if they are merely misguided or outright malicious. Summers himself is one of the most influential men in the US and a promoter of the globalist agenda.
Does he really believe that many of his readers will be convinced by his adoption of the mantle of an "outsider" – someone who while wielding enormous power chastises banks and oil companies and sets himself up in opposition to their influence?
Is Summers fooling himself – or trying to fool us? And why …