One recent estimate has Washington having one lawyer for every 12 residents. As far as the media is concerned, when I started journalism in the 1950s over half the reporters in the country had only a high school education. Try to get a job today with that for your background. Richard Harwood once caught the social status of the press well describing his own experience a decade earlier: "We were perceived as a lower form of life, amoral, half-literate hacks in cheap suits. Thus I was assigned to a Chamber of Commerce meeting in Nashville in the late 1940s and, with other reporters, was given lunch at a card table set up in a hallway to protect the dining room from contamination."
The sorry truth is that the sort of social intelligence that had once far more power in politics and decision-making has largely been replaced by the complex rules and language of lawyers and MBAs. Things have changed mightily including once easily understandable phrases like "public works" that are now "infrastructure."
As I followed the impeachment story I was struck by the reality that the lawyers were in charge once more. The possible solutions, approaches and language were controlled by them and the issue of how this might affect the thinking of tens of millions of voters got pushed aside. The media happily joined the attorneys.
Thus a president who has violated the law and shown contempt for justice and decency like no predecessor will now be primarily judged by how he handled a matter in a country about which most Americans know hardly anything.
I'm not saying Trump shouldn't be impeached - only that the case against him is too limited to encourage a strong participation by the public.
It's not too late to do something about this. Proceed with the impeachment but add a public House investigation into the ways Trump has violated, undermined or ignore the laws of our land, including but not limited to the Constitution. Here, from the Chicago Sun Times, is just one of scores of examples:
Since Trump took office, about 150 fewer scientists, technicians and other employees are working in the EPA’s Chicago Region 5, covering Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota and Ohio, according to EPA figures provided by the American Federation of Government Employees Local 704 in Chicago, the EPA employees’ union....The number of inspections out of the Chicago office has plummeted by more than 60%, while inspections throughout the rest of the nation declined by 30%.This is a man who is destroying the country not just by bribery in Ukraine, but flagrantly ignoring the responsibilities of a president and distorting the purpose of laws. We need an honest accounting of these offenses even if they do not meet a lawyer's definition of impeachable. There are other ways in which we are being betrayed and, at the very least, the public needs a honest, detailed listing of them
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Trump is merely a 'symptom'. An expression of an underlying disease state. Something, that if surgically removed, will not cure the problem, but merely be replaced by another lesion forming elsewhere.
Years ago I heard a reporter from Quebec CA complain that the Provence, at one time, had every opportunity to have a French Culture, an American Know-How, and a British Government. But, instead, Quebec CA succeeded in achieving American Culture, French Government, and British Know-How.
Or something like that.
In the U.S.:
Religions, Business, and Government all vie for the Love, Respect, and Money of the American Citizen. Although, a segment of each seem to favor benefits coming from those with the 'most money'.
Religions get tax reprieves, but try to influence Government. They voice their emotions about the 'poor' but generally only go out to lunch with those who pay, and, these groups generally don't play well together as their existence is based largely upon emotion. Anti-abortion has been a common rallying point for many, and religiously echoed by zealous politicians who, at the same time send fully grown men and women to kill / be killed against those with different religious beliefs or different economic systems. There is supposed to be a 'separation of church-and-state' because of religious history in Europe in the past – but this barrier is constantly under attack. The removal of tax reprieves is possibly the only barrier that is available against the pious.
Businesses seem to demand tax deductions, get them, but then influence government for more benefits, both corporate and personal. These groups can influence government by donating money to groups of people that have either religiously based beliefs, fear, or hate at their core, but sometimes altruism... I suppose. Businesses do 'help' government at times with private mercenary armies, private security firms that can do things that law enforcement can't do legally, and maybe stuff that's even more fun than that...
Government leaders voice their personal values and religious beliefs to get themselves elected to office. Men and women of true virtue and born to lead, many by being born with a silver spoon in their mouth, or maybe married well. But regardless of how they acquired their equity portfolio, politicians are eventually required to be open to the influence of contributions from business, and this street that runs-both-ways is actually becoming an Interstate Highway. An 'unholy' alliance has developed between business and government that mirrors that which we fought against in WWII, but nobody seems to notice or care, as long as we can get inexpensive “cheap” goods from China, et al, to help us feel 'well-off'. Great laws are enacted that fall evenly upon both the Rich and Poor alike – like those that prevent people from sleeping under overpasses; but lately, more and more laws actually favor the movement of money 'up-hill' toward those that already influence the government, like corporations and million/billion/trillion-aires. A lovely unending circle of love.
Seems Quebec has little to complain about. If only...!
Should the U.S. focus on Trump? Or our government, and its behavior in general.
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