We watch as President Obama strongly supports the actions of the NSA, the National Security Agency which blatantly pursues its massive program of spying on the American people, calling it absolutely necessary. Indications are that it has no intention of making any changes to its aggressive agenda of monitoring all forms of communications in this county. And this president strongly stands behind those who run it even though he knows that what they are doing represents a clear invasion of the Constitutional rights of citizens' privacy.
Let's discuss Wall Street, the home of the masters of financial manipulation; a place where the principles of ethics and morals have been persona non grata for some time. Five big banks control the financial sector of this country and much of the world. Their policies and actions are clearly guided by the lust for greater and greater profits and they will bend or break any and all rules and regulations to achieve their objectives.
They have created derivatives, those risky and often toxic financial instruments that are said to amount to hundreds of trillions of dollars; they created the fraudulent mortgages that caused millions of Americans to lose their homes to foreclosures; and then after their reckless actions ended in the 2008 financial crisis, they shamelessly accepted bailouts by the government. And we know, of course, that these banksters who just happen to "own" the Congress and the White House will be, without question, given free license to continue to use these deceitful practices which endanger the financial stability of this nation.
Their CEOs are, in effect, under a "government protection program" which effectively grants them immunity from prosecution for white collar criminal acts. They are making a mockery of the principles of ethics and honorable business practices. And what's really ironic is that no matter how many devious practices that these Big Five banks foist on the public, many millions of Americans continue to do business with them, totally ignoring their nefarious conduct.
These corrupted politicians, the Wall Street manipulators, and the many corporate CEO's who have thrown American workers under the bus, and those American presidents who have done virtually nothing to remedy any of these situations, are a product of this society. Did these individuals, upon entering political office or high levels in the business world, suddenly divest themselves of those principles when they came on the job or were they already in that condition? In either case, what then does this say about our society?
It says that this society can be thought of as a breeding ground that sends these kinds of ethically and morally deficient individuals into seats of power in Washington, on Wall Street and in the corporate towers where this kind of behavior is generously rewarded. In effect these individuals are a direct reflection of this society itself, a sad commentary to say the least.
And while we continue to criticize and castigate those in the Congress for their failures to do what is right for this country, we keep re-electing them; of course that's probably because we have little or no alternative choices, for those Americans whose principles of conduct are beyond reproach want nothing to do with this polluted political process.
We may have no use for the swindlers on Wall St. or the profit-crazed CEOs but many of us keep investing our money with the former and buying the products of the latter. If we had the courage of our convictions we would initiate massive boycotts against the worst offenders and drive them out of business. Nothing of the sort is happening.
The American people do little to nothing of substance in dealing with this societal dilemma. And that's why, when we think about this nation's most critical problems; the endless wars, the monumental national debt, our stagnant economy, a dysfunctional government, the deterioration