A New Word is Needed

7 February 2014

It is obvious to the entire world that the United States is no longer a democracy. The people do not freely choose their legislators, they vote for one of the heavily subsidized party candidates who agree to support the ideas of the people who pay for their election. These elections have become so expensive that only those who have enormous financial resources can compete. They are controlled by very wealthy individuals and large corporations.

Sleazecracy: a government where corruption is officially condoned and legally supported. Consider the official court protected bribery of the United States lobbyist system and unlimited financing of campaigning.  The Supreme Court has even gone to such an absurd extreme as to call an anonymous association, a corporation, a living person according to the United States Constitution. Is there a person who believes that such a preposterous, ridiculous idea was what was intended by the writers of this historic document? The Roberts court has given a new extension to the meaning of sophistry. It now includes absurdity. The Court has demonstrated its political foundation rather than the intended basis on impartial law.

Sleazecracy includes the opprobrium of sleazy behavior with the Greek root word for government. It allows one to express the extreme dissatisfaction one has with the condition of the government in one word. This dissatisfaction is not for one party or the other, both are equally culpable. It is a profound dissatisfaction with the misuse of power by the leaders of the government. It is an expression of the futility of trying to undo the corrupting influence of uncontrolled power that pervades the government. It states the frustration of the citizens because of the unremitting political propaganda costing millions of dollars that pervades mass communications systems. It loudly proclaims the utter disgust with the total disregard for truth shown by the leaders of the country. In one word it says that the government of the United States is a sleazy, dishonest group of people.

The unrestricted, laissez faire capitalism that is reaffirmed by the Citizens United decision has caused this country far more misery and economic damage than all of the spendthrift welfare and entitlement debt that plagues us. The equating of companies to citizens renders the Supreme Court an object of ridicule and five of the Justices as foolish and fatuous. This country desperately needs honorable men to serve in their government. Instead we get selfish, self-serving egotists who praise the dead young people they send on misguided wars to spread our Sleazecracy. These men of high privilege, these legislators, shame the men and women they praise. They embarrass this country. They give every totalitarian government license to ignore free elections and the wellbeing of their citizen as this country’s legislators do.