The Great Societal Disconnect

I believe I’ve mentioned in the past that I am recovering from a serious health scare. Everything worked out well, but as I recovered, I started going to a regular weekly meditation group that meets every Monday evening. It’s been like a balm for the soul.

After a silent group meditation, everyone has an opportunity to briefly speak – about their meditation, about things in their life, about anything or about nothing.

I was struck last night by some comments one of the people in the group made. She was talking about how this is a time of the year for reflection on what the past year has been like for her and ways to make it better in the coming year. At some point, she mentioned how so much of her life is about productivity and efficiency.

It hit me like a thunderbolt.

For years and throughout my campaigns for office, I’ve asked people who I met going door-to-door and along the way what were their main values – what was most important to them. Interestingly enough, productivity and efficiency were literally never mentioned. Never.

Thus, the Great Societal Disconnect^TM .

In a society in which many place their faith in the view that the free market will solve all of our issues, productivity and efficiency are critical to the “success” of that belief. However, no one I have ever met has told me that their lives are better off based on prioritizing productivity and efficiency as their most important values.

The Great Societal Disconnect^TM .

We wonder why people are unhappy and there is so much angst in our families, amongst our friends and in our communities. Obviously, there are lots of reasons, but I would put the Great Societal Disconnect way high up on the list.

Especially when increased productivity leads mainly to increased wealth for corporations and the people in the C-Suite and DOES NOT lead to increased wages for those who are actually the ones increasing productivity.

We live in a culture where the Supreme Court has said that corporations have the same rights as people, including First Amendment rights, even when corporations are mentioned exactly ZERO times in the U.S. Constitution (and were initially only chartered with limited lifespans).

We live in a society where literally half the people in the country make approximately $45,000 or less, and yet healthcare costs are roughly $14,570 per person (roughly 1/3 of per person personal pre-tax income).

This is not sustainable (see my previous post entitled The Hidden Structural Anchor Weighing Down Society (and Democrats).

In a society where Politics is Policy^TM , the answer is to elect people who will fight to concretely improve the lives of all people in the United States and who will fight to reduce concretely the influence of money and inequality in our society.

This is where my laser-like focus will be on determining who I support as a candidate for office going forward. And that means that “corporate Dems” and those who are not willing to show some spine in the fight are out for me.

I welcome your thoughts.