Why the Scum Always Seems to Rise to the Top

Like the algae in the pond, or the cream in the milk, the least-wanted stuff always seems to rise to the top—including people.

The longer they hang around, and the more connections they make, the more corrupt they become, as witnessed by Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, Chris Dodd, Tim Geithner, and others. Former senator Ted Stevens comes to mind, along with former senator Bob Dole. Oh, and let’s not leave out Bernie Madoff by any means!

The quest starts in the early days when a plan for making more money and earning more power becomes the #1 goal. The first step in attaining this goal is to get hired, then plans are carefully laid to attain longevity through repeated fundraising and charismatic campaigning. As the years go by, connections are made, laws are written (carefully—with back doors and loopholes aplenty for self-sidestepping), and lobbying for other laws and loopholes occurs, then the assignments to powerful plum-assignment committees (where more lobbying and manipulatng occurs), followed by eventual promotions to chairmanships, then more years go by with more connections, lobbying, loopholing, and laws with unintended consequences…until a vital piece of the puzzle is lost, or something blows up in all our faces, or even the world’s faces.

Any society where expediency, violence, and corruption are rewarded, the most expedient, violent, and corrupt will rise to the top. They use their cunning, intellect, and ability to crush their competition in their greed for power and money. The most successful victors will rise to the top of the barrel (the most ruthless, the most cunning, the most corrupt, and the most manipulative), while others below them are forming alliances, tightening connections, exploiting loopholes, creating more loopholes, gaining and consolidating power and momentum, then waiting…just waiting for the right time to strike.

What’s even more frightening is the actions they take to keep their power and money once they’ve reached the top. The most common way is to create overwhelming dependency on the power source, essentially handing them more power.

The Mafia is one example, as is Rod Blagoyevich, Ahmedinajad, Kim Jong Il, either of the Castros, the Taliban/Al Qaeda, and the entire Democratic Party hierarchy is another--Obama included. The policies he’s enacted, as well as those he’s trying to enact, are good indicators of his quest for power and money—even if it’s yours by law. He and they have the power to change laws (which they are doing), seize businesses and property (which is happening), create dependency (which is happening), tax us blind (which is beginning to happen), and steer us down a path that is clearly hazardous to the economy, let alone the world, all because of personal prerogative.

They can also crush you (through laws, regulation, and the tax code) if you try to get in their way. The Mafia had the power of life and death over you (through violence), and your business (by controlling competition), but the government could easily have someone "offed" as it were. Which one is worse? They're both the same.

How did it all ever get this far? We weren’t paying attention, and we are guilty of falling for shiny things, fresh faces, and pretty words that evoke wonderful fantasies. We were dazzled by brilliance, and always baffled by bullshit. Jon Stewart aptly calls this "democracy inaction."

We're such big fans of complacency and the status quo--anything that prevents us from having to think or act. This is why technology plays such a huge role in our lives--push a button, and we're instantly gratified. No thinking or acting involved here!

Now that the fantasy is over, and the bullshit has begun, we still have one power left to thwart the power grab—the ballot box. We can vote each and every one of the jackals out of office once they come up for re-election, and keep voting incumbents out of office so they don’t ever get a chance to become entrenched power-brokers and money-robbers.

This also extends to anything else we can “vote” out—CEOs, certain powerful products, certain powerful companies, etc. How do we do it? We vote with our wallets, we boycott, we protest, we dump shares, and we encourage others to do the same.

Give the power back to the people? How about we TAKE IT BACK like it was taken from us? We start paying attention, we stand up, and we fight back—not with weapons, but with words and deeds (like voting, dumping shares, protesting, etc.), and quit standing around waiting for someone to hand it to us.

Let’s eradicate the scum that inevitably rises to the top by preventing them from getting that far. While we're at it, let's take back control of our own thoughts and actions by turning off the technology switch (or at least turning it down).