The title of this post might be a good mantra for what's needed to rescue the United States from its current slide into oligarchic Banana Republic-anism. (The most recent consequence of this slippery slide, "The Great Recession", began when the Glass–Steagall Act was gutted.)
There is considerable evidence that the root cause of America's ills is corruption and crony capitalism that are fed by unrestrained political campaign contributions. A rational person knows that it's a bad idea to let corporations write the laws that are supposed to regulate and restrain them from bad behavior, but that's what happens. Now that corporations are "persons", they can contribute vast amounts of money toward buying the politicians who pass those laws. It doesn't matter whether a politician is a Democrat or a Republican. They all appreciate and respond to the money that keeps them in office; they don't bite that hand that feeds them.
In this interview, http://www.upworthy.com/, Sen. Bernie Sanders (Independent, Vermont) makes a strong case for two actions:
- A Constitutional amendment to strip corporations of their "free speech right" to make campaign contributions.
- Public financing of political campaigns, as in, e.g., Canada and European countries.
The United States has become a nation whose government is controlled by corporations.
This is why its citizens and voters need to "Separate Corps. and State!"
This article is rather interesting:
http://revmodo.com/2012/08/31/reflecting-sunlight-fight-climate-change/
It describes some technically feasible ways to reflect sunlight away from the earth, so as to reduce global warming.
Most people are unaware that on average, the past few years have been relatively cool. According to some experts, the reason is that, in their race to industrialize, the Chinese have been burning so much coal! The coal is impure and contains sulfur. When the coal burns, it adds more carbon dioxide (the major greenhouse gas) to the atmosphere, which ultimately will exacerbate the situation. However, the sulfur in the coal burns, too, and turns into sulfur dioxide. The sulfur dioxide also goes into the atmosphere, but it does a great job of reflecting sunlight. Thus, in a sense, the technology is already proven.
So the good news is that we can do it; the bad news is that if we can do it, then why stop putting carbon dioxide into the air? And will a reflective band-aid work as well as hoped? Check with Murphy's Law...
