For many citizens, the country's defining aspiration - that all people deserve the freedom to realize their full, individual potential - is increasingly unattainable. Americans suffer the largest level of inequality - and the fastest increase in inequality - in the developed world.
The reason for this is simple - our system of self-governance has been taken over by a small group of multi-national corporate leaders and multi-millionaires.
Rather than meeting their constitutional obligation to represent the interests of their fellow citizens, politicians act as stewards of their own political capital and the corporate interests that fund them.
The result of this (mostly) legal corruption is that tax dollars which could enhance the lives of our citizens instead subsidize multi-national corporations that jeopardize the foundation of our economic (i.e., financial markets); ravage our national resources (i.e., destroying the Gulf); and poison our citizens (i.e., agribusiness), among other things.
The corruption of our political system and the increasing divisions among our citizens are exacerbated by the growing degradation of our culture. Whether led or caused by the indiscriminate deification of wealth over virtue, monetary success has become synonymous with intrinsic human value. Financial success at all costs has almost eroded any sense of a common destinty for our citizens.
No political figure, however eloquent, is capable of leading our country out of the ethical wasteland in which we find ourselves. Instead, a recommitment to the moral architecture articulated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will be led by extraordinary everday people.
The goal of the Agenda Project is to help them.
