We get the justice we can afford ...

The case of Troy Davis, sentenced to death for killing a police officer in Georgia, is another happening in these United States that begs the question of equal justice for all.

I am not going to go through a litany of legal history or even of the evidence in Mr. Troy's case. After 70 years living in this country of ours, I know that justice is so flawed that it mocks our founding principles. If you can't afford to pay for your defense, you have little or none ... virtually and effectively.

And those who continue to mouth the platitudes evoking those founding principles without putting their shoulder to the wheel of history, to turn it towards what we ought to become ... well ... that is also what the seven decades have taught me. Most of us hide behind our words, giving lip service to ideals and seldom if ever putting them into action ... especially if it exposes us to any risk.

Even those who say the wheel should turn, hardly ever push.

Most of us know that we are not trying to move our country toward the oughtness of our agreed upon principles. We are trying to earn our fair share of the wealth we help create.

And that — earning a fair share for our labor &mdash is where the elite — those who want and conspire to receive more than their fair share — have us — labor — by the short hairs IF we have given up the effort to base our way of life on our nation's principles.

Let's get some simple things affirmed. Wanting a fair share for the worker isn't socialism or communism. It is anti-slavery. Here in America it was called "middle-classism". Slavery is all about the elite slave-owner getting the slave's share.

Any system that conspires to withhold fairly earned wages from the workers is a form of slavery. And just to be clear, an economy in which the aggregate wealth is increasing while the elite are getting more and the workers aren't ... is headed in the wrong direction no matter how you slice it ... unless you believe in having an elite living off the workers.

Another thing, these concepts do not impinge on the concept of a market economy. But ... we the people have been so poorly served recently by our political leaders and theorists, that we have lost our way. And when you scratch the surface of these leaders you find the resources of the elite.

Maybe it is because so many of us aspire to become an accepted member or toady of the elite — and the rewards — that we don't question what is happening?