Why the Common Good Disappeared (And How We Get it Back) - Robert Reich

Found here. My comments in bold.
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Dr. Reich is up to his usual obfuscation.
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In 1963 over 70 percent of Americans trusted government to do the right thing all or most of the time; nowadays only 16 percent do. (Let's see if he tells us why.)

There has been a similar decline in trust for corporations. In the late 1970s, 32 percent trusted big business, by 2016, only 18 percent did. (Same question. Why?)

Trust in banks has dropped from 60 percent to 27 percent. Trust in newspapers, from 51 percent to 20 percent. Public trust has also plummeted for nonprofits, universities, charities, and religious institutions. (Why?)

Why this distrust? As economic inequality has widened, the moneyed interests have spent more and more of their ever-expanding wealth to alter the rules of the game to their own advantage.

Too many leaders in business and politics have been willing to do anything to make more money or to gain more power – regardless of the consequences for our society. (Um, yeah. Greedy people are obviously a new phenomena on the scene. No one was greedy before. Suddenly we have more greed, and thus the trust in institutions has eroded... Actually, maybe trust has eroded because these institutions are not trustworthy. Particularly government.)


We see this everywhere – in the new tax giveaway to big corporations, in gun manufacturer’s use of the NRA to block gun controls, in the Koch Brother’s push to roll back environmental regulations, in Donald Trump’s profiting off his presidency. (It's all the fault of the Right, you see. Democrats are blameless...)

No wonder much of the public no longer believes that America’s major institutions are working for the many. Increasingly, they have become vessels for the few.

The question is whether we can restore the common good. Can the system be made to work for the good of all? (Nonsense question. The "system" is created, perpetuated, and bought and paid for by the Left. The revolt of 2016 which brought Trump to the presidency is prima facie evidence of this. An outsider was brought in to clean up the swamp. The people are sick and tired of business as usual.

By the way, there is no such thing as the "common good." The phrase is a smokescreen for humongous, intrusive government dictating outcomes and stifling dissent. Again, thanks to the political Left.)

Some of you may feel such a quest to be hopeless. The era we are living in offers too many illustrations of greed, narcissism, and hatefulness. But I don’t believe it hopeless. (His faith in big government is unshakable.)

Almost every day I witness or hear of the compassion of ordinary Americans – like the thousands who helped people displaced by the wildfires in California and floods in Louisiana; like the two men in Seattle who gave their lives trying to protect a young Muslim woman from a hate-filled assault; like the coach who lost his life in Parkland, Florida, trying to shield students from a gunman; like the teenagers who are demanding that Florida legislators take action on guns. (Hmmm. Not a government entity in sight. I thought he was intending to talk about institutions...)

The challenge is to turn all this into a new public spiritedness extending to the highest reaches in the land – a public morality that strengthens our democracy, makes our economy work for everyone, and revives trust in the major institutions of America. (There is no such thing as "public morality." People are moral, caring, and helpful. Government is not a person, and cannot be moral.)

We have never been a perfect union; our finest moments have been when we sought to become more perfect than we had been. We can help restore the common good by striving for it and showing others it’s worth the effort. (Who is this "we?" Government? There is no government program or initiative that can create morality. It's a gigantic non sequitur.)

I started my career a half-century ago in the Senate office of Robert F. Kennedy, when the common good was well understood, and I’ve watched it unravel over the last half-century. (Hmmm again. That would be right before the "Great Society" programs were installed. Coincidence?)

Resurrecting it may take another half century, or more. But as the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr once said, “Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.“ (The leftist mantra, incrementalism. Socialism by infiltration. The overthrow of the institutions Dr. Reich bemoans as failing our trust is part of the objective. The Left hates our institutions and bashes them at every opportunity. Church is oppressive and hateful. Business is greedy. CEOs are benefiting at the expense of the worker. This has all been set in motion by the Left, and Dr. Reich is surprised that they're succeeding. The disconnect is palpable.)