Words themselves can be far more telling than the person telling them to us. For example, the words republican, democratic, and capitalistic are commonly used adjectives to describe our country, but they are often misused for politically motivated purposes. And an actual examination of the words exposes the fact that one is a far different word from the other two, though we mistakenly interchange them.

Humans are at the heart of two of the words while one is, in effect, heartless because of its lack of focus on humanity. At the center of the word republican is the word public. At the start of the word democratic is the Greek derivative demos meaning "common people." But the root word capital refers not to people but to "the excess of a company's assets over its liabilities."

The point of this linguistic lesson is to illuminate the differences that produce natural friction between a word that is business-based and the two words that are human-based. It reflects a collision between philanthropy and economics that has been problematic from the time of our founding fathers, a philosophical friction that has finally broken the political machinery of the America our founders envisioned. Yes, if the common good is the main concern of our government, as intended, then it's broken. However, if maintaining corporate power is the real concern, then this nation is doing just fine.

Gone are the days when a lowly log-splitter and self-made lawyer like Lincoln could ascend to the nation's highest office or even to one of the seats in Congress. Without capital - and lots of it - a candidate who is not willing to sell his soul to those who have capital in copious amounts is doomed not to failure but rather to not even qualifying as a viable contender.

When campaign managers won't even consider working for someone without a multi-million dollar war chest, candidates at all levels are forced to turn to those with money. And that turn turns out to be significant, for it turns our leaders away from human concerns and toward the concerns of those with real power. It is a turn away from the idea that all men are equal and toward the marketing model's belief that equality is an expensive naive notion.

Good business practices find humans secondary to profits unless they are part of the profit; if they're a drag on money making rather than moneymakers or at least consumers, if they're liabilities rather than assets, they are hindering the process. To humans with hearts it may seem cruel, but in the business model sentiment is only valuable if it can somehow turn a profit, because profit forms the bottom line - not people. Some businesses still respect the human factor, but so many now consider only the monetary bottom line that the balance has shifted which once allowed capitalism to co-exist with democratic ideals.

Just take a look at the fiasco that attempting to provide basic health insurance has become. Too many powerful companies were able to create confusing fog around what is essentially a humanitarian issue, too many politicians were corrupted or influenced by the lobbyists from insurance and pharmaceutical companies, and the result is a mess whose impending failure is being applauded by those opposed to an affordable health care law.

When did the friction start to shake the machinery so hard that we began to cheer the failure of our government's attempts to help the common people? When did the failure of our leaders become something to celebrate? At what point did it become impossible for congress to provide a basic affordable health care plan to the common people instead of a thousand-plus-page document that was doomed to be hated if not rejected? There is no exact date, but it happened when the numbers of unelected lobbyists in Washington exceeded the numbers of elected officials to such a degree that the paradigm shifted away from humans and toward business. Now there is not even a pretense of power to the people. Now we are truly Corporate America.

While it is true that the friction between free market capitalism and humanitarian issues has been with us from the start and that our first documents address unfair taxation and other monetary issues along with human rights, we somehow seemed to manage through two centuries of strife to maintain a focus on both. But sometime between Dwight Eisenhower's ignored warnings about the dangers of the military-industrial complex and the blatant recognition of corporations as having the rights of individuals during the George W. Bush administration our focus was lost. Now, individuals have suffered great losses and struggle to survive-often without health insurance-while the stock market soars to record heights and those responsible for the Great Recession are back in business with hardly a bruise on the blotter.

The words democratic and republican no longer feel like fitting descriptors of our country now that capitalism is in complete control, but if words can tell us more than the mouths of publicists paid to convince the common people that they still matter, then consider the word fascism. The American Heritage Dictionary's definition links fascism to the extreme right, "typically through the merging of state and business leadership." Study that definition closely. See it? The merging has already occurred, and now fascism may be the final word.

Mike Ruskovich is a Blanchard resident.