The Terrorists Have Won
Harsh.. but looking at what the United States of America has become in the past decade i can come up with no other conclusion.
The civil liberties promised us in the US Constitution have become but words on paper. The US engages in torture, incarceration without trial, extensive spying on its own citizens without the due process of law. We have given up personal freedom with the false promise of security - on airplanes, on phone calls, on the internet.
We have been trained to live in fear and to fear our neighbors. Are they brown? Fear them. Do the women cover their hair? Fear them. Do they have an accent? Fear them. Have they visited or do they have relatives in the middle east? Fear them. Are they anything but a fundie Christian? Fear them. Fear them, hate them. And whatever is done to them, whether or not they are guilty, is justified, because our (who is 'our' btw, white, christian, men?) way of life is more important than the liberty and life of a few people who are different from us anyway.
Our economy is in ruins. Yes, the housing crisis would have happened with or without the terrorist attacks on 9/11/01, but the housing crisis is just a small part of our problem. Our government is spending money hand over fist on wars that were started with the vague goal of wiping out terrorism (an impossible deed as terrorism is not a country upon which you can declare war, but an idea which knows no borders) and with NO benchmark for success nor plan to end them. If you look at our national spending the VAST majority of the money is not going to health care, education, or social services - it is going to pay for the wars we are in and will continue to do so long after we get out of them because our government chose to NOT include them in regular budgetary planning during the BushII years and nothing has changed much since.
Add in the fact that Republicans (and a few Dems) want to balance the budget simply by cutting social spending and NOT bringing in more income (and hello... that doesn't work at home either... you have to pay for food/medical/housing no matter what... if you don't have enough money you get another job, you don't stop paying rent or eating) - and you have a recipe for disaster. Which is what we have.
To top it off we have a political system that is beyond broken - where one party is willing to sacrifice the whole country in order to gain/regain power - because their extremist base is louder and pays them more money to do so. Right now our system is as corrupt as the height of the Roman Empire just before the fall... if you can buy your politician and keep paying them, they'll keep you in your riches as long as you keep them in power - no matter what the majority of the people on the ground say. They'll just yell louder (with their money) that their view is the majority and ignore the reality because the reality folks are struggling to pay rent and food and praying they don't have a medical emergency and don't have the money to bribe the politicians like the richest corporations do.
Yes BRIBE. Call them campaign donations. Call it donations to the politicians pet projects. Call it favorable jobs for their family/friends/them when they give up the public trough. Whatever euphemism you want to use... it is a bribe. And when the people you are bribing are in a position to keep making you money... the circle never ends. Our Supreme Court allowed corporations to act as people... despite the fact that corporations are NOT people... they are made up of and owned by people. Which means (IMNSHO) if the people involved want to donate their private money within the limits of campaign law to further their personal agendas, i guess go for it. But corporations are NOT people and should not have the same input as people... let the CEOs donate - let the staff and management donate as they want... but the company doesn't get to say a word as it doesn't have a body!
i don't know how or even if we will be able to pull out of this morass we have created. Will the USA go from being a shining example of what can be to a dark hole of greed and christian religious dictatorship? i pray not. But i am not feeling so hopeful today. Maybe tomorrow will bring a new light.
The civil liberties promised us in the US Constitution have become but words on paper. The US engages in torture, incarceration without trial, extensive spying on its own citizens without the due process of law. We have given up personal freedom with the false promise of security - on airplanes, on phone calls, on the internet.
We have been trained to live in fear and to fear our neighbors. Are they brown? Fear them. Do the women cover their hair? Fear them. Do they have an accent? Fear them. Have they visited or do they have relatives in the middle east? Fear them. Are they anything but a fundie Christian? Fear them. Fear them, hate them. And whatever is done to them, whether or not they are guilty, is justified, because our (who is 'our' btw, white, christian, men?) way of life is more important than the liberty and life of a few people who are different from us anyway.
Our economy is in ruins. Yes, the housing crisis would have happened with or without the terrorist attacks on 9/11/01, but the housing crisis is just a small part of our problem. Our government is spending money hand over fist on wars that were started with the vague goal of wiping out terrorism (an impossible deed as terrorism is not a country upon which you can declare war, but an idea which knows no borders) and with NO benchmark for success nor plan to end them. If you look at our national spending the VAST majority of the money is not going to health care, education, or social services - it is going to pay for the wars we are in and will continue to do so long after we get out of them because our government chose to NOT include them in regular budgetary planning during the BushII years and nothing has changed much since.
Add in the fact that Republicans (and a few Dems) want to balance the budget simply by cutting social spending and NOT bringing in more income (and hello... that doesn't work at home either... you have to pay for food/medical/housing no matter what... if you don't have enough money you get another job, you don't stop paying rent or eating) - and you have a recipe for disaster. Which is what we have.
To top it off we have a political system that is beyond broken - where one party is willing to sacrifice the whole country in order to gain/regain power - because their extremist base is louder and pays them more money to do so. Right now our system is as corrupt as the height of the Roman Empire just before the fall... if you can buy your politician and keep paying them, they'll keep you in your riches as long as you keep them in power - no matter what the majority of the people on the ground say. They'll just yell louder (with their money) that their view is the majority and ignore the reality because the reality folks are struggling to pay rent and food and praying they don't have a medical emergency and don't have the money to bribe the politicians like the richest corporations do.
Yes BRIBE. Call them campaign donations. Call it donations to the politicians pet projects. Call it favorable jobs for their family/friends/them when they give up the public trough. Whatever euphemism you want to use... it is a bribe. And when the people you are bribing are in a position to keep making you money... the circle never ends. Our Supreme Court allowed corporations to act as people... despite the fact that corporations are NOT people... they are made up of and owned by people. Which means (IMNSHO) if the people involved want to donate their private money within the limits of campaign law to further their personal agendas, i guess go for it. But corporations are NOT people and should not have the same input as people... let the CEOs donate - let the staff and management donate as they want... but the company doesn't get to say a word as it doesn't have a body!
i don't know how or even if we will be able to pull out of this morass we have created. Will the USA go from being a shining example of what can be to a dark hole of greed and christian religious dictatorship? i pray not. But i am not feeling so hopeful today. Maybe tomorrow will bring a new light.