Thursday, June 11, 2009

The Real Depression

One of my dearest readers emailed that I write of depressing things. And while I have highest respect for her intellectual capabilities, the idea of the Obama's administration backsliding on its promises is not as depressing as the idea that at least half of the country seems to have lost sight of the essential beliefs that put him into office.
First, three years ago we were promised by the demorats that we would disengage from Iraq where we are spending more than 10 billion dollars a month and wasting precious lives. I was and am convinced that we did not belong there in the first place, that the evidence of Iraqi complicity in the tragedy of 9/11 was not convincing enough to commit troops to the area, or that Hussein had the wherewithal to have any sophisticated weapons. Yet, we went, forgetting that Vietnam, another horrendous waste of capital and life, was justified by contrived reports intended only to give the American people some grist on which to build some hate for the Vietnamese and to open the door for the politicians and military-industrial complex to keep on doing what they do best: lying and making money off violence. We learned nothing from the Vietnam War, the tar-pit of corruption, military ignorance, and civilian angst into which we descended. Despite all we now know about the disingenuous of the Bush administration, we remain in Iraq, and we should have been long gone. It will be destabilized as soon as we leave regardless of when we leave, and they will continue to bomb and hack at each other until the most powerful get what they want. Screw them; let them have at each other. We should not spend one more minute, dollar, or life there. The demorats swore up and down that if elected they would extricate us from the Iraqi tar-pit. The folks who put that particular bunch of liars in office should be on the phone and on the emails everyday demanding that we get out, as promised. ( And forget all that Afghanistan rhetoric, too. We should have been there from the beginning and we might have been successful if more troops had been assigned; it is too late now; our politicians screwed that one up too, and we might as well come home before we learn as the Russians did: that ain't a good place to try to win the hearts and minds of the people.)
Second, Obama feigned anger at the audacity of some of the bonuses and wastefulness of the banking industry. For those who were impressed, consider what he just finagled with the largest banks who provide credit cards and have applied exponential increases in interest rates and fees and penalties. Obama said he would put an end to that. That's what he said, but what he did was give the banks 9 months to rake all the blood it could out of middle class Americans before the freezes and regulations take effect. Therefore, the very institutions that we lent billions to so that they could keep folks employed and keep credit flowing and keep their businesses rolling are now practicing usurious proctology on everyone of us. I say shame on the demorats for pretending to be for the middle class and conniving in the interest of big business. At least I know the repuklicans want to screw us to the benefit of the very wealthy. But, in the end, getting screwed is getting screwed, and we are, at every opportunity the politician can scheme up.
And that we should know better is most depressing. We would rather argue over whether we are queer or gay, whether we will be forced to drive an ugly car, whether some person is going to get an extra fifty cents in a WIC check, whether we should teach religion of creation instead of science of creation, whether a Latina judge is racist, or whether the press is liberal. We are so involved with trivial events and customs that we cannot see that the truly horrible, most corrupt, nasty, wasteful, and insincere people in this country are the people that we elect to govern. Our politicians are the major cause of depression in American citizens. And you can take that to the bank.

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