WTF America????
Is this the kind of country our forefathers envisioned?
Remember when life was kind of normal? It wasn't too long ago. It's not hard to pinpoint when the downfall of this country started. November 2000. The fixed election. And yes, it was fixed, they made a movie about it - Recount.
The Bush Administration. It wasn't George W. Bush. He didn't have enough intelligence. It was Rove and Cheney and they were/are ruled by people like the Koch Brothers and The Rockefellers. The people with big money. Money talks. George was a pawn in the game, chosen because he was 'likable." "The kind of guy you could have a beer with." And when the numbers didn't get him the win, they manipulated the system and boom, WE ALL ACCEPTED IT!
We accepted this man, even though we knew it was fraud because life was still good. Big screen TVs, new cars, homes, vacations. No one was uncomfortable so no one did anything other than bitch and complain. We made fun of our idiot President and the stupid things that came out of his mouth. This was where our focus was. NOT WHAT WAS GOING ON BEHIND THE SCENES. The bigger picture. The demise of the middle class and ultimately, the American way.
As Americans, we are so easily distracted. We have the attention span of a gnat and when we allow insignificant information like the size of Kim Kardashian's butt or the funny Facebook picture to over-shadow what's really important, we feed the cancer that is killing our beloved American pursuit of happiness. Maybe because it's easier to deal with than the fact we are losing the country we grew up in, that we loved, that offered us promise. Nobody wants to believe this but sticking your head in the sand is not the answer. Pretending everything isn't that bad is only making it worse.
For nine months in 1981, when I was 12, I lived in Moscow Russia. I saw communism with my own eyes. I hear Republicans screaming that Liberals are Socialist and Communist and they've succeeded in making people believe these words have the same definition. They do not. What I observed when I lived in Moscow was that people had NO choice. They were told where to work and how they could live. Seven people squeezed into a one or two bedroom apartment and slept in the kitchen by the stove for warmth. Societies under extreme constraint never last. Ever. It's not equal or fair to the majority and whether it's for economic reasons or because people finally can't take it anymore and decide to revolt, those societies fail. This is slowly happening here. Our choices, our freedoms are, one by one, being stripped away. Extremism NEVER works.
As a country, we have fallen victim to fighting against ourselves rather than uniting and fighting against those who are slowly and very successfully stealing our freedom.
The answer is much simpler than we are allowing it to be. WE are the answer. This is OUR country. What terrifies me is that we are becoming so divided, fighting amongst ourselves and not doing what's important to secure our own and our children's future. We are doing exactly what the ones who are out to cut the middle class want us to do. I honestly don't know if we've gone past the point of no return. Hatred, fear and ignorance are trumping truth, common decency and remembering what this country was supposed to be: a melting pot with people of all colors and all religions. Not just wealthy white Christians.
In February of this year an elderly woman, Hallie Jean Mayes Knauss Culpepper fell and refused to see a doctor because Fox News told her that "Obamacare" had death panels. This woman was not stupid. She had run two businesses in her youth. She was a lifelong Republican and her news source lead her to believe that she was in danger of being killed if she visited a doctor. She died days later. This story proves that we are failing. We are doing ourselves in by refusing to seek the truth and instead believing the propaganda from those who wish to dominate and control everything. Call me paranoid but take a look around people. Our country has changed for the worse in the last ten years and these changes are snowballing.
We can't find jobs, we don't have enough money to pay for our own health insurance, we have extreme debt, both as private citizens and as a nation. We don't trust each other. And it's just getting worse every single day. The GOP is fighting to destroy the middle class. They hate Obama and will do anything, including opposing the very ideas they came up with if Obama decides to move forward with those issues. They call him a “Muslim” to this day and the die-hard Tea Party members refuse to accept his birth certificate as legitimate, providing a platform for extremists like Orly Taitz. Bullies like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter continue to further these lies. Coulter recently suggested that the right should now go after the Obama’s two young girls.
The responsibility lies with the people as a whole. Not an individual. It's not Rick Santorum or Mitt Romney, Ron Paul or even Barack Obama. None of these individuals are going to save this country from what is really happening. It's up to the American people. Either we stop hating each other and come together as a nation to have all the things that make life WORTH living or we continue to stew in our fear, our anger and our hatred and allow victory to those who want to create a country where the rich have all the power and the rest are left to serve. That is Communism. It's a decision YOU make to be tolerant. To work for the greater good for everyone. Otherwise, in ten more years we will be facing a very dim existence where no one is going have any choice, except the very few who have all the money.
I am not saying only the Liberals have the answer. Both parties have flaws. There have always been disagreements by the two parties. Before the Bush Administration, we were able to exist with compromise. Even centerist Republicans are saying their party is out of control and they don't like the direction their party has taken. It's not about Republicans against Democrats or the reverse. Barbara Bush was spot on when she said “I hate that people think compromise is a dirty word." “It’s not a dirty word.”
We all want the same things, no matter what political ideology we have. We all want good health care, an education, a nice home and some security, and then when we're old and no longer able to work, a system in place that takes care of us that we've paid into our whole working lives. Not hand-outs.
Educate yourself with the facts. Vote. Stop hating. Can we do this? Will we do this? Will YOU do this? It's really much simpler than we are making it. But we as a people must wake up and make the change ourselves. Otherwise, Hello Big Brother. Good-bye Freedom.
One person cannot provide the answer. It's each American choosing responsibility. Doing what's right for all of us. Not just a group or an individual. Not just a group or an individual. Vote. Participate. Volunteer and make sure that the GOP doesn’t steal the presidency again.
I ask this of you, if you choose to make a comment, make it productive. You can disagree but be civil and offer what it you can do that's positive and can help us unite rather than keep us divided.
Thank you for reading
Thanks for posting this. I think though that you are stopping short of really describing the situation we are actually facing. I sincerely believe that the Republican Party is not simply misguided with good intentions. I believe that the party seeks nothing less than the collapse of the American State and its replacement by a weak government overrun by transnational corporate power. I believe that the only restraints they have in methods they use to achieve this goal are political. As we saw under W Bush - and also, in the details of all of the economic proposals of the current GOP candidates - there was a demonstrable willingness to drive the country's economy into a ditch. Let us not remember that, when Bush was given the presidency, that we not only had a budgetary surplus, we were on a path to eliminate the national debt altogether in 10-15 years. When Bush came to power, he dishonestly sold his tax cuts with the rhetoric that the surplus only existed because the government "overcharged" citizens. Those talking points, by deliberately avoiding any discussion of the national debt, were intentionally dishonest. While I agree that Bush was ignorant he was not stupid. He knew - and certainly, his puppet masters knew that the effect of his economic policy was going to be to explode the national debt. The intention seems to have been to crash the country on a reef of debt so that this debt could be utilized as a bludgeon to make the dismantling of Medicare and Social Security politically possible. We see, in the current GOP campaigns and in the despicable budget proposals of Paul Ryan, these strategies working themselves towards their conclusions. Let us not forget that, should the GOP achieve its economic and social goals, the quality of life for most Americans will be significantly diminished. Worse, without Medicare and Social Security, we are likely to life expectancies collapse. Without subsidies for higher education and public education in general, we will see the population begin to fall beneath first world standards for literacy - forget about en educated populace ready to compete in the modern world. As if this were not had enough, their willingness to eliminate environmental regulations will certainly result in higher rates of cancers, respiratory and other diseases - for adults and children - at a time when their other policies will make access to basic health care impossible for many Americans. The monstrous reality is that the GOP is eager to impose these hellish realities upon the great majority of Americans in exchange for an oligarchy whose power is completely unchallengeable by democratic governmental force. These are monsters - and should really be called out for what they are.
ReplyDeleteYou're right. I agree.
DeleteActually a gnat has a pretty long attention span, but I agree with just about everything else. Something needs to be done. Unfortunately I feel as long as we continue to have a two party system we will always be divided. The system encourages it. We are using the same system that we've used for 200+ years. The world has changed, but the system has not. If you don't change with the times you get left behind.
ReplyDeleteThis country united after 9/11. Not becuase we were pissed as hell at the terrorists, but because of what happened to so many people. People world wide reached out to us, even our enemys from the past, that brought so many people from every side of the political spectrum and religion. Now because of what happened has also put a huge divide in our nation. We have lost many rights, many things will never be the same again. Now all these years later, we are here playing the blame game, Bush, Obama, Christians, Islam.....etc Kimberley is right and unless we can all come together again we might just be really screwed. Government has lost touch of what the people want or need, Corporations are buying what ever and who ever they want, but yet what is being done about it? OWS had a good idea, Anonamous had a good idea, so whats it going to take to get this country back to some form of normality without inserting religion, politics, or profits? Is it even possible anymore?
ReplyDeleteGood morning Kimberley. You are right it is up to the people to make things right. So many people vote for this person or that person, hoping for a magical fix. The politicians make promises that they really have no control over providing and yet people will look at this person as some sort of God that will snap their fingers and make everything right. It just doesn't happen that way and if we stop and look at some of the problems with our country we have brought them on ourselves. We want things cheap, we buy at the dollar stores products that have been imported from other countries, causing big businesses to move out taking much needed jobs with them. We let big businesses donate money so that they have lower taxes and give them tax breaks. Letting them donate money is fine, but they should only get the tax break for it if they donate to charities in our own country. We have sick, elderly and homeless here that need help too. And last but not least we as a society have let the internet take over our lives. We don't mail hardly anything anymore, causing a breakdown in our postal system and many other companies. We use the internet to pay our bills, do our banking, do shopping, and keep in touch with family and friends. To sum it up we are our own worst enemies.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing you thoughts and views.