Quote:
Originally Posted by AB517  Your basic premise I agree with.
The USA government is not, and should not be, allowed to do what it wants.
You are correct in saying that we need to be careful with overreaction too.
If I need to elaborate then you just do not understand. That is not so say you are wrong in your beliefs  |
Hmm . . . sounds as if we may be in violent agreement after all. Forgive me if I missed a couple of nuances in your previous posts. I had the impression that you were one of those "my country right or wrong" zealots who indeed get the kind of government they deserve.
I continue to believe that the U.S. is the greatest country on the face of the earth. I'm just very concerned about the direction we're headed. An electorate overloaded with neocons, moneyed interests and the evangelical right that puts a man like George W. Bush in office is, to quote a popular phrase, a clear and present danger. When the same electorate returns him to office for a second term, the disaster it has turned out to be is inevitable.
The 2006 mid-term elections provided a glimmer of hope, but it quickly faded when the Democrats failed to press their numerical Congressional advantage to mitigate some of the damage that continues to be wrought by the White House. That disappointed me, but then I realized that the moneyed interests in this country control both parties, so what could I really expect.
I firmly believe it's time for a new paradigm for America. For many years we could overlook the legalized corruption because the much-maligned trickle-down effect actually worked pretty well. The moneyed interests were so prosperous that the middle class could count on good jobs and the poor could count on the safety net holding them a bit above absolute destitution.
But now, the people who are getting most of the good jobs are in China and India because technology made it possible and we had no choice but to sign on to the global economy. In my estimation, that's neither a good nor a bad thing. It's inevitable for any country with a democratic system of free enterprise.
But increasingly, legalized corruption now becomes much more impactful on the middle class and the poor because there's a lot less wealth domestically to trickle down to them. As such, there will be a leavening process that will result in a rising standard of living for former third-world countries and a diminishing standard of living for us. Consequently, non-economic considerations like civil liberties will become relatively more important. If the only place we can turn for a redress of our civil grievances is a party of the rich and the mindless bible-thumpers on the one hand, and another party of the rich sans bible-thumpers on the other, we stand to end up devoid of both wealth and liberty.
Linear Mode
