Tune into your local news and you’ll see it. Seriously when did the United States become a third world country? Okay maybe I am exaggerating a bit, but not by much.
First and foremost, we have this economic crisis. While I do understand some of the hard times, I really don’t get how it got this way so fast. A week or so ago some financial institutions were failing and some people were losing their jobs, but those companies had made bad business decisions, times are tough, so it goes. Fast forward to the end of last week and the US economy is in ruins, all financial institutions are in dire straits, and all that can help us is for the government to “invest” $700 billion, otherwise we will be in a depression by Monday when the Asian markets open. The worst part is that normally this would be political fear mongering in order to get a bill passed, but that was not the case this time. Monday came, the bill did not pass, and the Dow dropped almost 800 points, the most in history (by points, not percentage, but still).
I also look on the news and see that people in the southeast don’t have any gas. WTF?!? Seriously, do you know how much attitude that I would be coping if my local gas station did not even have $4/gallon gas to sell me! Atlanta has a lot of Black people so I am sure an a-bomb (attitude bomb) is going off (I can get away with such racially insensitive comments)! I swear, this is not the 70s. Apparently this is also not the America that I know… and love.
The whole economic situation is whacked. I don’t really agree with the principles of the bailout, that America can invest and ride out the waves until the market gets back to normal, and will eventually get most or all of the money back. Conceptually okay, but in reality I do not think they would get most of the money back. However, that is not what concerns me about the vote. What concerns me is that this was pretty much seen by everyone as the only way to avert crisis, and most of the representatives felt that we probably should pass it. However, they did not vote for it because it was unpopular with their constituents and elections are in a few short weeks, and because Nancy Pelosi shamed the Republican economic policy so Republicans had to pout (although 60% of Democrats voted to pass the bill in comparison to 30% of Republicans).
I know that you have to represent the views of your constituents, but what happened to doing what you believe is right? Why is politics now a ridiculous game of polls and spin. That used to be reserved for the strip club. Honestly I feel sometimes like people just want to say what “sounds good” or won’t get them in trouble instead of speaking the truth and doing what is in the best interest of the country. In fact I think that is a major contributing factor to the situation that we’re currently in.
I work in advertising so I know that people respond to empty tag lines like, “Lowering taxes,” and “The War on Terror,” and “Spreading Democracy Throughout the World,” and “Enduring Freedom.” However, when you have spent over $500 BILLION on a war that you expected to last only a couple of weeks (we’re 5 years in), you need taxes to pay for it. Fighting a war on terror is great conceptually, but fighting against a concept is a losing battle, as it was with Communism, because the concept will always exist. Instead fight again the physical, bad manifestations of that concept, such as Bin Laden or countries creating nuclear weapons. If we want to spread Democracy, why don’t we start with the US since it is not a true democracy, or socialist France, parliamentary England, or Monaco’s “hop, skip, and a jump away from dictatorship” constitutional monarchy? Other systems do work and we need to pay credence to that, particularly as ours is failing in terms of stability. Don’t even get me started on Enduring "Freedom"...
All I am saying is that America is a great country, but we are starting to lose a lot of the things that made us great. We think largely only of our individual selves, and not in the larger context of the country, let alone the world. Apathy has left us as carcasses for the vulturous spin doctors of politics. So many fought and died across the centuries for us to be apart of the decision making of this country and to build it to be the super power of the world, and we don’t even care enough to educate ourselves in order to make informed decisions. Most have no idea that America is no longer seen as the rich, sexy, supermodel of the world that everyone wants to take to the after party, but rather is now seen as the hot tranny mess that need we need to put in a cab home while making apologize to the Arabic cab driver (too much?).
Anyway, point is we need to get it together. Stop cross-dressing, go to rehab, and build back up your credit by stop spending money on bars and blow, tranny America. If you are lucky enough to have more money than you need, stop being a douchebag by hording and coveting even more, and screwing the rest of the American people. If you want to be a representative of the people of this country, get some balls (or hardy ovaries) and stand up for what you think is right and have honest discussions about your differences of opinion instead of slinging mud, or speaking in vague, non-committing language. If you don’t really care about public policy and the world around us, let’s put you on that MTV Exiled show, send you to North Korea for a week, and see how much you “don’t care”. I love crap television as much as if not more than the next guy, but if it makes it easy for you, think of the news as a reality TV show. You do not need to listen to me, but let’s see where the great US of A goes if we do not heed these warnings.
