I grew up in an America that had a place, a job for everyone, regardless of intelligence. I traveled from town to town and often began my first day in a new city by showing up at Manpower, or something like it, where you lined up and got sent for a day or a week to some warehouse or plant that needed a little extra help. The first time I showed up at Manpower and was told one must have an address, a phone, and a car in order just to apply was a shock to me. The first time I went to downtown Seattle for a cheap hotel and found the city "gentrified" beyond my pocketbook was a surprise.
So, as Congress took our tax dollars and used some to finance the stimulus packages, we only hear of "abuses" of the Obama administration. But the job flight from America began as far back as the eighties and much of it was financed by us, the job losers. We pay our share of taxes, the super-rich people and corporations don't. Period.
We've been lied to and our money has been stolen. So, some nuts join militias, some join nutty churches, many of the young just don't want to hear about politics - all these people are in denial. Denial of the fact that our government, as George Carlin so famously said, "... is a club, and you ain't in it." Federal education plans create jobs for top level advisors, administrators, and "administrative fees" that states and schools skim off before a single dime gets to the teacher or student. We admire ALL veterans (many from afar), yet do not protest the misuse of their lives and limbs in needless wars.
I believe the only answer to all these problems is sunlight. I want to know where every f...... dollar goes. If, all of a sudden, every government expenditure was exposed, it would overwhelm us, but in small groups and individually, we could figure it out. My old school district voted on "voucher number 111, for general student services" - things with no real meaning, and this is just a local school district. Secrecy is our enemy. Audit the Fed! Expose exactly how much money is spent on the CIA + the NSA + "Homeland Security" + all the secret-holding bodies in our government and military! Expose it and make them explain how all those trillions of dollars did not stop 9/11!
Make every millionaire professional team owner PAY for their own damn stadiums! Stop the use of eminent domain for private gain! No more "pay to play" politics! No more private jails! No more locking up of non-violent offenders who committed no crime against people or property! Let's wake up! So we thought Obama would do all this for us in one term and now we're disappointed. Waaaah. Let's grow up and take back America! For starters one must decide which party has done the most harm and which party has the ONLY members in Congress with any sense of fairness and justice at all! Sure, now, it's the Republicans who dreamed up this mess and it's yellow-dog Democrats who went along, but there's only one way out. We must reelect Obama. We must deny the Republicans. Then, we can work on the future - a future that includes well-paid professional teachers in public schools, degrees that mean something beside massive debt incurred, jobs in America - such an overflow of jobs that a person can walk into a city and at least be cleaning floors or unloading trucks the next day!
Unfortunately, POLITICS is the only way we have to cause change. And politics is not fun, it's not partying, damn it, it's a party. And Democrats from Obama down are the only hope for now. We've still got a lot of work to do after Obama. I'd like to look back some day and say, "He was a great centerist president who ran two Republican wars, and, thank God, our last centerist president."
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