America the simple

Simple-minded that is.

I suppose it's possible that America has always been filled with stupid people, in fact it's lkely now that I think about it, but I would think we would have progressed to the point that we would acknowledge the need to be able to reason, to look at our problems as a society and see them for what they are, and also to see their origins.

Yet, here we are in yet another election cycle and Rick Santorum, the heinous, egregious, simple-minded buffoon that he is, is winning primaries.  Whoda thunk it?

Yet again we're being sold a bill of goods and we're buying it as fast as the GOP candidates can dish it out. 

Yes there are likely more Americans than ever before receiving a government check each month, either from Social Security, or welfare, or food stamps or unemployment.  But why aren't we asking why? 

Instead of blaming the victims, instead of looking at neighbors as villains, why aren't we looking at true cause and effect?

The economy ceased to exist in 2007.  Whose fault was that?  Was it mine in that I held a good job, paid my taxes, and bought a new car when I was supposed to?  Was it the previous owner of my new house who had faithfully played by the rules, saved up for a down-payment and sold himself into indentured servitude to a mortgage company for 30 years, and who then, when the fake economy stopped working lost his job and saw his mortgage payments triple in less than 18 months?  Was it those who had saved all their working lives to be able to retire in relative comfort and live their golden years in peace? 

No!  It was not their fault.  It's not the fault of those who tried to hang on either.  Those who continued to attempt to keep up with their mortgages, with their lives, with their dreams of a college education for their children, by draining their life savings to honor their commitment to a mortgage, or a credit card or a car loan.  Only then to find themselves hopelessly deadlocked in mortal combat with Countrywide, or Bank of America, or Washington Mutual or any of the other companies who exploited them with far too risky bets on THEIR future. 

Yes! Our government failed us.  It failed to protect us, it failed to see to it that the American Dream we're all chasing was ours to have and to hold.  But it didn't fail us on Barack Obama's watch.

It failed us long before that. 

The George Bushes of this world would never have been possible if it weren't for the Ronald Reagans of this world.  They stole our dreams, all the while selling us theirs.  All the while telling us that what they were doing by deregulating the markets and airlines and Oil Companies and everything else they loosed on our checkbooks was to our benefit.  Pish!  It was for their benefit, theirs and those they served, who took all our money and then told us to go lay down and die because we can't afford to buy medical care that should be ours for the asking.

This is not the America i grew up in.  It's  not the country that we were taught as children that we could expect to live our lives in safety and comfort. 

It's the America of 100 years ago, of 150 years ago.  Hell, it's the Britain of the middle ages in which serfs bowed to the landed gentry because they could exile you into the countryside to starve to death because they  no longer  wished to allow you their largess and to have food and shelter. 

This is an America in which we are now forced to fight for our very right to exist. 

If we want something those in power don't want us to have, we're denied.  If we love someone they don't think we should according to their "morals," we're denied.

The pendulum swings to and fro.  It's been swinging in the wrong direction for most Americans for almost half a century, and in the last two years it began swinging in the opposite direction.  It's still swinging and we can direct its course. 

Tell those who hate, who would have us live in a "free market" society, that we  know such things no longer exist.  Tell them that YOU exist and that you have the right as a human being on this earth to love the person your heart tells you is right.  Tell them that thinking Americans exist, that preying on our fears and religious bigotry will no longer serve the world in which you want to live. Tell them that the American dream still lives in our hearts and minds and that we will fight for our right to have our piece of it.

Stand up!

And so it goes.