Friday, December 07, 2012

Please Wake Me...


Please wake me when something actually happens, when the six year-olds that seem to be in charge of the Republican Party finally are forced to face reality and are made to do something positive for our nation. You know, those six year-olds that have been bribed by the obscenely wealthy to insure they can be made even more obscenely wealthy. The same six year-olds that, along with their MSM allies, want us to believe they are engaging in something called “government,” when in fact they are actually engaged in a giant criminal conspiracy to convert taxpayer money into more and more wealth for the upper 2% of the population. We have had quite enough of posturing, pretending, procrastination, prostitution, and prevarication. We are now well enough aware that the upper 2% are not truly “job creators” and their pretense to be such is nothing more than an example of propaganda at its worst.
I find it almost unbelievably ridiculous that we are arguing over whether or not the fantastically wealthy should be an additional 3 or 4% more in taxes when we could be arguing they should be paying far more as they have traditionally done. Taxes on the wealthy are apparently at an all time low and over time have fluctuated at times from the current percent to as much as 90% during the Eisenhower administration. At a time when we desperately need more revenue this argument over a small percentage of revenue from individuals so wealthy they probably wouldn’t even notice it (unless their team of tax lawyers pointed it out to them) is, frankly, mystifying, if not just plain silly. Four percent may seem a lot of money to those of us who do not have it, but it is basically just “chump change” to those who do. As those, mostly in the Tea Party, who oppose raising taxes on the wealthy are not themselves all that wealthy, I can only surmise their motivation for resisting increases must have to do with their being bribed to do the bidding of those who are bribing them to resist. Or, perhaps, they are in fact stupid enough to believe that government can exist and fulfill its obligations without collecting taxes. Even worse, they may believe government has no obligations to its citizens and should just stand by and watch them suffer and die. Their philosophy seems to be merely, “he who has, gets” (and he who don’t have don’t get). It’s the Republican way!
I find it more than merely curious that you often hear some people claim that the only way to solve the deficit is to cut “entitlements,” Medicare, Medicaid, Food stamps, unemployment insurance, even Social Security (that has nothing to do with the deficit). You rarely hear anyone seriously mention the defense budget which apparently gobbles up fully fifty percent of our taxes and is so outrageously overfunded as to be completely absurd. I honestly believe we could cut this bloated gift to the military/industrial/political complex by 50% and not be any the less safe. No other nation on earth is about to attack us with a developed war machine, we have no earthly use for tanks and other heavy ordinance, and the threats we do face come from small bands of terrorists rather than militarized nations. The money we spend on defense is only partly for defense and mostly to enrich the corporations that are engaged in manufacturing war equipment we don’t really need. Furthermore, we certainly no longer need to maintain troops in places like Germany and Japan and most of the other somewhere around 150 other bases around the world. Nor do we need to hand Israeli 3 or 4 billion or more a year.
And speaking of Israel, is no one, not even the majority of nations that oppose their criminal behavior, going to ever reign them in? In full view of the entire world Israel is committing war crimes, stealing land that belongs to the Palestinians, herding Palestinians into Gaza where they are kept in prison-like conditions, assassinating their leaders at will, bombing innocent civilians, and so on, and deliberately blocking any genuine attempt at a just settlement with them. Our shame is that we are deliberately aiding them in their criminal behavior.  Will it never end? It appears probably not. We prefer, I guess, to continue our sanctions on Iranian civilians, especially children, apparently because we believe the Israelis when they falsely claim Iran is a danger not only to them but to the entire world. I am still living in fear of Iranian missiles, submarines, battleships, and landing craft. What a bunch of absolute crap! There will never be peace in the Middle East until Israel is “curbed.” Unfortunately, the only nation that could curb them would be the U.S., which prefers to join them. 
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.

No comments: