I Think I've "Had it"

I think maybe I’ve “had it” at long last. I seem to have lost interest in blogging and, in fact, in just about everything that is going on, or not going on, as the case may be. It is possible, I suppose, that this is a result of my increasing age, but I think the answer lies elsewhere. As I saw in a recent poll only about 25% of citizens have a positive attitude toward our government, perhaps I am not alone in my ennui.

I mean, like, nothing happens, certainly nothing positive. Try to close Guantanamo, nothing happens. Try to raise the minimum wage, nothing happens. Try for gun control, nothing happens. Try to deal reasonably with Iran, nothing happens. Try to curb Israeli expansion, nothing happens. Try, try, try, nothing happens.

The late President George W. Bush and his puppet master, Dick Cheney, are both alive and well, having committed horrendous war crimes, boast about it and nothing happens. Banks rip off the public with a regularity that is mind-boggling, nothing much happens other than a modest fine that means nothing. Huge oil companies make record profits, pay no taxes, nothing happens. The wealthy stash trillions overseas, nothing happens. The enormous gap between rich and poor expands constantly, nothing happens.

Well, you might say, President Obama is trying to change things. I’m afraid I have at last lost confidence in him as well as in most everything else. It’s true he says the right things but he doesn’t really make much of an effort. For example, suggesting a raise in the minimum wage to $9 an hour is not a serious attempt, when adjusting for inflation it ought to be somewhere in the vicinity of $20 an hour. Similarly, trying to raise taxes on multi-millionaires and billionaires by 2 or 3 percentage points is pathetically inadequate. Probably getting not much at all in the way of gun control even with 90% of the public behind him is equally pathetic. He refuses to even try to curb the genocidal Israelis, merely mumbling from time to time they should stop the settlements, apparently just putty in the hands of the criminal Netanyahu. He persists in his increasingly belligerent approach to Iran even though it is completely unproductive and is harming the civilian population rather than the leadership. His record on civil liberties and secrecy is appalling even though he keeps making soothing noises about transparency.

It has gotten to the point now in our country that it is impossible to find the truth about anything, our “leaders” lie constantly, have no interest in promoting the public interest, and simply do the bidding of their corporate masters who shamelessly bribe them. Obama talks a good game when it comes to green energy but has not done much to bring it about, talks about improving our superstructure, schools, and etc., but has apparently joined the austerity bandwagon that is completely contrary to what he preaches. His attempt to attack Social Security is not only a betrayal of everything he promised but the fulfillment of the Republican dream of 70 years. In short, it appears that Obama has sold out to the same capitalistic interests that now control virtually everything.  He talks of protecting the middle class while shoveling money to the corporations and the already filthy rich.

I feel I have now a ringside seat to the demise of the United States. Where once we led the world now we are lagging behind, when once we were the lone superpower now we can’t even defeat people with rifles and hand grenades, when once we were the richest nation on earth we are even falling behind on that score, and when once we could claim moral superiority (however perhaps unjustly) we have surrendered that through our war crimes and support for the equally criminal Israelis. Our much touted “free market capitalism” is failing miserably.

Karl Marx may have been very wrong about communism but he was right about capitalism “sowing the seeds of its own destruction.” We are watching that process at this very moment.