I wish the title of this diary was mine. The title belongs to Jim Hightower and an article he wrote that I read on Common Dreams. The article America's True Crisis: Zero Vision, Zero Leadership starts with:
The greatest problem our nation faces can be summed up in one word: leadership. OK, make that three words: lack of leadership.
America's corporate, political, media, academic and other leaders aren't. They're not leaders — because they refuse to stand tall, be bold, offer vision, inspire and ... well, lead. We've got too many 5-watt bulbs sitting in 100-watt sockets. They're squishing the historic can-do spirit of the American people, reducing it to a dispiriting ethic of surrender that says we-shouldn't-even-try.
Jim Hightower is right. But, he fails to see that the lack of leadership starts at the White House and inhabits the entire Democratic Party. I do not expect leadership from republicans. The republican idea of leadership is to fuck up the nation in some weird idea that making the rich richer without producing anything of value will benefit all, when instead it harms all.
Power for the sake of power is harmful and absolute power for the sake of power will destroy the world. Somebody needs to wake up and smell the roses. People who are denied the benefits of productivity get angry, very angry and that anger will destroy us all.
I see all this talk about freedom and I have the immortal words of Patrick Henry, Give me Liberty or give me death emblazoned on my soul. What I want is economic liberty. The liberty to purchase goods. The liberty to produce goods. The liberty to educate. The liberty to be educated. Yeah, a little bit of free speech goes a long way, but give me the liberty to live a healthy and productive life first.
And that is the liberty that is being taken away. Republicans are taking away the liberty to lead healthy productive lives so that a few, a very few, can lead sloth full degenerate perverted lives. Worst of all no one from Fox News to President Obama is proposing any vision different than this. As Hightower says we have "given up on the notion of producing a shared prosperity." Worse we have "a hew normal."
The new normal is that we do not have the liberty to form a union. We do not have the opportunity to receive health care. We do not have the opportunity to receive a fair wage. We do not have the opportunity to live healthy and productive lives.
President Obama has two signature achievements in his first term. The first was the stimulus package. The package almost worked, but the package was not large enough and now the economy is decaying again. We may blame the earthquake in Japan, but the simple fact is the package just was not large enough and no one is willing to admit that and provide leadership.
President Obama's second achievement was health care reform. Guess what? Health care is worse now than before the reform law. States do not have the money to put into Medicaid and people are receiving poorer health care. Prices continue to sky rocket and there is nothing anyone can do.
I hope and pray every day (an I am an atheist) that President Obama will come to his senses. Soon it will be too late. I turn on the news and I hear how the nuclear disaster in Japan is not so bad. Then I hear, oh that oil spill in the gulf was not much, just a little oil slick in a vast ocean. We can always lose a few lives here or there without too much to worry about. And by the way Gaddafi isn't so bad, he just planted bombs on airplanes.
And on and on and on. No vision. This is no way to run a country.