Crossposted from Hillbilly Report.
It is no secret to many of us that this country has needed a Progressive direction to correct many of the problems it faces for some time now. I was born in 1970 and have seen exactly three Democratic Presidents in my life. The damage done by Conservative Presidents has been disasterous, and the Democrats elected have seemed to only keep us running around in circles while no real change is imminent to repair the damage.
One need only look at the last election to see the fallacy of fighting for Progressive change. We had a failed, Corporate Conservative President for eight years who had his every wish rubber-stamped by a horrible do-nothing good Congress that allowed Corporate America to fleece the American worker and greedily pick our economy clean crashing it for the average American while bailing out the bankers that caused most of the problems just before George W. Bush left office.
We have a culture that believes in outsourcing our middle-class jobs to virtual slave markets where even children are not spared from working long hours for almost no pay. All so greedy Corporations in our country and abroad can make huge profits and prosperity they in turn have no interest in sharing with those that made those profits possible. In fact, they have done all they can to break down the unions in America, which are the greatest hope for Americans to achieve fair wages and benefits, hence the middle-class.
We have had two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that we all know need to be ended. We have invested over a trillion dollars on these wars, not even to mention the human toll of thousands of our young folks and countless more thousands of innocent civilians in those countries whose crime was to be caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. While it can be argued we did have reason to go to Afghanistan because al-Queda appears to have staged attacks from there the truth is we missed our window of opportunity long ago to avenge the 9-11 attacks and let Osama bin Laden walk away free, seemingly never to be brought to justice.
We also faced a huge healthcare crisis of cost and coverage in this country. Despite spending more than any other country on healthcare, we have millions that are not covered and much of that money is completely wasted. Instead of realizing that it is time to invest in our own country and do what it takes to cover these folks we are now mired in an argument as to how much Corporate Welfare we will dole out to the very people so instrumental in causing the problem.
Progressives are running around in circles in this country. While we thought last year we had won our victory and would finally begin to correct some of the many wrongs and injustices in this country we were definately fooled. We mustered energy and money for that victory which now is alluding us once again.
We are nowhere near passing or even debating the Employee Free Choice Act which would make it easier for the millions of Americans who want to join a union and bargain for a better life to do so. Even if we were to debate it, the same corporate Democrat traitors that are killing real healthcare reform would be right there to strip it down to nothing. They never would consider changing any of the trade deals that have raped the American worker and outsourced their jobs either.
Instead of bringing our troops home in victory with their mission accomplished, a fate they have earned we are now talking about escalating in another country with no end in sight to the death and wasted treasure there. Yes, Progressives worked, contributed, and voted to continue a failed policy by a failed leader and now our own leader seems determined to inherit that failure and put his name on it.
Even more depressing is the debate on healthcare. We can spend hundreds of billions and possibly over a trillion dollars blowing up and rebuilding two other countries, but our own people in our own country simply are not worth helping by providing real healthcare reform that does more than fatten the already fat. The debate over how to help those who are uninsured or underinsured even under Democrats has become a debate on how to scare the hell out of those very people who now will not be able to afford insurance still, and will have to pay a fine for not having it.
Being Progressive in this country is just running around in circles. Progressives have plenty of guts to fight for what we believe in, but unfortunately we have very few people we elect that we can believe in. Despite all our efforts and hope, our leaders really care little about our ideals, hopes, or dreams for this country. They have been bought and paid for, and for Progressives we were not the highest bidders.
Let us hope once again that one day there will be real change in this country and honest folks elected to serve who will fight to bring it about.