I'm normally a pretty cheerful person, but you wouldn't know from what I write about. I attend to the details of my life with pleasure, glad to be as lucky as I am. I have a good job, with health insurance, doing something that I think helps society overall. I have a wife I love and kids that make me proud.
So what is it that's hanging over my head?
When the war with Iraq began, I finally recognized a turning point in our history (as Americans). We had embarked down the road of our destiny, that of empire on its downward road. Too many events in concurrence with one another have convinced me of it.
The corruption of the leadership in corporations revealed in the late 90's/early `00's stunned me. I won't say that I didn't expect there to be no corruption, but the level of it is staggering. Now we have confirmation that Enron conspired to rob us (and if you lived on the West coast in 2000, you were robbed, same as if you had invested in the company, like many pension funds of moderately paid public employees were). From the transcripts of Enron traders, they reveled in it. I work with many small public schools in the west and most of them are serviced by public utility districts. These public utility districts buy electricity from the Bonneville Power Association. In 2000, the BPA signed agreements to buy wholesale electricity at prices inflated by the market manipulation in California. In return, the BPA increased its wholesale rates by 40% to public utility districts. The public utility districts have had several rate increases since then. All the little public school districts I work with have laid off people, in part to be able to pay inflated electricity costs. So, Enron's criminal activity has had an impact on public school students. Do they even consider that when they are conspiring to steal from Grandma? Following the energy crisis in 2000, this rampant corruption spread throughout service industries like accounting, investment brokerage, banking. Elaborate schemes designed to steal from those who could least afford it (you and me). I have to admire their cunning.
This is significant, because the leadership of these multinational corporations is inextricably intertwined with the leadership of our government agencies. It is now becoming quite clear that the highest levels of our federal government reflect the heartless corruption embodied by Enron.
And then our government presented a false case to you and me and 70% of us supported going to war with Iraq. Not that it mattered. The decision to invade Iraq again was made long before 2000. Like I wrote above, I eventually came to believe that American civilization had reached its apex. I thought that it would take a while for the decline to become evident. I even held out hope that our course could be reversed when I worked for Howard Dean (sweet, innocent, naïve me), but lost it when the media savaged him and the voters rejected him in New Hampshire. And that loss was compounded when the pictures started coming from Abu Ghraib. The leadership of our nation is so corrupt that it is beyond the desire for money. They have so much of it now that the thirst for spreading shit on humans in ankle cuffs has replaced the thirst for wealth. They are without bounds and fulfilling their most craven desires. They have lost their humanity. Now they can purchase a human life! They seem to be really cheap in the Middle East right now!
So we shot our load in Iraq and we are completely corrupt. Our economy is based on the consumption of oil, a resource becoming more rapidly finite. We could have had leadership that refused to participate in a war and take a forward step by investing in a massive public works program, developing a clean renewable energy source and all the ways to use it. But America decided to throw itself backwards. I'm worried about what the future holds for my kids.