Today’s America?
Tobacco and nicotine addiction. RoundUp. Young adults saddled with enormous student loan debt. Opioid addiction. Racism. Constant War. WMD’s. Patchwork “health”care plans. Pre-existing conditions. Monopolization of all media. Unregulated, unrestricted and unlawful use of social media. 1% controlling 99% of the $$$ and the population. Climate change denial by Gas and Oil. Massive extinction including mammal, fish, insect and plant species. Destruction of the Rule of Law. Destruction of the Oceans and the melting of both Polar Caps. All this in my lifetime.
Loss of pensions, stagnant wages, no more profit-sharing, unfunded City pensions for fire/police and other safety workers. Tax cuts for the ultra-rich. Fracking and Earthquakes. Unfunded social security. Unfunded education. Unfunded Medicare. Unfunded Medicaid. Less regulation of Big Business including, but not limited to, Boeing’s latest disaster(s). Wage disparities between men and women. War on women’s healthcare options. Destruction of unions of all kinds, leading to wage loss, “health”care loss, investment loss and a less stable retirement for the elderly. Government sanctioned cruelty to immigrants both legal and otherwise. All this in my lifetime.
I am served, (and so are YOU), at many local restaurants and local businesses by people who have no healthcare and no social safety nets. No dental care. No vision care. People who work two and three jobs to make “ends meet”. People who laugh when the word “retirement” is mentioned and say “I’ll never be able to retire. I’ll have to work until I die”. Meanwhile, I read about the tiny minority of ultra-wealthy who buy their children’s way to a bright future while the other 99% of American Society, including working single parents, hope to somehow get their kids to whatever crappy public school is still available in shattered neighborhoods, with no decent public transportation and no $$$ to buy, service or insure a vehicle.
This is NOT the America I said my Pledge of Allegiance to. This is NOT the America that went to the Moon. This is NOT the America that helped win WW I and WW II. This unhinged shock and horror-show from it’s infancy in the 1960’s to today’s blatant assault on the Rule of Law is a war being waged on the United States by the ultra-rich that is every bit as destructive as any other war we’ve faced and yet here we sit. Picking each other’s proposed “solutions” apart. Using Perfection in our own ranks to prevent the application of that which is Good in our daily national governance.
It’s time to scrape off the shit that’s stuck to the heel of our political shoes through vigorous Campaign Finance Reform and take a clean step forward to support the Common Good. Time to build a better future for all Americans. Time to Stand Together and Support each other. It makes me sick to say that no one political party allowed all this harmful activity to happen during my lifetime. What allowed it to happen was “The love of money” which, as we have all been told numerous times, is the “root of all evil”. It’s the one fact that we should accept and fight against through good governance, fair taxation for everybody and increased regulation on banks and big business.