[gethane]

http://www.alternet.org/story/18954

I am just vibrating in disgust. Yes, I could "feel" that these things were true. Just watching the news, watching bush speak, its pretty clear we're a country of "haves" and "screw you, you don't matter"

Seeing it all layed out in a speech like this is stunning, even to me, someone who thought it was happening anyway. Don't read if you don't want to get upset. Don't comment if you don't read the whole thing.

 

[TiredX2]

Quote:

The middle class and working poor are told that what's happening to them is the consequence of Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand." This is a lie. What's happening to them is the direct consequence of corporate activism, intellectual propaganda, the rise of a religious orthodoxy that in its hunger for government subsidies has made an idol of power, and a string of political decisions favoring the powerful and the privileged who bought the political system right out from under us.

Thanks for the article.

 

[RachelGS]

Amazing speech. I feel so awful about the direction our country has taken.

 

[gethane]

There's so much I want to say, but what IS there to say that he didn't already say in that speech?

I'm just nauseous about it. I wonder about my obligation to my children. Now that my eyes are being more fully opened about the sickness that is materialism and that has taken over our country, am I being a bad parent to not work towards moving them to a more enlightened country? But what about the grandparents.. surely those are more important... on and on. I don't know what to think right now.

 

[librarymom]

Good points Gethane. That's how I felt when I read your link. What a great and powerful speech. Thanks for the link.

 

[daylily]

I was nodding my head throughout the whole thing, but this was news to me:

Quote:

Some of you will remember that Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan tried to warn us 20 years ago, when he predicted that President Ronald Reagan's real strategy was to force the government to cut domestic social programs by fostering federal deficits of historic dimensions. Reagan's own budget director, David Stockman, admitted as such. Now the leading rightwing political strategist, Grover Norquist, says the goal is to "starve the beast" -- with trillions of dollars in deficits resulting from trillions of dollars in tax cuts, until the United States Government is so anemic and anorexic it can be drowned in the bathtub.

So that's why Bush is so unconcerned about the cost of this war, the cost of stopping the mail b/c of Reagan's death, the cost of all his tax cuts....

 

[TiredX2]

Yup, if there is a big enough deficit, eventually all tax income will go towards intrest and all social programs will face huge cuts. Definatley the plan

 

[Dov]

I've come to admire Bill's truth-telling. Unfortunately it's in short supply and we're going to face at minimum four more years of it with either major party's "candidates."

Einstein is famed for saying, "The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them." Until Americans behave and act politically in 3-D instead of 2-D, we'll always have a 2-D elite ruling a ruined 3D world. Change scares the hell out of human beings. But change makes American humans bloodthirsty to kill whomever dares to even suggest it.

Pessimistic, I know, but I'll be optimistic when the status-quo enablers start going to therapy.

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