What's Really Going On?

            President Obama promised hope we could believe in. He promised transparency, a rejection of the Patriot Law that essentially stripped many civil rights from ALL Americans in order to win the war on terror. Yet we are still conducting military tribunals on people that we are not even sure are terrorists at all, in complete secrecy. Were they terrorists or just in the wrong place at the wrong time? We are being stonewalled completely as to what is going on at Gitmo, so much for change.

            On top of all this we are in the 9^th year of the Afghan War that has deteriorated into a quagmire at best. Most Afghan citizens do not know what happened on 9/11/01 so most of them have no idea why the most powerful nation in the world is invading/disrupting their lives. Whether the invasion was justified or not we have to ask ourselves if 20% of Afghanistan has no clue why we are there in the first place, can we fault them for being enraged when their sons, daughters, fathers or mothers are killed by foreigners? What exactly are we doing over there if the native people don’t know? And this is supposed to be what winning "hearts and minds" is all about? During WWII the French knew exactly why we were invading their country and they welcomed us as liberators (yes that was a dig against Rumsfeld). Is the Afghan War a debacle on purpose or by accident? I don’t know and I don't know which would be worse.

            While back in America the majority of us are struggling to pay our bills and not succumb to the weight of depression, debt and unemployment. We spend billions of dollars to warmonger yet our politicians are wringing their hands about what programs to cut that will surely leave the most helpless of our citizens defenseless and relegated to die alone and poor. Do we want to be known as the originator of the military industrial complex or a nation that honored the promise we made to our citizens decades ago? Why should we suffer so some Wall Street wife can get a bailout of millions when she is already a millionaire? Why is socialism for the rich accepted but socialism for the middle class and poor characterized as hand-outs?

            Where is the action for the American poor? Madison, WI showed up, so did others but when are we going to say to our politicians, “We know you are lying to us you only want what is best for your corporate bosses and we will have no more of it?!” Who wants some action! The arts (music, movies, literature) that usually lead to social change (RIP Langston Hughes) have been co-opted and bought by the very same corporations that are economically enslaving us. Few artists escape this trap and speak the truth and give us hope.

            The legal system has a hard on for convicting and destroying peoples lives for profit, not justice. A casual study of our legal system will prove this is true. Overpaid jesters/celebrities distract us from the fact that the wealthty want more wealth and want us to struggle with less. The pundits are mouthpieces to make us focus on tertiary non-sense instead of what matters. Our differences in this country are not racial or gender based they are socio-economic, if you are a have you are down with the haves, if you are a have-not you are shunned to only to socialize and be forgotten with the rest of the have-nots. We all sit by and let banks, oil barons, etc. take advantage of maids, teachers and other hard working Americans for profit and what do we say? That’s the free market. The free market is bankrupting this country. Democrats and Republicans know this and benefit greatly from it, that’s why they staunchly defend it. Ask yourself; if 2% of Americans own 60% of the wealth how does that benefit the rest of us? The natural human compulsion of greed compels us to want more, we have an economic system that feeds this need and right now greed is consuming compassion, that is what is happening now. Turn off the news and research yourself; we are not near an economic collapse in this country. The wealthy just want more and they don’t want to give up more, they want us to. Who’s ready for some action?!