Thoughts on the America that used to be

It is amazing to consider that the right wing voters in our country still believe the wealth will "trickle down"--even though the wealthy "elite" have made sure it never will.  Now that those elitists own our country and all our so-called "representatives" (who represent only those who have bought them--guess who?), they will continue to call the shots for the rest of us, as the poor get poorer and the middle class disappears into oblivion. But conservative right-wingers will continue to vote against their own interests. Obliviously on they sail, not noticing our ship of state is being steered by their party to its ultimate destruction--on the rocks of unlimited power and greed.  The warnings of one of the Republican heroes, Dwight D. Eisenhower, went unheeded by the members of his party.  Apparently blind, they don't recognize a difference between him--and Reagan, the Bushes/Cheney and today's right wing presidential candidates.

http://www.truth-out.org/i-pledge-allegiance-pole/1309419020

I Pledge Allegiance to the Pole
By William Rivers Pitt

EXCERPT: I remember everything we aren't supposed to remember anymore. Things like "Free Trade" isn't free at all, that the "Free Market" is just another way to screw me and you out of a lifetime of labor and saving - might as well scrape the sweat off my brow and drink it right in my face - but be sure to vote for the Republican when you hit the voting booth, because we are all going to be rich like him someday. The American Dream says so, and as it turns out, so does he.

Funny how that works out. For him. Not so much for us.

Maybe I'm just a bad person. A bad American. A bummer. After all, it is a great country if you're rich, or white, or employed, but God help you if you're gay and in love, or a member of a Union, or a public-sector employee, or a teacher, because apparently this whole Godawful mess is on your head.

Never mind the bankers and the mortgage-lenders, never mind the hedge-fund hucksters, and for sure never mind the whores, frauds and snake-oil salesmen of our illustrious House and Senate who, in Congress after Congress and year after year, happily re-wrote the rules again and again so as to let the rabbits guard the lettuce...no, no. Shhh....

Never mind eight years of idiot rule by an idiot "president" empowered by an idiot "mainstream" news media. Never mind the two wars and two tax-cuts-for-rich-people that are basically every reason we are down in this ditch...but shhh....shhh...we don't talk about that.

Every single "responsible" person in the American power structure went along with what Mr. Bush was selling, because he peddled it neatly between solemn lines about how terrible 9/11 was for everyone...and now that the bill for Mr. Bush's bullshit has come due, and come due with a lethal, nation-shattering vengeance, all those "responsible" people are suddenly looking around like someone trying to avoid getting the check at the restaurant at the end of the night.

I remember America, and it was not always like this.

Pretty soon now, the fireworks are going to go off, and the Souza march will play, and the flag will be unfurled, and we will all be joined in an act of habitual adulation of God and country. We will cheer what was, and what was supposed to be, here in the ashes and dregs of what is. We will pledge allegiance to something that has been sold on the cheap right out from under us.

Want to know who really celebrates the Fourth of July? Look for the smiling ones in the limousines on Beacon Hill and Madison Avenue, the ones who raise toasts to their unimaginably bright future on the broken back of your American Dream. Pomp and circumstance, roll the fireworks, lights out, good night. They got their bailout, right?

I'm sure it must be nice to sleep so well.