Your government -- our government -- doesn't really care about us. The same government that refuses to show the caskets of fallen soldiers (their sacrifices are important, but not that important that they be allowed to affect the ruling party's reign.) Healthcare is your problem. A declining industrial base, meaning that the average American can no longer aspire to a reasonable and comfortable middle-class career, is your problem. The Iraq War is the next generation's problem (to pay for); people are dying for it, but we can't see them. Finally, the Times and other media are starting to notice what I've been griping about for years:
And voters might well wonder why perhaps a half-trillion dollars — about the same amount spent so far in Iraq — is suddenly available to help Wall Street when promises to address issues like health care insurance have gone largely unkept for years.
That's two trillion dollars. One trillion that we spent, and one trillion that could have been spent elsewhere. Now keep in mind I'm not arguing that the bailout is necessarily a bad thing; I'm no expert in the field, by any stretch, and I don't know the full consequences of action, inaction or a combination of both (then again, does anyone?) I am saying that the sudden, tremendous and half-trillion-dollar class response indicates something about priorities of governance. Who matters, who can fail, and who cannot fail, and how obvious reality fails to match up to rhetoric.
Those of you unlucky enough to sit through our dinner parties know this frustration of mine. Notice it now, Americans. They don't care about us. Short of quoting Michael Jackson, and in fact beyond that now, they don't care. They are unwilling to expand big government to meet the human needs that are met by every other industrialized democracy, richer or poorer, yet when big money comes up flailing and freaking out, suddenly half a trillion dollars pops into existence. No more big government! Yet we have a huge military, an unimaginably expensive one, which nevertheless cannot cope with the illogical demands placed upon it by an unchecked, inexperienced, largely draft-dodging administration keen to imagine the solution to every conflict is a war waiting to be won (good luck with that particular one). No more big government! Let the market sort things out. Let us live, in the disappointing phrase of Alan Greenspan, in an "age of turbulence."
Sorry, Mr. Greenspan, but you and your book need to take a damn hike. This 'Age of Turbulence' is fine for fat-cat, super wealthy elites whose turbulence is generally in the air, in a private aircraft. Contrast the character of these champions of Christianity, the supposed political faces of a great faith that deserves far better than them: Contrast them with the people of God, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, who in suffering found a deep and endless compassion for all persons and are so loved, honored and respected for that, centuries later. Now in place of that concern for the weakest in our community, regardless of religion, we have the free-market mantra of putting up with change, even if it puts someone else up in your house. Try actually suffering turbulence, in the atmosphere, without the protective shell of a pressurized cabin, try actually struggling, try watching loved ones go ill for want of health care, children get messed up due to bad school districts, families unable to make ends meet, pay off mortgages and save up cash for little things -- like, say, a vacation now and then, a summer program for a child, counseling or the like.
Age of Turbulence! What arrogance, and what misfortune that only now, after $500 billion of life rafts, the Times is bright-eyed and wide awake enough to notice: The age of turbulence was fine when it meant watching, from a high tower, the miserable jolts that societies across the world were forced to endure as they witnessed, in their own lives, "the birth pangs" of a free-market society or the dislocations of globalization. Country First, but not the actual people in the actual country first. (Actually, we know this from beforehand: Palin thinks understanding Russia means seeing the land; the actual people are an afterthought.) The way so many people globally lost everything, financially and culturally, and were severely dislocated, not just physically, but mentally and financially and spiritually. You can finally understand the unbelievable hubris that characterizes this party and its two terms of tenure: Growth is good, and I'm all for development, an open economy and free trade, but I also believe government and leadership have a purpose.
These few however are so full of macho rhetoric and high-handed advice, for things they have rarely, if ever, actually experienced (McCain, I must say, is a great exception, in that he actually went to fight; still, though, he sides with them and lives like them and is absorbed into their ethos); then when their circle is threatened -- a circle of elites -- then the age of turbulence is entirely forgotten. Then it matters what the government can do, and too much is never enough. But eight years is more than enough. It's time for a government that lets us grow, but helps us set priorities and pushes growth in the right direction. Time for smarter investments, regulations and humane protections, for we, the people, who constitute the country, and are not just found on it, little specks just barely visible from an unpeopled, lifeless mental island far, far away, like looking from Alaska to the Outside and missing the points, all of them... all of us...
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