The Age of Cashing It In
We entered a new era in the history of the United States, oh, about thirty years ago. This era was certainly cheered into existence by the great moralist Ronald Reagan, but creating it was not his work. It was brough into its miserable existence by rich sociopaths that financed our country's political life, who decided that two hundred odd years of building a country was long enough, and it was now their right to cash in the chips. Life was for ME and life was for NOW, and whoever comes after me could just take care of themselves. Time for the greatest smash and grab robbery in history.
So, we stopped investing in roads and public transit, except in a few loony hippy places like Los Angeles. We stopped running our healthcare system for the benefit of patients, and just used it as one more profit center to suck dry. We ran our mortgage loan system, instead of a way to build stable communities, as one more opportunity to steal from the gullible. We did the same thing with our schools, turning them from a public amenity into a corporate fraud. A lot of us seem to want to plunder the Social Security system, destroying one of the great features of a stable society, in order to steal the money. The same goes for Federal land, even our national parks, which are now to be sold off to whoever can make the most money out of them.
And in the "private sector-" our people's ability to provide for their families has been sacrificed for quick profits earned on the backs of beaten down foreign laborers. Then, when all of the jobs are leeched out of places like Detroit, we blame their residents for the inevitable economic collapse. Our investment system has turned from a way for people with a little money to provide for their future, to a gigantic scheme in which Wall Street robs the collected resources of the rest of the country. We ignore climate change, which threatens to wipe out civilization, because it might cost money to provide a livable world for our descendants. We continue to ignore the fate of anyone but the hyper-rich, as the United States careens toward 2030, when we will have the most unequal distribution of wealth between rich and poor, in the history of the world.
This is how civilizations end, not through invasion or catastrophe. The right wing liars who proclaim that our country is succumbing to a moral collapse are right- but the collapse is not about gay marriage, marijuana or abortion, it is about their own conviction that its is perfectly permissable for them to smash our social contract, and turn themselves into the biggest takers our nation has ever known. It is about their God-given right to drain the rest of us of every scrap of wealth. And this is how our civilization is ending- not with a bang or a whimper, but just robbed dry by people with moralistic cant on their lips, and evil in their hearts.
So, we stopped investing in roads and public transit, except in a few loony hippy places like Los Angeles. We stopped running our healthcare system for the benefit of patients, and just used it as one more profit center to suck dry. We ran our mortgage loan system, instead of a way to build stable communities, as one more opportunity to steal from the gullible. We did the same thing with our schools, turning them from a public amenity into a corporate fraud. A lot of us seem to want to plunder the Social Security system, destroying one of the great features of a stable society, in order to steal the money. The same goes for Federal land, even our national parks, which are now to be sold off to whoever can make the most money out of them.
And in the "private sector-" our people's ability to provide for their families has been sacrificed for quick profits earned on the backs of beaten down foreign laborers. Then, when all of the jobs are leeched out of places like Detroit, we blame their residents for the inevitable economic collapse. Our investment system has turned from a way for people with a little money to provide for their future, to a gigantic scheme in which Wall Street robs the collected resources of the rest of the country. We ignore climate change, which threatens to wipe out civilization, because it might cost money to provide a livable world for our descendants. We continue to ignore the fate of anyone but the hyper-rich, as the United States careens toward 2030, when we will have the most unequal distribution of wealth between rich and poor, in the history of the world.
This is how civilizations end, not through invasion or catastrophe. The right wing liars who proclaim that our country is succumbing to a moral collapse are right- but the collapse is not about gay marriage, marijuana or abortion, it is about their own conviction that its is perfectly permissable for them to smash our social contract, and turn themselves into the biggest takers our nation has ever known. It is about their God-given right to drain the rest of us of every scrap of wealth. And this is how our civilization is ending- not with a bang or a whimper, but just robbed dry by people with moralistic cant on their lips, and evil in their hearts.
Comments