On the Contrary

The other day a friend of mine asked me if I was getting feed up with politics and the news.  I have to say I am.  Nothing changes.  I was reading the paper this morning and my eyes gloomed onto a report about the possibility that Amtrak will build a major and modern rail hub in New York City.  I am hungering for any sign of progress or a vision of the future.  As far as our progress in changing anything, I have to give it to David Sirota, when in his column he described the situation in terms of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest:

“As the insurance industry’s Nurse Ratched lurks in the background, congressional Democrats cower in the corner, fearing the phantom menace of their own shadows. Standing next to the window, suicidal Republican leaders rant about “death panels” and threaten to splatter their electoral prospects onto the pavement below. Nearby, White House officials struggle with multiple-personality ailments as they mumble contradictory statements about the public option. Meanwhile, tea party protesters lie on the floor in a fetal position, soiling their hospital diapers as they throw incoherent tantrums about everything from socialism to communism to czarism to Nazism. And, not surprisingly, Washington reporters just stare off into the distance, having been long ago lobotomized in the wake of their Watergate heyday.” (Selective Deficit Disorder)

My feeling is that the inmates are running the asylum and we are just running in place.  The media who should be the ones to report on this stagnation of will and purpose are instead feeding on the circus so I have no idea who is going to slap us to our senses.  The President is too timid, and Congress is totally dysfunctional.  The people are adrift and running scared.  What happen to the America of anything is possible and the America where no challenge was too big?  We have become the nation of “we can’t”.

Listen to the debates in Washington:  We can’t afford a moon program; we can’t afford a national railroad system; we can’t invest in green energy or create an environment where it will grow because we will upset the vested interests; we can’t have national health care (same reason); we can’t have world class education with access for all like most other countries.  When you get done with all the “we can’ts”, you start to wonder just who we are anymore.  Certainly we are not the richest most powerful nation in the world.  That would be China.  They are actually investing in all those things.

So I think I will quit watching the circus in Washington or the morons who think Barack is the anti-Christ.  It is just too depressing to realize we have become a nation of whiners who don’t have the self-discipline or will to raise our taxes, pay our bills, and get on with building our nation.  We are so busy hoarding our own piece of the pie we have forgotten to plan for tomorrow.