How Low Can They Go?

It's funny how something shocks me, gets my blood stirred up, on an almost daily basis. For some reason, I haven't become accustomed to the injustices that come to light every day. One would think that by now I would be desensitized to them, and take a "what else is new" attitude.

The latest onslaught is the news that the defense department wants its' money back....not from Haliburton, which has ripped off the government, and the American people, for billions of dollars. They want injured American soldiers, who are no longer able to serve, to return their signing bonuses. How's that for supporting the troops?

I keep asking myself "how low can they go?" And every time I ask that question, the answer is, "wait and see." A secondary question is "what happened to the America I love?" Why are we, as a nation, putting up with this madness?

America, as I know it, would never put up with being lied into a war. Oh sure, there have been other wars where the excuses have been contrived. The Vietnam War is the most obvious example. The sinking of the Maine in Havana Harbor is also suspect. Spain was blamed, which ignited the Spanish-American War. It was later discovered that they most likely had nothing to do with that disaster. But in those cases, the evidence that we were manipulated into war didn't surface until years later.

The America I know would have risen up over the revelation that we invaded a sovereign nation over contrived evidence. The America I know would have taken to the streets in protest over this and many other things that are happening on an almost daily basis.

When the truth came out that Richard Nixon lied to cover up a petty break in that he had nothing to do with, Americans were so outraged he had to resign or face impeachment. Where is the outrage today that Bush's former Press Secretary admitted in his book that he was lied to about the Plame affair. and Cheney and Bush were involved in the leak? That's a crime far more serious than a petty break in at the Watergate.

The America I know would have been outraged about the revelation that the government is spying on its own citizens, that it is torturing prisoners, that the top 1% of our people are being allowed to amass more wealth than all the rest of us combined.

Where is the outrage that our great manufacturing centers like Detroit, Cleveland, and others, which used to provide the majority of manufactured goods for the entire world, are now ghost towns? When I was a kid, the only imports you would see were toys, and "Made In Japan" was a punchline. Today, we're the punchline.

Where is the outrage that we have gone from the largest creditor nation to the largest debtor? Or that countries like China hold the majority of that debt? China could destroy us tomorrow by calling in the debt. Of course, they won't do that because if America goes down, the world would face another Dark Age. Not a cultural Dark Age, but an economic one. Nevertheless, I'm not comfortable with the fact that China has its' finger on the trigger of a gun pointed at our economic head.

Where is the outrage that the American dollar has become the hot potato of currencies? Nobody wants it. And even worse, since the dollar is so weak, we should have tourists pouring into our country and spending money because it's inexpensive for them. But our entry policies are so restrictive and unwelcoming, nobody wants to come here.

There are so many examples I could go on and on.

The one thing that used to get me through it all was I have always believed that Americans, at heart, are a fair and just people. Oh, we may go a little crazy now and then. And we're pretty young as a nation, so we charge out into the world and do stupid things sometimes. That's how the rest of the world used to look at us. We were the 16 year old kid who just got the keys to a brand new car. Or the frat boy who does something stupid. We didn't mean any harm, but we're too immature to really understand the consequences of our actions. They don't look at us that way now. They fear us.

I am losing hope that the innate goodness and fairness of Americans will win the day. I kept telling myself that once the truth came out, and enough people knew about this or that, things would change. We would boot the jerks out of power at the polls. But nothing has changed. The Democrats took back control of both houses of Congress last year. But Bush still gets his way. I'm sure that's why Congress' approval ratings are even lower than Bush's,

It makes me wonder what it will take to get Americans' attention? We seem to be so self-absorbed in paying our mortgages, worrying about our jobs, fretting over who's going to be the next top model, or Britney's next misadventure, that we don't look up to see that the very people that are supposed to represent our interests are picking our pockets and kicking us in the ass on the way down.