Everything sublime is as difficult as it is rare. Baruch Spinoza

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

November Third

We are watching the unraveling of a nation.

My heart is so heavy this morning I want to burst into tears. It is hard for me to understand how America became this thing that it is. How did we, as a people, become so cruel, harsh and mind numbingly ignorant? How did we become the people, who in two short years decide to put the very people who got us into this trouble in the first place, back into power?  Let us see what happens as these self-professed budget hawks push extended tax cuts for the mega rich, adding to the great black hole of the deficit they profess so much concern about. Let us watch as they continue to support the largest, wealthiest multi-national corporations off-shoring their corporate headquarters to post office boxes in the Caymans, freeing them from paying any federal income taxes as they continue to put their hands out for federal subsidies. Let us watch as the Democratic Senate and President cave in on almost everything. Let us get used to high unemployment and low wages. We have a new normal.

So as the rest of the world moves forward, we will go backward. We will doggedly hang onto our myth of rugged individualism. We will continue to talk about our freedom, our Constitution, our uniqueness. And we will continue down the path we have been following for thirty years. The path which has led us to joblessness, poverty, insecurity, debt, fear. We will continue in our blind belief that the titians of industry and finance, the masters of the universe will allow us to grab hold of their coattails. We will continue to believe in a free market driven economy. We will continue to believe the mantra that all taxation is bad. We will continue to believe that cutting costs, cutting government, privatizing everything, is in the best interest of the people. And as the weight of this belief bears down on us, as it crushes our lives, we will continue to look at the other, the people who are not 'us' and bring all of the forces of our fears and frustrations down upon them.

It is my opinion we have cooked our own goose.

God help America.

14 comments:

Elizabeth said...

We will plant our gardens much as Voltaire's Candide did. We will have our babies and lament. Keep the faith. Or move to California. Despite Prop 19, we got rid of the Republican (albeit, fake) and made the $150 million attempt to buy office a joke.

Cyndi and Stumpy said...

Sandra, do you read Margaret and Helen? http://margaretandhelen.wordpress.com/2010/11/03/oh-happy-day/

Those grand ladies help toput it all in perspective...

Life As I Know It said...

well, it wasn't as bad as they predicted it was going to be, but still pretty bad.

I was happy with our state's outcome.

So disheartening as a whole, though.

Bonnie Zieman, M.Ed. said...

A discouragingly true summary of the united states of affairs.

How are you Sandra? I've thought about you lately hoping you are feeling better.

Marion Williams-Bennett said...

Thanks for giving voice to what I've been feeling.

I am scared for the future and am also feeling so completely disheartened by the WAY this election played out...the amount of money that was spent on negative, hateful messages, and those messages won in the end, people believed those messages.

Sigh, so we pull up our socks and move forward.

Unknown said...

I really don't know what to say. Fear is a powerful thing sometimes.

Sandra said...

Unfortunately Elizabeth so many people no longer have a place to plant their gardens. I still do, so I will try. And I will lament.

gsc, thanks for the link. Yesterday was a day of mourning for me. It was as if my best dog died.

Life, it was bad here. Our state legislature went Republican. The State Senate has been in Dem hands for 35 years. We have been gripped by a very rightwing Rep. for the past 8 as Gov. and our Gov. election is going to a recount. The Rep. is a Tea Party dude. MN has been struggling since Pawlenty became governor. The next guy is even more extreme.

Bonnie, it is actually scary. I'm feeling better, but I am also somewhat despondent.

Marion, I am also scared. The unemployed are going to get a hard slap, as there will be no more extensions for them.

deb, it is amazing how easily Americans can be scared.

Lorac said...

Sorry to hear of this turn of events Sandra! I do hope you will be feeling better shortly, physically and emoitionally.

Sandra said...

Hey Lorac. I'm sorry too. I am better, just not motivated and still somewhat under the weather. It is hard to engage when it feels as if the world has gone mad.

A.Smith said...

And it has gone mad. Or maybe it was always mad but the inmates are now in charge of the asylum.

I am still hoping for a Clintonian turn around. Remember the Grinch? and the lessons they learned about the four letter word? VETO? I sincerely hope our President use it to give them a test of their own medicine and that as they fail, and they will, because nothing that starts in hatred and greed prospers in spite of what appears to the contrary, the people of this country will learn as well the difference between a common cold and pneumonia. It took many years of Republican "its just a cold, let's cut some taxes" to get us sick with social, fiscal and political pneumonia, it will take a long time to get us well.
I refuse to live in the Corporate
States of America and I won't.

Feel better, I miss you.

Sandra said...

Allegra, I don't expect this president to stiffen his spine. So surprising and disappointing that he has turned out to be ineffective.

angela recada said...

So well put, Sandra. Very depressing, indeed.

Sandra said...

Angela, I am trying to pull myself out of the gloom. I tell myself I have done what I can and what will happen next is beyond my control. It is half working. So we will call it a work in progress.

julochka said...

so well-said, even if it's a sorrowful message. from the outside looking in, i find it very bewildering and incomprehensible.