| I feel a bit like Rip Van Winkle, only I haven’t slept for twenty years. I know where I am, but the America I know and love is hardly recognizable. Free speech is a fantasy. The press is no longer The Press. Attorney-Client privilege is an historical footnote, elections are fixed, and the power mad Mafiosi that are running our government are gleeful in their ignorant arrogance that is consistently creating a worldwide hatred of all things American. And in their isolationism, have come to embrace a way of life where power and greed are their collective gods. Have you ever seen a group so out of touch with the realities of the common man? Countless executives running shady corporate Ponsi schemes with bogus accounting scams, then raiding the corporate treasury as their companies tank into oblivion. Not only did they steal money that they didn’t earn, they helped destroy the very companies they were entrusted to run successfully, not run into the ground. Whatever happened to “you do the crime, you do the time?” Do they honestly believe they have done no harm and are blameless, or even worse, above the law? Millions of Americans have lost their retirement savings and for many Boomers with retirement just around the corner, they have no time to start over. Many are losing their homes, along with their livelihoods. The implications of such damage are very far reaching indeed. How on Earth are so many going to live on the little Social Security they’ll get, even if it were to actually be available when they need it? Unfortunately, since the Bush raid and plunder, most are not likely to even get that, never mind that there has been a long-looming problem with there being too many Boomers for Social Security to support in the first place, even though it alone will not in truth “support” anyone in today’s economy. I am constantly hearing Ari’s gang and the media blather on about how the economy is healthy and turning around, yet the unemployment numbers continue to grow as the stock market continues to tank. Even when unemployment numbers are “steady” it doesn’t mean there are people getting jobs. No one ever reports on all those unfortunates whose unemployment benefits have run out. What about them? What about all of those thousands, or most likely millions who have felt the far reaching effects of the post 9/11 meltdown like the countless airline employees who were laid off, many mere weeks before retirement, with not so much as a one week severance package? How is the average American investor expected to regain confidence in the market and economy when every last member of the administration is working tirelessly to make sure they have no money left to invest? Right before our eyes they are robbing the masses with their corporate tax breaks and those charitable tax cuts for those poor unfortunate 1% of the Superwealthy. (I just want to know where the hell are all those investments these Uber-Riche are supposed to be making? Other than in the Caymans I mean.) But wait! What about foreign investment you say? Oh please! Would you invest in a country where the installed government is clearly part of the problem, and is too blind with power and greed to see their own folly? Not only are they playing a leading role in this fiasco, they encouraged it in the first place with their moneybag lobbyists and their deregulation. Apparently none of these people were much for American history. Monopolies were outlawed and regulations were all made for a reason. Someone recently said that “anyone with a functioning brain stem” could see that even those in the highest levels of our government are just as guilty of corporate and accounting fraud, not to mention outright illegal trading with Iraq during an oil embargo, as those who’ve recently been carted off in handcuffs. Topping that off, they won't be accountable and come clean, and they downright refuse to turn over countless documents that have been requested for months, even by legal subpoena. What makes it a thousand times worse, is that these modern day Prince Johns are not only guilty of theft and fraud, but are causing more domestic terror than bin Laden, Al Qeada, and Saddam combined. Terror threats are released so often and in conjunction with any peep of government criticism that you can set your watch by them. And for all the billions spent in the last year on the “war on terra”, there is no sign of the nephritic Osama, yet in California, two teenage girls are rescued and their abductor slain, all in less than twelve hours. How hard can it be to find a man who can never be far from a dialysis machine? However, the threats of going to war with Iraq, constant non-specific terror alerts, vague reports of Al Qeada sightings, anthrax, and smallpox fears are all on the surface. What has burrowed down into the collective American consciousness is far more dangerous. It is partly the fear of financial devastation, the fear that each of us, many faced with the care of our aging parents, is beginning to see reflected more on to ourselves with each passing day. How will we mange? What will we do? Who will be able to care for us? What makes this the bitterest of pills is that those of us who have played by the rules, paid our taxes, lived honestly, paid the bills on time, would all end up ruined and imprisoned if we so much as filed an incomplete or inaccurate tax form, while these Robber Barons who make the Corleone family look like honest businessmen, are not even called to account for their gross criminal actions. Couple that with the loss of our civil rights, the fear of tomorrow, the fear of losing America itself, the silencing of dissent by the mainstream media, and the fear of beginning a war that will most likely result in global catastrophe, and you have a cancer that is poisoning the country as a whole. Congress and the Judiciary are just as neglectful of their oversight responsibilities and are therefore accomplices. Congress acts as if it can’t be bothered to actually read legislation before voting on allowing the rape of the Constitution and the rights that so many of our forefathers have died to insure, but lets the former Governor of Texas and the religiously insane Attorney General rush through something as destructive as The Patriot Act simply on the basis of fear. What was the rush? You don’t think it was hurriedly put together in the first place do you? They must have taken a long time writing that leviathan legislation. Much longer than from 9/11 to when it was signed into law on October 26th, 2001. If the government knew nothing of the plans for 9/11, sort of makes you wonder why they were formulating such provisions before hand. American citizens can now be labeled an “enemy combatant” by one of these illegal appointees without so much as a shred of evidence, and denied due process and an attorney. How’s that for domestic terror? Not only are you vulnerable to your paranoid, grudge baring neighbor, but also with the right whisper from him you can be “retained” without counsel or being accused of a crime, for an indefinite period of time. Even Ashcroft likens dissent, which is as American as apple pie, to treason, yet defends lobbyist's checks as free speech. Doesn’t feel like the America I know. Or knew. So. We’re all supposed to go about our lives, and have confidence in the markets, eh? Not bloody likely. No, the only thing that will restore confidence, and ease the American psyche is when wrongs are truly righted, and not until. No fine, firing, or slap on the wrist is going to do it this time. It is going to take real independent investigating, real public disclosure, and some real prison time for everyone involved. But most of all when all of the money is returned to those it was taken from, plus compensation for pain and suffering. Bend over. There’s been a lot of pain suffering. |
 |
| Crime and Punishment |
|