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U.S. is heading in the wrong direction - Comments (3) View Comments
Carole McWilliams - 5/23/2008
U.S. is heading in the wrong direction
(And I’m not the only one who says so!)
A stunning 80 percent of Americans say the country is “headed in the wrong direction.”
I’ve said that for several years. I suspect the current 80 percent have a lot of different reasons for saying that. It would be nice to know that divergence.
In my opinion, seven-plus years of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney explain a lot of it.
Under them, we’ve become a country that invades other countries based on false threat claims and that tortures prisoners. Essential parts of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights have been shredded, and anyone who objects is aiding terrorists. We’ve added more than $3 trillion to cumulative federal debt that will be foisted off on our children and grandchildren to pay.
In addition the Bush-Cheney “leadership” has fostered ever more political, religious and economic division among Americans. A house divided against itself cannot stand.
Political polarization threatens our government system that needs compromise to work.
Political leaders have encouraged polarization, substantially aided by talk radio and TV talk shows that thrive on conflict. Name calling and character assassination have shut out rational political discussion. In my humble opinion, the worst polarization has come from the political right wing.
Representative government needs voters to have trust in the election system. If voters lose trust in the fairness of elections, we only have to look to the violence in other countries for the likely results – Kenya, for example.
The Bush-Cheney administration and national Republican leadership have done their best to destroy trust in fair elections, starting with Florida in 2000. They have worked diligently to create a one-party democracy. Happily, that seems to have backfired.
The national political leadership (mostly but definitely not totally on the Republican side) have worked steadfastly to preserve and enhance government of, by, and for the corporations and fat cats. They have encouraged the have-nots to blame each other for their plight – eg. low-income whites to blame blacks and Hispanics for taking their jobs, instead of the fat cats for shipping those jobs to China. The current convenient target for have-nots is illegal Mexican immigrants.
Some other reasons for saying the country is going in the wrong direction:
The U.S. has the dubious honor of spending more for military purposes than all other countries combined! There’s always money for war and weapons (paid by future taxpayers), but not for health care or other assistance for Americans in hard times, or to maintain essential infrastructure like roads or the power grid.
The U.S. also has the dubious honor of spending more per capita on health care than any industrialized country, meaning those with government (ie. taxpayer) funded health care. As for quality of health care, the US ranks around 37th in the world.
The solution most commonly proposed? Force Americans to support the health insurance industry at several hundred dollars per month. But what the hey? At least they don’t want us to pay higher taxes.
The U.S. has yet another dubious honor of having the highest share of its population in prison of any nation, including Cuba, Russia, China, Iran…
And we’re working hard to become as dependent on other countries for our food as we are for our $4 a gallon gasoline.
I’m sure some Americans have very different reasons for being among the 80 percent. Most likely we’ll be hearing from some of them.
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