Gangster government

Surveys show Americans are overwhelmingly angry with the direction of their country, and with what seems to be a never-ending list of of examples of corruption, cronyism and  general criminality in both intent and neglect:

— An IRS that not only puts its thumb on the scale of national elections, but knowingly seizes the savings of innocent people then refuses to give it back.

— An incoherent policy on Ebola that lets medical volunteers return to the country and roam free, but requires military troops ordered to West Africa to be quarantined for three weeks — despite assurances they aren’t supposed to be working directly with patients there.  (Oh, and Italy is none-too-happy that this quarantine is done in their country, not ours).  Add to that, the State Department apparently has (or is, despite denials) considered importing non-citizen patients to the U.S. for treatment.

— An electoral process that increasingly is being shown to be nothing more than a sham to prop up a semblence of legitimacy for a government that seems anything but.

— A well-entrenched “deep surveillance state” that apparently not only pokes into any electronic space it cares to, with no accountability, but has the ability–and does–plant documents that can later be used to discredit critics.

— A fundamental restructuring of health care delivery in this nation passed on a strictly partisan vote, with little debate or discussion of the details, and to this day a stonewalling on information about how it is being implemented.

And none of this includes many still-unanswered questions about Benghazi, Fast and Furious, or the size, scope and real beneficiaries of “Quantitative Easing” and other Federal Reserve interventions in the economy since 2008, etc, etc, ad infinitum.

At this point, can any American outside the well-connected Beltway elite say they are served by this government?

At this point, given the structural rigging of the system on multiple levels, can any American believe a mere election — even one projected as a “wave event” — is really going to change anything?  The roots of the IRS foreiture programs were passed in 2000, under a Democratic administration (Clinton).  The massive assaults on the Bill of Rights known as the Patriot Act debuted under a Republican (Bush the Younger).  And many of the current administration’s critics are fellow Democrats who feel betrayed that in reality nothing has changed under “the One” — if anything, the abuses have only gotten worse.

So the question is this: if Americans are so angry, where IS it?  What the pollsters are calling ‘anger’ comes across in reality as frustrated resignation.  If I’m wrong, America, prove it.  Where are the protests?  Where are the crowds descending on Capitol Hill and City Hall?

Refuse to comply with unconstitutional and arbitrary abuses of power.  Go confront the officials who perpitrate them.  Now is the time for action, not words.  We seem to forget that we outnumber them.   The reason the criminals in office are flooring the accelerator on their various schemes is that the nation has given them no reason to think there will be pushback or consequences.

Show them they’re wrong.  Or shut the hell up the next time a pollster asks you if you’re angry.  We were founded as a nation on the belief that “when any government becomes destructive of these ends (life, liberty, pursuit of happiness), it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, establishing new government…”  Either alter or abolish this trainwreck, or admit to yourself you accept it, however grudgingly.  Just remember that such acceptance makes you an accomplice.  People have resisted far more entrenched tyrannies.  So what’s your excuse?

NO INCUMBENTS, PLEASE!

Everything goes, nothing matters

Ever marvel at how little followup occurs in the coverage of the various headlines that briefly grab our attention each day?  Is nobody interested anymore in getting past first impressions and discovering the truth behind this constant chatter?

All of these stories have something in common: tons of unanswered questions, which the news media shows no interest whatsoever in following up on. And no consequences. People die, nations rise and fall, money disappears, and everybody forgets. This can’t just be about the diminishing returns of the grotesquely over-hyped “information age” — though the blowback from computers and all they have wrought may be tremendous. No, the memory hole is the truest signifier of the times we live in: the Age of Anything Goes and Nothing Matters.

The list at the link above doesn’t even touch on the seemingly endless flood of U.S. domestic political questions: Fast and Furious, Benghazi, the IRS suppression of political groups in a campaign year, and so on, and so on.

Short Attention Span Theater: there are many in this world counting on that effect to cover their guilty hides.  Expect more from your information sources.

There are some of us paying long-term attention, though.  And I’ll say this: when the day comes we decide enough’s enough and take the gloves off, watch out.  Those who’ve spent their days monitoring the Kardashians instead of the real world will have a hard time figuring out where the “sudden” whirlwind came from.

“What difference, at this point, does it make…”

…that Congress is now demanding John Kerry answer questions regarding newly revealed information about the attack in Benghazi, Libya, that resulted in the death of a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans?

After all, as the former National Security Council spokesperson put it, “Dude, this was like two years ago.”

Maybe, in hindsight, the administration should have done more to help those four besieged Americans, even if such a high-visibility military action might have called into question whether the current President’s foreign policy was worthy of re-election just a couple months later.

Meanwhile, for those Americans who are merely veterans of, rather than casualties of the Empire’s wars, there is little to no reassurance help will be there for them, either:

Department of Veterans Affairs officials were threatened Thursday with a congressional subpoena if they fail to explain the destruction of a secret list of medical appointments at the Phoenix veterans’ hospital and preserve documents for an inspector general’s investigation.

Meanwhile, the agency placed three officials from the Phoenix facility on leave.

Whistleblowers say more than 40 patients died because of delays in treatment while in the Phoenix VA Health Care System.

 

The conduct of our government on all fronts–enabled by an incestuous relationship with what has become virtually a State media sector–has been so outrageous for so long, it is no wonder a Harvard poll shows less than a third of those aged 18-29 have any trust in it.  That Congress is finally seeing a need to at least posture and bloviate that it may try to hold our prevaricating potentates accountable says more about their read of the public’s mood than it does any commitment to fixing what is structurally and institutionally broken.

**This is why at every campaign stop Hillary makes during the next two years, seeking to finally win what, in her mind, was stolen from her in 2008 by her now-former boss, someone needs to ask her loudly the title of this post (noting that they are her own words).**

These are not times for showpiece hearings that go nowhere.  They are times that call for the fining, firing and/or imprisonment of those–throughout  government–who have misled the public and abused their trust.  They are times that demand for “No Incumbents, Please,” nor the recycling of the degenerate political dynasties that have afflicted this nation for far too long.  Because if We, the People, fail to reset the system in this way, the generation that Harvard just polled is quite likely in their lifetime to have to seek other means of redress.  And that isn’t in anybody’s interest.