THE (note: not OUR) government insists in endless war (the details of course "classified") apparently beholden to the weapons makers at the costs of our economic resources, our disgrace in the eyes of the decent peoples of the world community and our future history, and most treacherously of our kids' lives.
The government insists upon the extortionately costly medical system managed by private insurance interests, unlike any other advanced society in the world, putting the citizens' quality of medical care behind thirty-odd other and poorer nations to the gratification of the greed meisters, i.e. our actual masters.
The government awards incompetent, failing and usurpative investment bankers trillions of our national treasure in the face of annual individual executive compensation that exceeds what many citizens will earn in their lifetimes, while at the same time it squirms and endlessly debates the levels and terms of unemployment compensation to aid with scant subsistence for the families of their victims.
And now we have – by God – torture! Our President announces he will overlook it, or rather dismiss it, so to "look forward." The Senate Majority Leader proposes – that rather than to investigate the issue, there should be "private hearings" by a Senate committee (perhaps, it is said, to take a year) beyond the reach of the citizens' ears. And the chap who authored the "legal" authorization for the torture now sits at high station of our federal "justice" system with a lifetime appointment, with there being apparently no instrument available to the public to unseat a virtual de Sade from our judicial bench.
All too rarely, there is a congressional hearing right out there on TV for the "benefit" of the public. But – when it gets right down to the really important part there inevitably comes the announcement of the "closed session." Closed be damned! This is the most crucial of the citizens' business. Are we citizens of America or its enemy?
Whereas the government is simply unreachable by the citizens, the opposition to anything it does is either feckless or duplicitous, regardless of partisan persuasion, the Republicans being more stridently self-serving or greed-serving, and the Democrats, while appearing perhaps more modest and reasonable, nevertheless apparently kowtowing to the same masters, considering that precious little remedy has been evident after they regained majorities of both houses in the 2006 election, and now the presidency. Adding to this is a so called peace-movement that lacks the resolve or the courage, and perhaps the integrity to make any dent in official treachery. (How was it co-opted? Perhaps infiltrated?)
So, fellow Americans, where does that leave us mere citizens? Out in the cold and convinced that we're in good hands? Or unable to do anything to influence THE government? Or determined that we will no longer permit a government of arrogance, perverted influence, privilege and exclusion, but will now take back America?
There was a concept that OUR government must be one of "open covenants openly arrived at." The de-facto government of this once world's oldest democracy has violated the open covenant with the people, and now proceeds behind doors closed to the eyes and ears of 300 million American citizens, for the most part furtively, but at times actually announced by a smug functionary, perhaps a senator, "to protect" the nation and its people.
Protection be damned! We want our republic back! Now!
Can we handle that proposition? You bet! But only if we the citizens possess and exercise the requisite insight, integrity, effort and courage to demand and to deserve it.