Tuesday August 18, 2009...Depressed

I'm a bit depressed today.

Okay, I'll admit that I now lean to the liberal side of the aisle. I was originally a young Republican with belief in Eisenhower and Nixon and Goldwater. But, once Reagan and Bush (the elder)had their 12 years of trickle down tripling of the national debt and reshuffling of the financial strength away from the middle class to the wealthy and crushing of the unions, I saw the light. Trickle down doesn't work. When the wealthy get more money, they tend toward either conspicuous consumption or hoarding. There is not the sharing of the wealth and reinvesting of the capital as was expected. Instead of replenishing our industrial might, it was outsourced to cheaper labor markets and the middle class was ignored.

Now I'm getting angry. The Democrats won the majority in the house and the senate as well as the presidency and still they cower before the strength of the special interests. Right now is the time for us to join the other nations with a national health plan which should include a public option if not a complete one payer system, but our elected representatives are shying away from what the public needs in favor or what the special interests want. The insurance lobby and the drug lobby have poured millions and millions of dollars into the coffers of the elected officials and into television and ads trying to brainwash us all into actually believing that our broken health system is better than all the other countries in the world have come up with. We DO pay much more per capita for health care than any other country, but we do not have anywhere close to the best health than most of the industrialized countries in the world. We have people going bankrupt and dying because they cannot afford basic health care or insurance. This would not happen in most of the other industrialized countries. I guess I remember when we were among the leaders of the world. We are slipping away and will probably eventually end up second-rate with sharp divisions of the people into the wealthy and the workers. Maybe it's too late to change – our leaders are reacting to the pressure from the wealthy power and not to the wishes of the people. Shades of the Roman Empire when it was beginning to lose it's grandeur. I suppose that the United States has had it's run of power, much like Spain did and France did and Germany did and England did. It appears that China will be the next great power and we will have to give up being the king of the hill. The rich are taking their money and running to other countries now. Off shore accounts and offices in other countries are becoming the norm and we will just be the tenants to the new landlords.

I really had hopes after the last election, but it looks like everything had slipped too far down for us to stop the slide. The future will be interesting, but perhaps not as bright as the past. Depressing, isn't it?