I don’t know about you, but it seems we have totally lost our common sense and our collective resolve. Common sense, in fact, seems to be inversely proportional to IQ these days. We need to stop and rethink this madness. On the economic front, unemployment essentially remains unchanged, banks are continuing to fail at record pace, foreclosures are again accelerating and states are basically shutting down essential services because a lack of revenue. Washington passes a financial reform bill that does nothing to attack the very issue that got us in this mess in the first place..Credit Derivative Swaps. On top of that we have politicians saying that unemployment benefits are the cause because people don’t want to work!! Are you kidding me!
American families have lost over 10 trillion dollars in asset in the last five years. $10,ooo,ooo,ooo,ooo! During that same period social programs may have cost $450 billion, so why are they trying to focus on unemployment and immigration as economic issues. The facts are that the tax cuts have the greatest impact on revenues by far! A stagnant economy and the lack of tax revenues generated have a much greater impact than either of these issues. When you examine where the so called stimulus money went, there are two eye-opening facts. First a lot of the money sent to Goldman Sachs, et al seems to have ended up in foreign banks or the FED in reserve accounts and the rest, well… it really hasn’t been released yet! You combine with the fact we are spending $2 billion a day on war and what does common sense tell you?
We get a health care bill that really doesn’t kick in until 2014 or later, with no public option and no regulation of the health care industry per se. So we get higher rates, denial of services, and cancellation of whole groups of policies such as uninsured children! What does common sense say about that?
We have 150,000 troops in Afghanistan fighting for a corrupt government, not supported outside of Kabul and admittedly there may be only 250 Al Qaeda in the country, so we are fighting the Taliban. Could someone please explain to me how the Taliban are a threat to the US. The last time I checked, there has never been a terrorist attack led by the Taliban anywhere outside of the region and I am not aware of any threats by the Taliban to blow up anything in the US. So who are we really fighting and why? What does common sense tell you about Afghanistan?
We have debates and accusations flying on both sides of the aisle in congress and they do nothing. Republicans blocking and filibustering everything just to make sure Obama is not effective at the cost of all of us and Democrats are weak kneed and powerless to do anything except blame the previous administration for every problem. In the meantime, the only activity in Washington is the wave of corruption and sex investigations. What does common sense tell you about our congress?
What do we do? Let’s get back to common sense. I agree with the tea party that we need to throw the bums out, but I would suggest that we extract a promise from every candidate that is not an incumbent. That promise would be that the first legislative action is a public campaign finance law to be enacted. No special interest monies allowed. Period.
Secondly, we need to grab Wall Street by the.. well you know what and both regulate and tax CDS transactions. Period.
Finally, we need to bring our kids and fathers and mothers and in a lot cases grandfathers home from Afghanistan. Let Pakistan and Afghanistan deal with their local insurgency and let India worry about the consequences not US.
Finally, we need to take a hard look at the fossil fuel industry. Reality says we are not going to migrate to alternative and renewable energy sources in the near future. However, we need to further invest in solar, wind and yes even nuclear energy. What doesn’t make sense is we are giving subsidies to oil and gas and not alternative energy. We need to reverse that role and make sure that as the oil and gas industry go for harder and harder sources to recover, that we are sure we have the technology to deal with all of the consequences. In the gas field we need to find alternatives to hydrofracturing, so called “fracting”, because there is no doubt that such practices are destroying our water tables.
All of these issues seem clear and the common sense approaches are obvious. We have put convenience and profit before prudence and reasonable solutions. This is not a Democrat vs. Republican issue. it is not a liberal vs. conservative issue. It is a matter of taking our government back from those special interests that have co-opted our representative process. We can do this, but we must stop taking sides and parroting this or that sensationalism being fomented by paid talking whores and start doing our own thinking and acting on what we know is right. For example only 11% of us have faith in congress, so we clearly understand the root of the problem. Now it is just a matter of us doing the next obvious common sense thing. Throw all of the bums out and no wackos need apply. We all know the exactly correct people in our communities who should be representing us. We need to convince them to run for office and support them once they are elected. This November should not be about which party takes the majority. It should be about sending real statesmen to Washington.
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