I've been worried again during this Presidential debate by the possibility that mediocrity and deliberate selfish wanton stupidity may finally push the Republic over the edge.

For a long time now, we have carried a particular mistrust for "authorities" in the Governance of our Republic - and generally, that is to be commended.

But now, we have this odd political dichotomy within many of our citizens - to trust blindly in Authorities who tell them how to thing, consider, and behave regarding material which is largely false; and on the other hand, to hold a cynical mistrust of other forms of authority and substance.

When it comes to Global Warming, for instance, what Rush and Hannity say goes - but what the eggy-heady-sciency types say, can be discarded without anything but a smirk (unless they happen to agree with your opinion.)

It might smack of elitism just to say that Americans are ignoring studied opinions regarding complex matters which are beyond the scope of many to comprehend. On the other hand, there are things which are so starkly obvious and held in consensus by so many people, that the high-handed discarding of their points without clear-minded refutation, is insane.

Here is an example of just how we are screwed.

The National Debt, adjusted for inflation to 2005, stands at $9,089 Billion Dollars.
Approximately 25% of this national debt was accumulated over the first 200 years of this republic, including those awful "Tax-and-Spend" days of the Democrats of the Sixties and Seventies.

42% of this debt was created during the Reagan/Bush I years.

4% of this debt was accumulated during the entire Clinton presidency.

28% of the debt SO FAR has been accumulated during the Bush II Presidency. By the end of next week, it may be as high as 40%


It's possible to go back and assess the details of the debt accumulated during the previous administrations. But since 1980, 5% of the US DEBT has accumulated during a Democratic Administration, and 95% during a Republican Administration. And a considerable amount of this occurred with a REPUBLICAN HOUSE AND SENATE.

And even if the Democrats suck up the responsibility for WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam and all other various debt contributors before 1980 - they'd still own only 30% of the pie, to the Republicans' 70%

And McCain has a plan.

CONSIDER THIS.

Apathy is a word that comes to mind. Some call may call it 'low info voters' or 'low understanding voters'. Trying to get a lot of people shook up about something like the DEBT responsibility seems to fall on deaf ears but maybe with all of the chaos in the markets this week things will change, a bit.......


Some concepts that affect the majority of citizens don't seem to sink in.......


When CEOs drive century old Wall Street investment banks and multinational insurance firms into the ground with sheer greed and incompetence it's the responsibility of taxpayers to bail them out. When those taxpayers lose their jobs, homes, and healthcare because of corporate greed and incompetence, they're on their own.

Consider that in North America, everybody under the age of 40 grew up being told that the government can't intervene to improve our lives, that government is the problem not the solution, that laissez faire was the only option. Now, we are suddenly seeing an extremely activist, intensely interventionist government, seemingly willing to do whatever it takes to save investors from themselves.

This spectacle necessarily raises the question: if the state can intervene to save corporations that took reckless risks in the housing markets, why can't it intervene to prevent millions of Americans from imminent foreclosure? By the same token, if $85bn can be made instantly available to buy the insurance giant AIG, why is single-payer health care - which would protect Americans from the predatory practices of health-care insurance companies - seemingly such an unattainable dream? And if ever more corporations need taxpayer funds to stay afloat, why can't taxpayers make demands in return - like caps on executive pay, and a guarantee against more job losses?

by Naomi Klein

more -

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/09/20-5

The answer is simple. Because one makes a lot of money for the investor class (which influences policy) and the other doesn't. Same answer to all three questions.

This is the part which fundamentally disturbs me the most. Some call it apathy. A painfully honest fellow going through the agonies of awakening offers, "Life was Easier when I Hated You People."

Something is going on which makes people sink into apathy and motionlessness, even at the expense of their own abilities and lives. We are at the brink of a national Dark Age, of dying with a whimper - and the Americans whom I was led to believe in from the history books, seem to have fled. An electorate remains which appears like a net full of squid in a trawler, for all their abilities of purposeful motion and contemplative thought.

How can we let our country just die?