Corporate greed-mongers. Republican war-mongers. A coopted and corrupted MSM. Tax cuts for the wealthiest while denying benefits to the neediest in our society. Corporate control, through lobbyists, of the highest levels of our democratic government. Orthodox Christian fanatics preaching hate of their “neighbors” and doing things against their “neighbors” that Jesus Christ wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot wooden cross.

Sounds to me like a recipe for disaster…after disaster…after disaster…with the United States becoming more and more each day like a Third World banana republic…or like Germany before World War II. Incredible.

This is about people trusting that the government will act in the country’s best interest. If there’s anything the last 42 years have taught us (since roughly the Gulf of Tonkin Resoultion), it’s that the government has increasingly become about its own interests – and those of its corporate masters.

Because of the loss of confidence in government caused by Nixon, compounded by the deflection from responsibility for governing fostered by Reagan and accepted as practice by Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II, we now find ourselves in a situation where government in the US is seen much as rule by the czars was seen in its time – far away, self-involved, and wildly vacillating between distantly unhelpful and intrusively meddling.

Unfortunately for all of us, the issues government has chosen to ignore and those it has chosen to meddle in are now driven by narrowly defined interest groups motivated by either some form of religious fanaticism or Mammon worshipping corporate criminals.

We’re in a mess and we need help – but we keep turning to government for that help. At some point one hopes the “Aha!” moment will come and people will begin to unite in action for the best interest of their communities. That might be the start of a sea change that’s desperately needed – government that is by the people, of the people, and for the people in a purer state than we’ve experienced it in a long time….

I always remind people that just because one branch of the legislature passes a bill, it’s NOT law. This is another example of the same thing–our process is a lot slower and more torturous than most people’s ADHD-addled, fruit-fly-level attention spans can handle.

As news folks everywhere are told: “If your mother says she loves you, check it out!”

Sound bites are just that – bites. We need WAY more people to follow up on all this stuff and hold the politicians’ feet to the fire.