Car in the Ditch

Europe &, presumably, the United States are declaring starting undeclared war on yet another Arab country. Governments are using military force to put down protests in Yemen, Bahrain and The Ivory Coast. Egypt is in turmoil. Pakistan is demanding an end to American drone strikes which are killing civilians in their country. Afghanistan has told us to end military operations in their country due to the deaths of noncombatants. American military drones are flying over Mexico.

Japan is facing its worst crisis since World War 2, a human and economic crisis of epic proportions, and multiple sources say that American aid was initially based on the requirement that Japan dismantle its aging nuclear reactors, giving up 20% of it's power generation capacity. This, before the reactor crisis developed to its near-Chernobyl proportions.

Israel not only rejected our demand that they move toward peace with their neighbors by ceasing the expansion of settlements in occupied territory, they rejected that demand in the most insulting manner possible. The Palestinians rejected our request to delay a resolution in the UN for statehood and forced us to abstain on the resolution.

In this country, we are five months into the fiscal year and our legislature still has not been able to pass a budget, is now reduced to authorizing the operation of our nation’s programs for three weeks at a time as it postures and poses for political partisan gain.

An American soldier continues to be imprisoned under conditions which international organizations claim amounts to torture but which our president says "meet our standards." We continue to hold prisoners at Guantanamo without due process of law, try them in kangaroo courts, and claim that we have the right to imprison them indefinitely without trial.

The National Security State continues to claim the right to read our mail, tap our phone calls and view our access to the internet and online data without court order and to act in secret in the name of "national security."

Prices for food and energy continue their steep climb while our financial leadership uses numeric legerdemain to tell us that “core inflation” is still low and urge us to buy consumer goods. Our leaders talk about education and “winning the future” while unemployment remains at epic levels and the ranks of those in poverty and those without health insurance grow larger every day.

We have a national debt that is growing larger at an unparalleled rate, with a projected deficit requested by this president of $1.56 trillion for fiscal year 2011, submitted while talking about balancing the budget and “living within our means.” That is a budget for regular annual spending, not special stimulus spending for the specific purpose of creating jobs.

If George W. Bush “drove the car into the ditch” then Barack Obama burned the car, mashed it flat, filled the ditch and buried the car out of sight.