Pointing Fingers

Ian Welsh is a Canadian who does not have a terribly high opinion of America or it’s people, a point of view which I am increasingly coming to share. His latest post is that the people of this nation are to blame for our own problems, that pointing fingers at the rich and at politicians is avoiding our own role in this mess, a view with which I am in complete agreement.

Congress has a 9% approval rating? Bullfeathers. We not only elected these criminals, the vast majority of them have been reelected many times. We knew precisely who they were when we reelected them, and at least 80% of them will be reelected next year.

Stolen elections? As Ian points out, possibly in 2000, but we reelected George Bush in 2004 when we knew full well that he was a murderous thug.

We cannot place blame on our elections being controlled by two parties. They are such because we don’t bother to vote in primary elections, leaving the choice of candidates in the hands of a few ideologues in the primaries and then complain about the choices we are faced with in general elections. We are faced with those choices because we did not bother to participate in the process of making the choices.

We elected a Democratic majority in 2006 based on a promise to end the war in Iraq and when they reneged on that promise and instead funded the “surge” in that misbegotten war we reelected them in even larger numbers in 2008. And look where that got us.

We reelect federal legislators based on the amount of federal pork they bring home to the state, and reelect them because we fear that a “freshman” will not have the power to get the “home state” projects passed. The legislators even say that their responsibility is to “represent the interests of the people of my state” above the best interest of the nation, turning us into a nation divided against itself based on greed.

The people of this nation vote for tax cuts, and only for tax cuts. The claim they want a balanced budget, but they fight tooth and nail to prevent any reduction in spending. In California, the vast majority of propositions which require the government to spend money pass with healthy margins, and 90% of those which raise revenue fail to pass.

Obama’s popularity is rising big time again, and over what? Health care reform did not do it, financial reform did not do it, the stimulus did not do it, repealing DADT did not do it, ending the war in Iraq did not do it, a new stimulus this year did not even get out of the gate, but a 2% tax cut has made him wildly popular.

It is not the wealthy 1% who put us in this mess, it is our government, and it is we the people of the United States who elected this government and who have kept it in office. We have the government and the economy which we deserve.