Kirk is traipsing all around the country with his new message that we are supposed to ignore what is happening in DC and focus on local issues that affect suburbanites (which sort of begs the question of why the traipsing). 401K accounts for babies and teacher background checks are in his focus, but he doesn't want to talk about the war, NSA spying, failed prescription drug plan and a non-existent healthcare plan, and tax cuts for the wealthy.
Kirk has said: "
Suburban families feel they are under attack and believe they need a voice in Congress," and he is correct in that statement, but what Kirk doesn't get is that all the important national issues are causing huge problems affecting all people, including suburbanites.
Bush and Kirk's war in Iraq has caused a tremendous financial burden on the country that little suburban children will pay for the rest of their lives. Decreases in funding of education programs to pay for that war hurt the same little suburban children's chances to go to college. Kirk may want to fund their learning of Chinese, but under Bush and Kirk, more needed subjects like science and math are being deemphasized and many teens are being discouraged from going to college so they may very well end up in low paid jobs not unlike the Chinese worker that made your made in China inexpensive summer capris pants.
What does NSA spying have to do with anything that hurts suburbanites?
Government Accountability.
As the government increases its control over the people, it decreases its accountability to them and their recourse for injury. That is what happened in the old Soviet Union. There was no accountability to the millions injured by the nuclear accident at Chernobyl because over years and years of oppression, the people knew the government was not accountable to them. They had no recourse and no protection from government and connected corporations. We are seeing it now in decrease in regulations over corporations and are seeing the affects in our environment and we will have no recourse to sue for our damages. Governments that oppress can get away with anything and it goes from global issues like war and the national budget and trade deficit to family issues like health, safety and personal issues like the right to die and the right to marry.
Out here in the suburban Illinois Tenth, we are not on the cutting edge of world affairs, and none of us are dodging bombs like the folks in Iraq; most of us will not have to send our children there (so far), and our schools are better than average and our kids still probably have a pretty good chance of going to college. We are mostly, trying to make a living and a life for our families, so yes, national issues can seem pretty far away and life can be pretty mundane in the suburbs. In fact, more mundane than they want us to believe. Check out atcenternetwork.com on child safety and you will find that the far greater risk to a child in suburban Tenth District is his bike or skateboard, and not Kirk's MySpace or child predators. Bush and Kirk want us to feel we are in a special situation, specially dangerous and scary, so we willingly give up our freedoms, rights and recourse. However, our real issues are as they have always been, preventing the kids from killing themselves on their bikes and helping them make it through college, paying the mortgage, putting food on the table and gasing up the car. Thing is, the national issues that Kirk wants us to ignore are exactly the issues that are making suburbanites feel under attack, not the lack of child 401Ks.
It's the totality of the downturns and backwards thinking of the Bush and Kirk reign that has been the disaster for the entire country, including the suburbs. The precise national issues that are missing from Kirk's suburban strategy, the budget deficit, trade inbalance, backward unscientific thinking causing us to give up our role as a world innovation leader, loss of opportunity, lack of healthcare, lack of secure good jobs, oil prices increasing the cost of everything, and the deflation of our national spirit, are the issues that matter to us and under their rule adversely affect us and will continue to adversely affect us every day until we throw off the yoke of them and go back to sensible American freedom with an accountable government.