Thousands of people are dead. Millions of emails are missing. The so-called President is finally being called on gathering the power of a dictator into his bony, privileged fists.
And America is still limping along, watching its soaps and sitcoms, drinking its beer, and scratching its collective jock while the country burns.
I don't have a lot on common with Lee Iacocca. He's a bigshot, fat-cat CEO type, complete with paunch and cigar--and, one presumes, conservative as the day is long. I'm a mother of three, a self-employed writer, unabashedly progressive and hippie-liberal. Talk about different ends of the spectrum. I suspect if by some chance we ever met, we would cancel each other out of existence, just like matter and antimatter.
But we apparently agree on something. We agree that there is something desperately wrong with America right now. What's more, we agree on what's wrong. And we're both mad as hell about it.
So here's where we stand. We're immersed in a bloody war with no plan for winning and no plan for leaving. We're running the biggest deficit in the history of the country. We're losing the manufacturing edge to Asia, while our once-great companies are getting slaughtered by health care costs. Gas prices are skyrocketing, and nobody in power has a coherent energy policy. Our schools are in trouble. Our borders are like sieves. The middle class is being squeezed every which way. These are times that cry out for leadership.
But when you look around, you've got to ask: "Where have all the leaders gone?" Where are the curious, creative communicators? Where are the people of character, courage, conviction, competence, and common sense? I may be a sucker for alliteration, but I think you get the point.
***
I have news for the gang in Congress. We didn't elect you to sit on your asses and do nothing and remain silent while our democracy is being hijacked and our greatness is being replaced with mediocrity. What is everybody so afraid of? That some bobblehead on Fox News will call them a name? Give me a break. Why don't you guys show some spine for a change? (Lee Iacocca, Borders feature)
I've got to tell you, when someone like him and someone like me agree not only on the fact that there is a problem, but where the problem is and what should be done about it, that's not just smoke. It's a raging fire.
I also have to ask you: what the hell happened to us? Back in the sixties and seventies, over seventy percent of college kids wanted to find deeper philosophical integrity. Nowadays over seventy percent of them want a good-paying job. (I got that from this month's Adbusters, if you're curious.) America's busy eating its BBQ and scratching its collective nuts while Bushie Pie and his gang of merry white-bread men rob from the poor to fatten the rich.
Come on, folks. These are the people who sat on their thumbs when we needed leadership on 9/11. (What spineless bastard is going to hide in a bunker when our country is attacked? It was Bush's job to be in the White House and to say, "Come on. Get me if you dare." Not cowering in fear somewhere.) They sat on their thumbs and let folks die during Katrina. (Heckuva job, Brownie. And gee, those folks were already poor, this is actually a boon for them. Isn't that what Bush's mum said?) These are the people who not only didn't catch bin Laden (because they need him to whip up public sentiment, I'll wager) but instead got us mired in sand and blood over in Iraq so Halliburton can fill up Cheney's pockets with filthy lucre by way of DOD contracts. These are the people trampling the Constitution and handing out brownies and cash to hatemongers like Don Imus (who got what he deserved, but not until the publicity got too hot) and Rush Limbaugh (how many convictions do we need to put that wad of hypocrisy away?)
Where is our outrage?
Some of our outrage is contributing in dribs and drabs to Obama's campaign. (Hillary, I'm sorry, but refusing to stay with public campaign finance shows you're tarred with the Republican profit-mongering brush.) Some of our outrage is showing up in the Bush's popularity polls. Some of it is showing in the Democratic victories.
But where is the real chewy nougat of outrage? Where are the people in the streets? Where are the people calling their senators and Congressman, saying "Make this so-called President who wants to abrogate the law and the Constitution whenever he sees fit or it is advantageous to his political party, accountable!"
Freedom does have a price. That price is not sending poor kids over to Iraq so Bush can finally win his daddy's love and pay back the fat cats who bought him into office. No, the price of freedom is staying informed, being politically active, and taking an active part in the running of our country. For the people, by the people doesn't mean it gets handed to us on a silver platter, folks. It means we have to work to balance this bicycle and make it go down the road. We stop pedaling and coast for a while, pretty soon we end up in the ditch.
That ditch is wide, and broad, and full of the blood of our soldiers. It's squeezing the middle class out of existence and paying the top one percent of wealthy people fantastic gains pressed out of the veins of the bottom fifty-sixty percent. Do you realize, as Molly Ivins noted ad nauseum, that the only political issue Bush hasn't flip-flopped or bumbled on is a capital gains tax break for the rich?
Just think about where that means.
"Politics?" the man on the street says, thrusting his finger up his nose. "It's boring. Besides, they're all liars."
Yeah, they pretty much are. No politician is ever going to vote for the Right Thing out of the goodness of his or her heart, just like no corporation is going to Do The Right Thing out of the goodness of its collective heart. Governments, politicians, and corporations only Do The Right Thing out of fear.
Fear, my dear fellow citizen, of you and me.
So get up off your widening McDonalds-fed ass, America. You have no right to bitch if you just sit in front of your television and let our cherished Constitution, our branches of government, our checks and balances, and all the other machinery the Founding Fathers were daffy enough to entrust to us the people falter and be hijacked by the like of Bush, Rove, and their merry crew of true-believers and zealots. Kick those Mayberry Machiavellis into jail and let's get back to being the shining light of freedom for the world, huh? Call your Congressman. Call your senators. Vote, for Christ's sake. Take five minutes out of your busy television-watching schedule and educate yourself about what's going on in your legislature.
If you don't, you deserve to end up the victims of a dictatorship.
As Iacocca himself might say, that's the bottom line.