Some would say the United States is at war, yes, but also in occupation of Iraq and engaged in a prickly proxy border war with Pakistan, but in the spirit of simplicity it’s fair to say we are plainly at war, citizens, politicians and industry feverishly united to crush the Southwest Asia geopolitical problem and move on to normalcy.
Anyway, we’re obviously at war with Afghanistan with an annual $120 billion budget (we could build 15 super-mega train corridors with that, 50% of energy independence investments the next year) with the Dept. of Defense at a stratospheric, unbelievable $525 billion. Some estimates say $925 is spent annually on "security," whatever, in this pulsing massive orgy of spending our DC fiduciary swingers continually rant and warn about size of government, propose earmark bans, while darkly playing furtive games and ploys with the debt limit.
Professors speak of groupthink, political junkies of bubbles, plain citizens of fucking loonies loose in the asylum, this insanity obviously displays a closed DC environment of politicians, lobbyists, journalists and bureaucrats completely lost in space, babbling bullshit to themselves for so many years with no obvious penalty they’re totally unaware how clearly sick they are to outsiders.
Senator McMaskill, Democrat, if reality ruled our world your little budget game yesterday would invoke a resignation letter from the President and the history of your psychiatrist, we’re worried about you.
Claire, you transported yourself forward in time where folks of course would speak highly of you. Get some rest, for Christ’s sake.
Let’s be brutally and crystalline clear about this as liberals, progressives and moderates at Daily Kos, all so happy together, the Republicans are the instigators of most of this psychosis, yes, but when Democrats play along or do not continually, loudly proclaim this insanity for what it obviously is, citizens looking on rightly assume they’re basically okay with it all and lump everyone in DC as laughable lost-in-space loons, obnoxiously pushing principles of behavior when everyone else is surprised they can get competently dressed every morning.
This is one huge reason our macro citizen participation rate is awful and the 2010 Democratic turnout so bad, folks don’t take anyone in DC truly seriously—how could they?—and why approval for Congress is in the 20’s toilet, DC is completely off the rails mentally, it’s a waste of precious time and energy to engage it, accept whatever stupidity they barf and hope for the best.
I write not to darkly proclaim doom in some cynical sneer of immaturity, not to goad on those I hold a grudge against for not enacting liberal policies (me?), but to forcefully state for all of us that any political goal, however small or vastly held in our tiny worlds (health care, peace, marijuana legalization) is nowhere until the rest of the country takes us seriously.
That’s impossible when politicians babble spending cuts and raising the retirement age to 69 (!) with an Afghanistan war on and a $525 billion DOD budget. Common sense, ethics and polling all clearly show this to be total lunacy and not what the American people want, of course not, but right now the President and Democratic Party show no differentiation from all the patients in those nighties, everyone in DC looks the same drooling about spending cuts while flag-draped coffins jet home.
Bernie Sanders has forcefully spoken out, yes. That’s it.
Until Democrats and the President forcefully fix this all that we have strived for is lost or diminished. Huge swathes of the country look upon all of DC with contempt, and we’re lying badly to ourselves as Kossarians and Democrats if we don’t acknowledge this. We can’t even think of any spending cuts with a war and $525 budget on, if we don’t fight this lunacy we’re basically playing some echo-chamber game with ourselves, all that we’ve done so much at risk. Sorry, I’m not into that sport.