I hiked to three waterfalls on Mount Greylock during Columbus Day weekend in Western Massachusetts. I meant to just get away from it all, enjoy the foliage, and get some exercise. I didn't mean to think about the state of the nation or politics, but walking the wonderful trails with stone steps placed there by the Civilian Conservation Corps made me think about how FDR put men to work when the country he was elected to serve had 25% unemployment to protect our natural resources. It was 1933, and there was an army of men brought together in barracks in the most beautiful places in our beautiful country, building bridges and making enhancements here at home for generations of Americans to enjoy, not destroying our environment or countries in faraway lands. They came together to do something positive and came away feeling good about what they accomplished. Today, our young men and women are sent to fight wars based on lies and come home with the highest suicide rate ever.
All of that money spent to kill innocent civilians and destroy the infrastructure of countries that have the natural resources the PTB covet could be spent putting Americans back to work doing great things to make our country better and ready for the future. Instead we are stagnating at home. Our train system is a joke, literally. We are unprepared for the day when oil is not plentiful, and instead of spending our money to make our country clean energy feasible, we are spending money to keep us dependent on fossil fuel. We are fracking, poisoning our water supplies and polluting whole swaths of land with oil pipeline spills.
FDR had it right when he improved our parkland, while at the same time, provided people badly needed jobs and skills. What has happened to the ideals of our party?
FDR had it right when he regulated the banks, but now the crooked banksters deregulated those sage controls and are rewarded handsomely with $29 trillion bailouts for gutting our economy. They are laughing all the way to and from the bank.
We are not bailing out the unemployed, nor doing much in the way of conservation, quite the contrary. What has happened to the ideals of our party?
Special interest PACs, that's what.