Mourn for America
by Paul McGoldrick
I'm not yet flying straight and level after the incomprehensible results of the General Election. I'm not sure that the American people know what they have done to themselves or to the rest of the world. The loser conceded with the hope of repairing the country's divisions, but those divisions have only just begun.
I am not political by nature and analogZONE is not a political hotspot on the bookmarks of the militant, or for that matter of any political compass point. But we do have a say in what will be good for us, for business, for our future and for the world.
The American people have decided, mostly it seems based on displayed religiosity and perceived strength, to elect a president, and therefore his cronies, who have no interest in anything other than boosting their egos and personal pocketbooks. The government has been given a four-year pass - which they will inaccurately treat as a mandate - to do whatever is necessary to make money for the few. No jobs in America are safe; no freedoms are safe.
Many voted because they listened to their pastors' framing of the issue: a "fallen" Catholic versus a strong, unblinking Protestant who portrays their preferred image of the faithful. How can christianity support what we have done, are doing, and will do in a country like Iraq? Does anybody really believe that, when the next elections roll around in 2008, things are going to be any clearer in direction in that forsaken country, a country that the British invented to solve a geographical problem? Does this seem like a modern crusade, or just a vendetta?
We are now officially regarded as nuts by the rest of the world. As individuals we will not be shunned, but the official policies of the United States are now only to be seen as the marks of the bully fighting his way through a playground, instead of debating and arguing the acceptance of any particular position. The leader of our government needed a helping hand in his debates using an interruptible feedback (IFB) system designed for video talent on remotes, he made the same speech thousands of times - but only to the sworn loyalists.
This is so reminiscent of Germany in the early 1930s…
The dynasty of the families that seem to end up governing America from
time-to-time is already a feature that decries the democratic process somehow.
For such a family to remove itself from its establishment background in
Connecticut and pretend that it is an everyday family of down-home ranchers
is a pretext that is beyond comprehension. The cattle have spoken. But we
should all be very aware of how cowboys treat their livestock; some are
already branded; some are already rustled; the rest of us are destined for
the butcher's block. Which are you? Will you be better off in four years?
Or just four years more bitter?