kunstler | This Memorial Day the usual
pieties are noticeably muted. Few politicians dare to utter sanctimonies
about our brave soldiers maimed on far-flung battlefields, when so many
of them are stuck waiting alone in dark rooms with only their wounds
and phantom limbs for company. If regular civilian medicine is a cruel,
hopeless, quasi-criminal racket, imagine what medicine for army veterans
must be like — all that plus an overlay of profound government
ineptitude and institutionalized ass-covering
Even the idle chatter about
American Dreaming has faded out lately, because too much has happened to
families and individuals to demonstrate that people need more than
dreams and wishes to make things happen. It’s kind of a relief to not
have to listen to those inane exhortations anymore, especially the
idiotic shrieking that “We’re number one!”
Others have got our number now.
They are going their own way whether we like it or not. The Russians and
the Chinese. The voters in Europe. The moiling masses of Arabia and its
outlands. The generals in Thailand. Too bad the people of Main Street
USA don’t want to do anything but sit on their hands waiting for the
rafters to tumble down. My guess is that nothing will bestir us until we
wake up one morning surrounded by rubble and dust. By then, America
will be a salvage operation.
There’s a long and comprehensive
To-Do list that has been waiting for us since at least 2008, when the
nation received one forceful blow upside its thick head. We refuse to
pay attention. First item on the list: restructure the banks. Other
items: reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act; disassemble the ridiculous
“security” edifice under the NSA; upgrade the US electric grid; close
down most of our military bases overseas (and some of our bases in the
USA); draw up a constitutional amendment re-defining the alleged
“personhood” of corporations; fix the passenger railroad system to
prepare for the end of Happy Motoring; rebuild Main Street commerce to
prepare for the death of WalMart and things like it; outlaw GMO foods
and promote local food production; shut down casino gambling.
That’s just my list. What’s yours? And when will you step out of this rotting house into the sunshine?
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