…long time passing….

Where have all the flowers gone…long time ago…

If only people could see…but like so many lemmings they rush to embrace the very things that kill them.

Things that are commonplace today would have resulted in massive protests in the 1960s and 1970s. I can only assume it’s because normal, ordinary, everyday Americans simply don’t know what’s happening. On my trip to LA this weekend, I asked someone, “How is it that Americans don’t get it? I mean, I’m not that old really, yet the pattern is easy to recognize: Republican presidents (Reagan, Bush I)—strife, war, problems with the economy including economic uncertainty, high unemployment, high deficits, constant proclamations of tax cuts to stimulate the economy that somehow never end up benefiting anyone but rich people; Democrat president (Clinton)—better social programs and more stable economy, lower deficits, higher employment, huge economic development (but, unfortunately, constant harassing investigations and lawsuits, millions spent on enriching Starr and his ilk but producing nothing of substance, and a presidential intern with a semen-stained dress); Republican president (Bush II)—strife, war, problems with the economy including economic uncertainty, high unemployment, high deficits, constant proclamations of tax cuts to stimulate the economy that somehow never end up benefiting anyone but rich people. What’s wrong with this picture? How have the people bought this? George Bush turned a budget surplus into a half-trillion-dollar budget deficit virtually overnight! My friend’s reply, “The Republicans are great at marketing.”

Folks, that’s your money!

How many of you think it’s smart to live on credit card debt? Is it wise to max out your cards and then keep borrowing to pay off the deficit? Well, if you were the banker, you’d be tickled pink thinking of it. The huge deficit means that the loan is not paid down—just like your credit card balance that never gets paid down. And not only does your money go towards interest, but if you let it reach a certain point, you simply cannot pay the interest all at once and so you have to borrow just to pay the interest! This is exactly what we’re doing. So who benefits from that again? The bankers! The people who have capital to lend! And who are they? Do you have capital to lend? Do you have spare money just lying around to give out to the fools who overspent and now need to borrow just to pay interest? YOU DO IF YOU’RE RICH! And you don’t if you’re a normal, ordinary, run-of-the-mill, working American.

Why do we let them do this? Why do we sit idly while they run up the deficit so that we will continue to pay them interest?

Joe posts a link on my blog to an article about the erosion of civil rights. Americans quite literally do not seem to care. They do not realize how easily serfdom is re-accomplished.

When FBI agents were told last year that terrorist training included scuba diving techniques, the agency asked for — and got — the names and addresses of more than 10 million Americans certified as divers.

But we don’t care. After all, “if we have nothing to hide, why should we care?”

Two middle-aged peace activists…Jan Adams and Rebecca Gordon are held and questioned for hours before being released at San Francisco International Airport because their names apparently popped up on a secret government “no fly” list.

Big deal, it’s a small price to pay for freedom!

Barry Reingold, a 62-year-old retired phone company worker, gets into an intense debate at his San Francisco gym over the bombing of Afghanistan and his criticism of Bush, and is awakened at his Oakland apartment a week later by two FBI agents who want to talk to him about his political beliefs.

Well, what’s wrong with that? The government should question people who might be a threat to our safety! And we all know that middle-aged women from San Francisco and old retired guys working out in the gym are dangerous.

Folks, that’s your freedom!

These are ordinary American citizens. They don’t have anything to hide and they aren’t smart enough to realize that talking against George Bush (and how stupid am I writing something like this!) is likely to cause a disruption in their lives if they exercise normal, ordinary constitutional rights of the sort America prided itself on in the past (but no longer). Osama bin Laden has gotten exactly what he was after. Through the destruction of the moral superiority the United States held by virtue of its free and open society, he has managed to eliminate our ability to maintain world support. He has clarified that our freedom is a sham. Through his partner, George Bush, he has erased what our people have fought and died for over the last 200 years.

All this because people cannot see that “if you don’t have anything to hide” you still might wish to speak freely regarding your opinions without risking detainment and questioning. These things are the sort of things we expect from Russia towards its own citizens under communism, not what we expect to see in America, the land of the free and the home of the brave.

But that country—that America—has been relegated to the graveyard along with all those who died, apparently in vain, to support those freedoms we no longer have.

That’s where all the flowers have gone. They’ve gone to graveyards…every one. When will we ever learn?

When will we ever learn?