Let’s Shape Up Our Country

It seems like every move made by the United States lately is the wrong one. There doesn’t seem to be anyone in charge of anything who either knows what he or she is doing or just doesn’t care about the consequences of their actions. First of all why wage a financial war against Russia. I think it is morally wrong, but forgetting about that, does it even have a chance of working? China will help Russia as may some other countries which have formed their own version of the World Bank. We might be able to destroy the Russian economy, but why do we want to do that? Our own economy is on very shaky ground with the national debt at almost $60,000 for every person in the U.S. and it is growing. Why is it we continuously get involved in these things?

We got ourselves into a jam with all the phone recordings and snooping we have been doing with the Echelon Program and others. We actually eavesdropped on the German Chancellor’s phone and got caught doing it. That was great for relations with other countries. Before you knew it many other countries were accusing us of reading and listening to their communications and the communications of all their citizens. Every country wants and needs security, so does this seem like the smart thing to do? It did to the people running the security here.

For years in our zeal to fight communism we backed all sorts of corrupt leaders especially in South and Central America. This caused us to become hated by the citizens of those countries. We also did the same thing in other parts of the world, but not always for the same reasons. When the Shah of Iran was backed by us he became a despot and torturer and when he was finally overthrown we were surprised the Iranians hated us and didn’t trust us. Big surprise there. We are basically a good country with a lot of good people in it and yet some of the policies we pursue are terrible. Why is that? It all boils down to one thing and that is money. We are becoming a country run by corporations and corporations have a different agenda than national governments.

Some will say this isn’t true corporations don’t run the country.Β  To them I say just look at who the lobbyists represent. Corporate money fuels most of the lobbies, with some exceptions. They are not interested in us, they are interested in expansion and profit which in some cases translates to oil rights and opening businesses in emerging markets. National governments are supposed to be worrying about their citizens and making things better for them. Almost every corporation under the sun is taking advantage of us and the people in the rest of the world. If you want to know how bad things can get, one corporation who was manufacturing vaccine found their vaccine was tainted so instead of destroying it, they decided to use it in other third world countries and made a lot of people sick and probably were responsible for killing some. The company would rather kill people or make them sick then destroy vaccine worth millions of dollars.

Many of these corporations are parasites who don’t even pay taxes forcing the average American to take up the slack. If they all paid their share of taxes, our taxes could go down. That is why none of them want to see a flat tax where everyone and every company pays the same percentage on their wages or profits. It seems like interfering in the affairs of other countries has become the rule rather than the exception. I for one believe the countries of the world should solve their own problems unless we have a direct threat against our country. Why are we in Afghanistan and Iraq, we do not belong there and never did. Our soldiers were sent to Iraq under false pretenses believing there were weapons of mass destruction when everyone in charge knew they didn’t exist. I can’t even fathom the reason for being in Afghanistan. We were told Al-Qaida was there and sent an army there and somehow began to also fight the Taliban which used to be on our side, as we were formerly with Al-Qaida when the Russians invaded Afghanistan.

We should have had no interest in the Ukraine and not interfered with it. We are not the police of the world and we would all be better off if we were not. Some government officials will tell you the world relies on the US to keep the peace and I say bull, that is what the UN was supposed to be for among other things. I really believe we should not have to protect other countries from their neighbors. Why should Americans have to shed their blood for this and empty their treasury?

Even in this country things are getting bad. All we have to do is look at the 23 million or so who are in poverty in a country many consider the richest in the world and yet our health system is the most expensive in the western world, but it is not number one. It ranks 11th behind such countries as Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. One of the reasons is the corporate control of the price of drugs and the cost of insurance on both patients and providers. One of the big differences with us is unlike most western countries we do not have universal health insurance coverage.

Laws are passed without concern for people which enrich corporations. An example of the latest blight on people was an attachment to the defense budget which provided for the sale of 2400 acres of land the Apaches consider holy in return for pieces of land all over the state which are not considered holy. The company getting the land is a mining company and not even an American one. The Native Americans get screwed by the government once again. The reason the amendment was attached to the defense bill was because it couldn’t pass on its own. It was just an underhanded way of getting it through. Even local laws are becoming ridiculous in some places as people are being sent to jail for collecting rain water and feeding the poor. Yes feeding the poor has become illegal in several places.

It is certainly time for us to rethink who we elect and stop thinking along party lines. Things have gotten out of hand and it is time we look toward who will do the best job for us regardless of what party they belong to even if it is one of the minor ones.