The Issue

How did we get to where we are in this country now? How the hell did we get to where we are on planet Earth now? We stopped paying attention, that's how.
That being said, British Petroleum and Halliburton have some answering to do. It is past time for these companies to feel our wrath.
The Gulf disaster might very well be the result of bad luck, but that is a very short-term outlook: they have gotten us to the point where we are virtually slaves to their products, dependent on "their" oil. Every time I go to the gas pump or use a petroleum-based bi-product (including plastic, a major qualm I have, and a major reason, I suspect, for increasingly shoddy products whose dependence on plastic parts makes them weak and obsolete quicker) I wince both with guilt and outrage. These people are virtually ensuring my future and that of my only child, and of all our children, wafts around us like a shroud.
It doesn't have to be this way, but it may already be too late to avoid a major ecological crisis that will make US obsolete. They have made it this way. Anyone ride in a hybrid or electric car lately? What happens when you come to a red light? You wonder if the car is still on . . . that's what happens. I had the recent fortune to come to a red light in a hybrid. "What the f*ck happened to the engine?" I thought.
Watching other countries run circles around us as far as mass transportation-wise is a humiliating past time indeed. How chagrin we should all be!
Some people have the fortune to be able to shoot from one end of town to another in a matter of minutes, or to drive virtually noiseless cars, and here we are, bouncing around in bulky, boxy automobiles running on antiquated and downright stone-age energy like morons. I feel like one, riding around in this veritable go-cart of metal and dinosaur ooze every day. It's would almost be comical, if it weren’t so devastatingly embarrassing and catastrophic.
I hope no one reading this honestly believes that battery and fuel cell technology are really as ineffective as our corporations would have us believe. I sincerely hope no one is actually gullible enough to believe that these carbon-munching metal monstrosities we bounce around in every day are really the best we can do. The technological advances necessary for clean-burning fuel have DELIBERATELY been held back and under funded for decades. The transition to new energy sources would be too difficult for petroleum giants like Halliburton. They don't want new energy sources.
Our financial institutions have robbed us many times over, and their worst offenses destroyed our economy and nearly destroyed our country. Worst of all, they almost destroyed our livelihoods. I would say they betrayed us, if it weren't for the fact that they never were pledged to our well-being.
Our federal government chose to use our money to bail these unbelievably corrupt and stupid gamblers out. Thanks go out to Billy Clinton, who repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, which regulated the necessary divide mandating that financial institutions could not lend and invest credit at the same time. The results of this and Bush-era aggressions against the American people has led to what we are seeing today. They have not given any indication they would do the same for us, nor that they have any appreciation for these efforts. Nor has the federal government given us much indication that they are ready to bail us mere constituents, i.e. their BOSSES, out. Us taxpayers are, in fact, the superiors of our own government. We must never forget this again. Moreso, we must struggle to remember this fact once again.
It has been written that a Revolution of sorts must take place every 12 years or so to shake up the pillars of power as they are infested with the growth of decay, of corruption. When was the last time we really had a revolution in any real sense?
Citizens must be angry. We must keep informed enough to be able to feel a sense of utter betrayal when we realize that our futures have been sold down the river, when we know that supporting these too big to fail institutions and supporting our government is now one in the same. Virtually indistinguishable.
Noam Chomsky wrote a piece for "in These Times" recently, as sent to me by Reader Supported News (desperately in need of donations, by the way, please subscribe and donate if you enjoy it). In the piece, titled "Rustbelt Rage," there was a quote that had a particularly poignant effect on me. He said "An acute sense of betrayal comes readily to people who believed they had fulfilled their duty to society in a moral compact with business and government, only to discover they had been only instruments of profit and power." He details the actions and final written manifesto of Joe Stack, the unfortunate blip on the joke-that-is-the-media's radar screen whose devastatingly affecting story led him to fly his private jet into the Pentagon, killing him and one other person. This man's actions are indefensible, but his point rings true in an era in which Congressional seats are being auctioned off to the highest bidder: uniformly United State's corporations, now defined by the Supreme Court as "people" (many thanks to people like Justice John Roberts for this).
Stack's life had essentially been destroyed by system which provides for the super-rich in a heartbeat, and to the rest of us when they have time. He lived next door to a women who lived on Social Security and subsisted on cat food after her late husband had been promised, then cheated out of a healthy pension fund after 30 plus years of hard labor. This man was driven to rage and to desperate measures after a life rife with difficulty at the hands of a system which rejected any attempts he made to strike out on his own after becoming disenchanted with big business.
Our system has failed. We must fix it. If that means once again shaking up the pillars of power, then so be it. I only hope this is done peacefully as it was in the Glorious (Bloodless) Revolution of 1688 in England and not with the bloodlust of the French Revolution of 1789. The futility of throwing a brick through a window must always be realized, favor then being given to nonviolent opposition (what Gandhi termed "satyagraha"). Economic warfare is currently being waged on the middle class. The middle class is slowly disappearing. When less than one percent of the population controls 99% of the wealth and people can no longer put bread on their table, things historically have gotten bloody . . . VERY bloody. This is no longer necessary. Bricks are no longer needed to send a message. Massive boycotts of services and products are now necessary. Favor electric cars. Favor hybrids. They are now available and will become more affordable. Boycott Chase and Bank of America in favor of local credit unions. Pay off and toss your credit card for good. Less plastic for our wallets. Work, if possible, for socially responsible organizations (usually smaller ones). Vote with your dollar. The dollar is now mightier than the sword, so to speak.
Oh, and for GOD'S sake, pass some real Campaign Finance Reform. If it ever passes in any meaningful manner, many of our problems will (briefly) work themselves out in ways that may surprise us. This is our single most important task right now politically.