Handing all over to corporate intersts
Most depressing is the news in Wisconsin and other states threating collective bargaining rights. State legislators years and years irresponsibly did not fund their share of pensions for teachers who went underpaid during their working years, while quiet responsibly contributing their 8 percent share to the pension systems.
Foreclosures in the Chicago area are running about 50,000 a year, leaving blocks and blocks of boarded up neighborhoods. Wall Street, financial institutions and banks admit no wrongdoing and resist regulation in spite of evidence of fraudulent loans, repackaging mortgages sure of failure, blind rating agencies, accepting bailout money and using it for executive bonuses and nefarious non-job creating investments to enhance their corporate bottom line. Oh, the stock exchanges are quite healthy, thank you. But that’s not recovery.
Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Jordan, Bahrain, Algeria, Morocco, Iran and even parts of China are host to demonstrations demanding change. A foretaste of what will happen in America as our human rights continue to diminish under the impact of unconstitutional legislation — the Patiot Act. Is your phone line safe from the FBI and Homeland Security as we sponsor torture and maintain Guantanamo?
Sadly, America continues under President Obama its GWBushian imperial ventures in Afghanistan and Iraq, with no-win strategies and failing policies in both countries. At least the drone attacks on Pakistan have stopped due to trying to free a CIA diplomatic employee accused of shooting two Pakistanis.
The world is in a mess and compassion-challenged Republicans don’t seem to care about anything but reducing taxes for the super wealthy, abolishing health care, busting unions and carrying on imperial overseas ventures which are bankrupting the country. Perhaps that’s what they want, to hand over our democracy to corporate interests and replace it with a fascistic oligarchic state. They’re certainly not working for the common good.
Marion J. Reis
Wheaton