The Associated Press: Poll: Majority lacks trust in government

The Associated Press: Poll: Majority lacks trust in government

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No wonder folks distrust government - after 50 years of GOP bull shit about "government is the problem," folks actually believe this nonsense.

And watching the GOP dunces foul up the waters even further, no wonder folks have lost their confidence in our Constitutional system, one of the finest in the world. Sadly, what rates as the GOP today is a twisted impostor of Lincoln's Party. I've had the pleasure of knowing many a fine GOP politician - they were gifted and collegial. They know how to stand their ground and how to reach across the aisle. But these days, the GOP has no ground to stand upon; they are a party without purpose. And without purpose, they lack the means for reaching across the aisle. They have no clue what to work for, so they're unable to work with anyone else. And as Palin and her sideshow grow increasingly influential, we'll see the GOP imploding. It won't be a pretty picture, and it surely won't help this nation out of the political morass into which we are sinking.

The Dems haven't helped either - they've been too afraid to stand up and be counted, to buck the insanity of Bush and to be what Dems should be - a party of The People. Only a few dared to raise the right questions about the Iraq adventure, and when our allies raised questions, we turned on them with a pathetic rage - trying to rename "French" Fries as "Freedom Fries." How silly; how immature; how shallow!

24-hour news services jump from one crisis to another, chasing ambulances, if you will, rather than engaging in real journalism - after watching the news, we're left breathless with exhaustion and not a shred of wisdom. Though I stand with MSNBC as a source of traditional values - compassion and the common good. This is the stuff of Real American and real greatness. Keith Olbermann and Rachel Madow and Chris Matthews are clearly prophets in the land, helping us embrace the best in ourselves. Though prophets are often without honor.

With the demise of our great newspapers, either going under for want of revenue or simply becoming tawdry mouthpieces for ideologically-driven owners, we have a dearth of real information and an abundance of opinion.

Without our knowing it, without our awareness, Washington has been bought by the highest bidders, and it was put up for sale by the GOP.

What we have witnessed under the Reagan umbrella is nothing less than the rape of America and the degradation of our democracy, even as the GOP and its right-wing religionists have brainwashed huge numbers of every-day Americans who will believe even they're hanging from the highest tree and told to go to hell by the privileged.

It's a real mess we have on our hands, and we have only Mr. Happy-Face Reagan to thank for the gutting of the Republic and the gutless-wonder Dems who went along for the ride, pocketing lobbyist monies along with all the rest.

I believe President Obama understands our system better than any President since FDR, and better than most, Obama is a President of the people, by the people and for the people, even if the people haven't a clue, even when believing the lies and illusions perpetrated by insidious economic forces intent only on blinding us with the bright lights of empty promises while looting the national treasury. We had a chance some years ago with Mr. Carter, but we choose illusion instead and elected Reagan. I voted for Reagan in some mad effort to be an independent voter. It was the first time I voted for a Republican, and it has the been the last, and given the current state of affairs in our land, I can't imagine a GOP candidate for whom I'd vote.

We've wasted ourselves on war, we have welcomed the violent rhetoric of Joe the Plumber, we have ignored The People, we have allowed lobbyists to become our government, we have filled our benches with small-minded ideologues who are blind to the Constitution and its greatness.

Where are we headed?

Let's be honest.

We could be headed for disaster.

Thank you Mr. Reagan, Mr. Bush and Bush, and all those who have turned their back on American greatness and settled for the husks of bigotry and rage.

Go t-bags. You are well on your way to destroying your nation, and you haven't a clue.

You are a pitiful group, deluded by the matrix. You think you're eating steak, when you're only eating gruel.

Wake up America before it's too late.

Impeach Bush?

Swirling around the edges of Bush and Gang, the persistent question of impeachment.

I'm not sure, but it seems that as the curtain closes on Bush's presidency, more and more revelations about the hoodwinking of America.

If Clinton could be impeached for obstruction of justice on a matter of bedroom politics, do the lies and manipulations of the Bush Administration with regard to WMDs and Iraq constitute an impeachable offense? Is Bush a war criminal?

I'm confident that history will reveal the Bush administration to be the worst, rife with self-righteousness and worse. I have no doubt that the Neo-Cons and Theo-Cons knew full-well what they were doing - a rabid effort to take over Middle Eastern oil for American imperial interests.

Did Bush know this?

Some of the time, I'm convinced that was a pawn in their hands, a not-to-bright Texas weed wacker with an Ivy League pedigree bought by Daddy.

Then, I wonder - is he the proverbial country lawyer?

But, then, every country lawyer I've known (and I lived in Oklahoma for 12 years) were utterly bright, and it wasn't long before their skill emerged ... I've yet to see a shred of skill in Bush and have never heard him speak with any down-home eloquence, but only a stumbling rhetoric filled with schoolyard posturing, phrases memorized - seemingly without comprehension.

McCain offers nothing more - though a man of intelligence, his positions are obscurely imperialist, and stung by Vietnam, he's going to fight that war all over again, this time in Iraq, fulfilling a mythical complaint: if only the politicos had left the military alone, Vietnam could have been won (whatever that means).

Which reminds me, having just celebrated the Fourth of July and reading the Gettysburg Address - oh, to have a patriot like Lincoln, a man of breadth and profound sympathies.

To know that patriotism without international regard is no patriotism, but a betrayal of one's nation. Real patriotism always had large boundaries.

We would do well to study Reinhold Niebuhr's work on nationalism - what he described as a "sublimated egoism - the narrow-minded substitute for true patriotism, a substitute that always makes the wrong decision and leads a nation down a destructive pathway.

Niebuhr writes: The truth is that every immediate loyalty is a potential danger to higher and more inclusive loyalties, and an opportunity for the expression of a sublimated egoism (Moral Man and Immoral Society).

What we have seen with Bush and Gang is an unrestrained limited loyalty, and the usual counter-voices of church and philosophy have been silent far too long.

The weapon used by the Neo-Cons to silence criticism has been the patriotic label. To raise a question or voice a doubt, immediately the "unpatriotic" label was hurled with forceful effectiveness. Anyone who saw the king to be naked chose silence for fear of being labeled unpatriotic in a time when Americans were demonstrating their all too common lack of intelligence. After 9/11, fearfulness ruled the day, wiretapping and Orwellian newspeak ruled the night - and this great Republic teetered on the edge of madness.

But God's mercy is real, and I believe that God's mercy is enabling our nation to recover its balance, to regain an honest appraisal of our place in history and our need for allies. We cannot go it alone; it's foolishness to ever think so.

And the king has been naked for a long time.

May those with a voice, and good eyes, call it for what it is. The king is naked, and we have been seriously misled. But let's tell the whole truth: we've been misled because too many of us wanted to be misled. We American's love the smell of napalm in the morning.

When we needed a real leader, we got a charade, and a parade of looney tunes.

Is Bush impeachable?

Only time will tell ... proceedings against Bush and Gang may be needed to exorcise the demons that have long held sway in our national psyche.

Yet goodness has its own powers, too, and power enough to heal the wounds and put this nation back on track.

Perhaps time and history will provide their own history, relegating Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld and Cheney to the dust bin of irrelevance - and for them, that may be punishment enough. But whatever happens, don't buy their books, unless they dedicate their earnings to the care of American veterans.