Cross posted on Daily Kos
Wed Jan 11, 2006 at 08:20:40 AM PDT
I am losing the ability to trust.
I’m about to turn off the TV. I’m close to throwing in the towel. I’m strong. I’m very strong, but maybe I’m not strong enough to be an American citizen.
Several years ago, I was in Scotland. A Scottish physician said to me, “America scares me!” I looked at her and laughed.
Now, America is haunting me as well. Perhaps all societies must endure a plunge into the abyss before emerging in the brilliant glow of sunshine. But, this great American descent is deeper and longer than I can fathom–with no end in sight.
This morning the NY Times reports that the IRS is withholding refunds due our poorest citizens.
“Tax refunds sought by 1.6 million poor Americans over the last five years were frozen and their returns labeled fraudulent, although the vast majority appear to have done nothing wrong, the Internal Revenue Service’s taxpayer advocate told Congress yesterday.”
Why should this scare you, and make you very sad? Very sad indeed.
It should more than scare you because, if you needed any further proof–this is it. The United States government is not simply waging a war on terrorists. It is waging a war against almost all of us.
The most powerful nation on earth, with the most powerful militia, and a president who bloviates “compassionate conservatism”, is relegated to stealing from the poor.
Think of it like this. You walk by a sick, poor, homeless person on the street, and you reach your hand deep into his cup and take out a few quarters. It’s so damn elementary.
It was no mere happenstance that after Katrina, the most vulnerable among us were left to die. It seems that left to die is now being institutionalized. Ask yourself what these small IRS refunds must mean to our fellow citizens? A trip to the doctor, winter shoes, pencils to do homework, aspirin, a quart of milk?
“The advocate, Nina Olson, said the I.R.S. devoted vastly more resources to pursuing questionable refunds sought by the poor – which under the highest estimate is $9 billion – than to the $100 billion in taxes not paid each year by people who work for cash and either fail to file tax returns or understate their income.”
Trust is essential to a functioning society. Trust is what enables us to leave our children at school every morning. Trust is what allows us to take lifesaving medication. When you select a doctor, you do so because you intuitively trust this person.
So, too is trust essential in political life. Democracies cannot flourish without trust. Without trust can there be consent of the governed? Without trust, can there be a willingness to accept the decisions of our government?Without trust, can there be a compact that the laws, whether we agree with them or not, apply to all–equally?
When we trust, we make ourselves vulnerable to others. Our “voluntary” army trusted the leadership to supply them with the tools to do dangerous work. Small things like body armor. Our heroes, betrayed by the government. Left to die, here again. If our heroes are worth nothing, what about the rest of us? Trust betrayed.
I don’t see light at the end of the tunnel–do you? How does one thrive in a country where deceit trumps candor, day after day after day? How does one live in a country when you know the government is not your friend? When you believe at every turn, the government wishes you ill?
History is replete with governments like the one we now endure. I will survive, in some fashion, but many of our fellow citizens won’t.
The American psyche will need generations to recover. How does the next government, whenever that comes, inculcate the sense of trust which has been so violently stripped from the body politic?
I keep returning to 2000. The election of 2000. We were asked as a nation to accept, to trust, the system. We made a terrible mistake.
Our government is as broken as our healthcare system.
Where is the opposition party? Is there an opposition party?
I don’t think any of us are strong enough alone but there is strength in numbers. More and more of us are standing up together and saying enough…we had it before in the ’60s.
One thing we need to do is take mental health breaks…otherwise we’ll all go crazy from the frustration of this government.
I’m not strong enough alone…I’d head for the hills and turn off the news and tv of all types…
For now I’ll keep reaching out to others – so we can be stronger together.
This is why I come here, Kos, MLW, etc.
But where are our fellow citizens?
At DFA meetings, at protest rallys, part of the 70k registered users at dKos, part of the unnamed masses that make dKos the 5th (IIRC) largest read media site in the US after NYTimes etc.(Kos number).
The silent majority is still reasonably silent…but it isn’t a conservative group – it’s a moderate group.
Remember it’s those 5 relatives of mine in UT that voted for Bush in 2000 and Kerry in 2004…it’s my rural neighbors in the mountains – thinking the Patriot Act has gone too far…
They are there…
NYceve, Sally Cat is so right. It is sometimes difficult to remember that those who retain an authoritarian grip on power in this country are in the minority. You are not alone in your dismay and sorrow. We all can feel overwhelmed by the downslide of democracy in America.
That’s why we reach out to each other, talk about it, scream about it, write letters, make phone calls, contribute our time and money to the struggle. I also have been at the edge of despair over this more than once. Most of us have been there, and will probably be there again. I’ll keep coming back because of what’s at stake. Keep the faith.
A few speak out, but only a few, in the face of this abuse of the American people. The first responsibility of lawmakers is to get re-elected. If they rock the boat, they may not.
Is anyone interested in what’s good for America? Americans?
Sorry for the cynicism. It’s just overwhelming sometimes.
Is anyone interested in what’s good for America? Americans?
It’s your sig line: John Murtha speaks for me. At least on Iraq. And a few good senators and reps speak for us on other issues. Lee (D-CA) has a universal health bill, for instance; and though flawed, the DSCC introduced a package of marginally “progressive” bills at the beginning of session.
It all seems to come down to the vote in ’06. Finding and voting for someone to put our trust in, even if that means non-democrats.
And when you realize that the `06 elections WILL be every bit as rigged and corrupt as the `00, `02, and `04 elections, if not even more so?
And that after that if the early polls for `08 show them far enough off that rigging will be too obvious, they may well not be held at all?
And worse YET, about half the US population may well support that?
`Fraid there’s no rational hope left. If you’re religious, pray for a miracle; if not, start working on your escape routes. For the next few years, until the inevitable economic crash takes the entire country (and maybe el Norte entire) down, the Corporate States will be no place for humans.
These folks are a little more optimistic. As to the rest of your post, let’s just say I disagree.
in the introduction to this one, which is, in my opinion, related.
And yes, it’s mine, so this post is a non-consensual reciprocal pimp. 😉
Believe Me!!!!!!
Frustration Grips All, and the Ups and Downs are Numorous!
But, “Perhaps all societies must endure a plunge into the abyss before emerging in the brilliant glow of sunshine.”
I think we came close to that Glow of Sunshine, I lived through those times of little or no fear as a youngster and teen, except for ducking under our desks as practise for the Big One. Can we Reach those times again, I Hope So, But It Will take The Strenght Of Many if not Most!!
All I can say for myself is that the more dire it looks, the more determined I become to resist. I’m damn sure not leaving this country to them.
Like SallyCat says above. They are there. They’re here. You’re here. I’m here. It goes way beyond what we see. I don’t know whether the 06 and 08 elections will be rigged too, but I do know that there are lots of different ways to remove unwanted governments and time will tell how that will be achieved, but I do believe that it will happen. One way or another.
It seems true that humanity does not exist in our institutions, but in individuals. So, then: imo, at all costs, we as individuals must refuse to relenquish our humanity. As individuals, we must retain a balanced, useful concern & compassion for one another; we must develop & maintain interest in what sustains us personally on both personal & communal levels; we must resist giving to those currently in utmost seats of power the only thing they require in order to realize their goals: our fear. The greatest challenges to us in the coming years will be a matter of maintaining our humanity free of fear. Without our fear they have absolutely nothing; it’s the food and lifeblood of societal & political control.
Only through the striving in these conscious objectives, I think, will we be able to counter & purge the poisons that now threaten to overcome us. Let’s not forget: those now in power have not appeared in a cultural or societal vacuum; they are entirely American, of our soil & collective being. Their callousness thrives because we, as a people, have been callous; their greed thrives because we, as a people, have been greedy; they have been dishonest because we, as a people, have not been honest with ourselves or with one another.
Frankly, I think the current dysfunction of our federal governance on all levels is due to the very same detriments.
It’s time to get a grip on ourselves as a nation in terms of our individual self-interest, our individual relationships to civic duty, to our shared environment & to our communities. It’s time to get real, in other words. Because, as a nation, we’ve largely become blind to our own failings, we’re now forced to confront them, as manifest in these powerful influences. In my honest opinion, we’re drawing very close, as a nation, to something akin to a medical ‘healing crisis’: the body makes a tremendous leap toward healing at the very edge of death; the effect is crucial & instigates either the beginning of true recovery or the last breath of life.
This is where I think we are. As I personally feel I have no choice as to my citizenship (for various practical & ideological reasons), I choose to meet the challenge as best I can for now.
Also noted: eventually, I do believe a change will occur in our governance as a simple matter of balance. No system exists in stasis, no retention of power is eternal, nothing so basically insustainable as the current condensation of power among a select few can be endlessly supported. Eventually the grand neocon experiment will be a fully transparent failure precisely because it’s basically insustainable in terms of its own means of support.
Again, the greatest weapon at the disposal of the powerful is our fear. Let’s see how we can step beyond that limitation.
I do believe there is hope for success in regaining democracy here in our republic.
But only if we inform ourselves on the methods that have been used in the past, and adapt these methods to our time.
Can anyone tell me why we are not actively discussing these methods? Many of these methods have been, and are currently being implemented… but almost randomly… and no viable national organization to it.
Why have we forgotten to study the legacies and lessons of Martin Luther King’s civil rights movement, Gandhi in India, Lech Walesa in Poland, Norwegian Resistance WWII, Argentina’s Mothers and Grandmothers of the Disappeared, and many others…
If we refuse to educate ourselves as to the tools available how are we to proceed to rectify this fascist drift? If you are interested in this line of thought, you may start here
under the Patriot Act, and those that were inadvertantly left out of the current Act will be included in the latest version.
Not that such is really necessary, as the US has for several years now been a country where anyone can be seized and imprisoned for perpetuity, “rendered” to a torture camp, or merely exterminated on the spot, for any or no reason.
I am constrained by provisions of the current Act from mentioning any “tools available” or suggesting any course of action, which is just as well, since such a small minority of Americans are displeased with their plight.
But wtf “they”ve already got my name down from that last go ’round a few decades back… now they can just go ahead and reactivate my file…
However, in the event of any of the possible avian flu pandemic scenarios so far revealed to me, I do believe the percentage of Americans who are displeased with their plight will increase at tad. At which point they might be persuaded to express their displeasure in some “constructive” manner.