America: Rebuild it or fix it?

[rucky]

Poverty, unemployment, illness, war trauma, environmental degradation, foreclosures. You don't have to look that far to find something to care about.

Bullying, racism, callous judgment of terminally ill children, corrupt banksters and the politicians that protect them. You don't have to look that far to find someone who doesn't care. Maybe they never cared. Maybe they quit caring. And it's not like a "meh" kind of uncaring, this is active, vigorous anti-caring. As evidenced in some of the more outrageous rhetoric seen in these midterm election campaigns, anti-caring is in style. Newt, Palin, Angle, Paladino, etc etc etc. These are not just isolated incidents of anti-caring. Maybe it's a plot orchestrated by the Koch Brothers, Dick Armey & Rupert Murdoch, but that doesn't make it any less real. The master manipulators have tapped into a sentiment very real amongst many Americans:

Fuck it.

Hit the reset button. Time for a do-over. Burn the whole machine to the ground & rebuild it.

This attitude isn't unique to the Teabaggers. To different extents, it's crossed everyone's mind as well. It's the same reasoning that anybody who's driven a piece of shit car for extended periods of time can relate to. Maybe the country is corrupt beyond repair. Maybe it would be easier to start over, rather than try to fix the machine while it's still running on a defective engine.

So what happened to Hope? Two short years ago, we were all about it. Since then, we've learned more about the extent of defectiveness entrenched in America. Lots of earlier suspicions were confirmed. We opened the hood that was largely kept closed by the Bush cabal, and after assessing the damages, many of us have decided to call it a total loss.

So that's where we're at in America. We've assessed the damages, and now we're on a path where we either rebuild it or fix it, or just keep driving it until the wheels fall off.

The GOP is going for the third option. The car gets THEM where THEY want to go. Never mind that it can no longer fit any freeloading passengers. If there's no room in the car, you can walk.

The mainstream Democrats want to fix the car. They have two screwdrivers and a wrench. They need help, but mostly have people standing around, drinking beer, and pointing at a hose that needs clamped or hypothesizing about whether it's the battery or the alternator.

The Tea Party is ready to total it.

The Progressives are ready to total it.

What's missing in the "then what?" This is the question that nobody is asking or answering. We're so busy reacting to the damages, voters have not yet concerned themselves with what happens next.

The GOP is okay with how things are, so there's no vision there.

The Tea Party: They have no idea what they want to do after they total the car, and are too angry to care just now. If we go this route, we'll probably end up with a skateboard.

The Dems: They say they can make the car functional. They can't say exactly how and can't promise anything fancy. They need more tools, and it'll need constant maintenance, but it'll run and stall and run some more and eventually get us there. Not an ideal option by any means, but given the options...

The Progressives: They know what kind of car they want to replace it with, but nobody else is willing to pitch in for it.

So I guess voters need to stop reacting to the POS car and start thinking about what they want to do about it. The sooner our leaders can be clear about what needs to happen, what they need for it to happen, how it will be done, and what we'll get out of it in the end.

Tell everybody
Waiting for Superman
That they should try to
Hold on the best they can
He hasn't dropped them, forgot them or anything
It's just too heavy for Superman to lift
-The Flaming Lips

[lonestarnot]

1. What a fucking experiment egh.