Revolution - Redux

My post of two months ago calls for the people of this country to rise up and revolt. The events that have transpired during the past couple of weeks have only supported my belief that a revolution is the only hope for America. For those of you with your heads buried in your favorite reality TV show, football or some other mind numbing activity, our financial markets are in utter turmoil. Trillions of dollars have been lost as greedy and arrogant executives put some of our nations most significant financial firms in peril. First Bear Stearns, then Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, then Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch and now AIG. The rout is far from over as Wachovia, Washington Mutual and even the well respected Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are in serious trouble. Tens of thousands of people will have lost their jobs before this is over and many times that will have lost a good portion of their wealth - just from the chaos on Wall Street alone! Meanwhile, the executives that drove these companies into the ground or many of the financial wizards that created the products that helped create this mess will walk away with millions. If that isn't bad enough, the leaders of this country sit by and do nothing.

The American people have certainly been handed a bag of shit over the past few years. We were saddled with a ONE TRILLION dollar cost (and growing) for a war that we arguably should have never waged and was clearly executed poorly (understatement of the year), the value of our home has plummeted, more of us are unemployed, the cost of gas and everything else has skyrocketed, our stock investments have tanked and, now, we are left to cover the costs of bailing out several firms, including the ridiculous severance packages for the management that caused their failure. (feel free to add other things to this list by the way). So, the rich get richer and the rest of us get FUCKED and our government does NOTHING.

Quick history lesson - what are the main ingredients in many revolutions in history? Answer - a large disparity in wealth between the rich and the middle & lower classes combined with a feeling of hopelessness. Well - guess what folks, we have the first one and I suspect many people are beginning to feel the second. And, PLEASE don't tell me that you have ANY faith in our government to help you. Whether it's McCain or Obama, it doesn't matter one bit. The system is broken!!!

There is a great movie quote from Lions for Lambs that expresses my opinion exceptionally well. I'll paraphrase: "These pieces of shit bank on your apathy, they bank on your willful ignorance. They plan strategies around it. They try to figure out how much they can get away with because of it. Rome is burning, son, and the problem is not with the people that started this - they are past irredeemable - the problem is with us, all of us, who do nothing."

My hope is that the days of us all doing nothing are nearing an end....