War, climate and lies at every turn

I am tired of worrying and being angry, and my childish self wants someone to step in, put a band-aid on the hurt points, and make the pain go away. That will not occur, however, because the ones who could produce the band-aids are the same as those who cause the injuries.

I’m speaking of the political course of our nation, from our blind and horrifically selfish positions about climatology and global warming, to the unspeakable war in Iraq. From the national debt and the subsequent chokehold on the middle class in the wake of wholesale re-distribution of wealth from the hands of the many to the hands of a few, to the corruption and greed that describes the White House.

Where does the average citizen start? What legacy are we leaving to our children? I say “we”, because we are these United States. We are the citizens, the voice, face, the acts, and we are in a serious state of decline.

Take the climate. We have endured an administration’s position that first, global warming did not exist; and second, that businesses will automatically adjust to address the increasing greenhouse issues.

No national policy here, but a belief system that businesses will automatically take care of the problem, as the sharpened eye of science produces new evidence that glaciers are melting twice as fast as previous estimates. Just five years ago, scientists had been expecting more ice. Instead of leading world policy, the U.S. sits on its hands whining about costs.

The war. What to say about the war? Except out ? out ? out. Enough death on all sides. Enough destruction. Enough dollars on the back of a breaking budget.

Budgets. The National debt on March 8 was $8,278,824,041,994.73. The National Debt has continued to increase an average of $2.17 billion per day since September 30, 2005.

In 1994 both the Republicans and the Democrats were squabbling over what to do with a $69.2 billion surplus. Part of their plan was to retire the national debt by 2009. A scant 10 years later, President Bush authorized a $800 billion increase in the debt limit. The Treasury department has currently begun drawing from the civil-service pension fund to avoid hitting that debt ceiling. The rationale: When another debt ceiling is approved, the funds can be returned.

The financial cost of the war in Iraq, based on Congressional appropriations, clicks at a rate of multiple thousands per second. Total cost on March 8: $246,001,749,822 and growing. With those same funds, we could have hired 4,263,244 additional public-school teachers for one year. We could have insured that every child in the world was immunized against infectious diseases for 82 years. We could have built 2,215,018 additional housing units ? far more than what is needed in the wake of Katrina.

As for greed and corruption within the White House ? what a shame. I say that softly, with great embarrassment. An ugly underbelly, a cesspool of avarice and gluttony, has been revealed, and the respect I was taught to hold toward the President of the United States and the White House in which he lives has been spoiled and tainted.

At every turn lies. At every turn deceit or half-truths. Is this the moral fiber we seek to teach our children, who mirror us by our actions rather than our words? How is it we can teach them to respect the foundations of America, when those in the highest offices hold them with so little regard.

For it is the children ? ours and theirs and theirs ? that will pay our bills. Financially, climatically, and politically, as our place in the world shifts. It is possible to imagine the fall of our country from its position as a great beacon of opportunity to a country that lives in the shadows. We are at a turning point. The house has been shaken. We have drifted from first principles, as seen in the wake of response to the Gulf Coast tragedy.

Maybe I need to get angrier. Maybe I need to worry more. Maybe, my pain, a pain I believe to be shared by many, will be our call to action. Maybe we can be the guides to a belief system in which each of us is sacred, in which no human being is above another, and that, oh yes, all men are created equal.