Thursday, February 16, 2012

Glance Around


By Dan Hagen
Glance around at the “new businesses” in American communities.

What do you see? Pawn shops, temp agencies, tattoo parlors, cash advance loan sharks — the tacky, unmistakable signs of a rotting society. 

The American poor are just as poor as they were a quarter-century ago, except for the ones who are now unemployed. Corporate America is bulging with profits, but insists its CEOs require more tax cuts before they will deign to create jobs.


That's the country where you live, wracked and wrecked by deregulated derivatives and credit default swaps. That is the prosperity brought to you by years of kleptocapitalism and "free market" tax cuts for the rich. 


The airwaves are littered with the ugly ravings of religious fanatics who promise you a first-class ticket to redneck heaven in exchange for a generous contribution of mere earthly greenbacks. 


Americans do need to think about the big checkout time, though, because they have significantly higher rates of diabetes, heart disease, stroke, lung disease and cancer than the English, while paying a great deal more for health care and finally being bankrupted in the bargain. Even wages themselves are being stolen.


That's the real America circa 2012. I understand why the right wingers prefer to dwell in free-market Fantasyland.

1 comment:

  1. Posted at 4.09 AM? Great Caesar's Ghost, man! When do you sleep?! It's nice to know someone else sees the rotting of society at the hands of corporate/Republican greed. When does it all end? When there is nothing left to milk from those who have been milked to death?

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