we need to face the truth about ourselves... 12/14/2017 0 Comments   by E.L. Christianson Jr. As we point out often, things have never been as wonderful as we like to try and make ourselves  believe.  But recently, we have really sunk to some record breaking new lows.  The two major parties - actually our only real choices, picked the worst possible candidates to run for president. Everyone knew in advance that both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump would be among the most terrible presidents we have ever had.  They were the “least trusted candidates in modern history.”   South Park pointed out that Clinton was the only person who could possibly lose to Trump.  Things have gotten really, really bad. Can we help ourselves to improve.  There is reason to have doubt about improvement.  But, if it is possible, we need to actively address our problems and examine possible solutions to those problems.  Politics is our major problem.  We have to face that as the farce that it is.  Regardless of your own leaning to the right or to the left, to Democrat or to Republican, you must learn to face the fact that your own personal leaning doesn't matter.  We are in deep trouble and for the country to focus on either Democrat or Republican is self defeating.  Neither party has any ability to move us forward as a nation.  They may want to move us toward affiliation with their own party, but that has nothing to do with what is good for the country.  The political fight between the only two parties allowed to exist is nothing more than a stage show, devoid of substance and meaning.  Those theatricals are harmful to the country in general. The entire political system must be changed dramatically. All of our 'organs of government' are severely diseased.  We need internal healing.   Our situation is extremely bad regarding racism.  Racism of one form or another is everywhere but it is extremely dominate in our country.  It has always been that way.  It is 100 years later and we are still fighting the values of the civil war.  This is bad.  If we are not able to somehow move past this point, we will never be a great country.  If we cannot adopt the concept of equality, we are doomed as a nation.  We have made some progress in some ways, but our overall, national attitude is still focused on race more than on any other attribute.  Race counts for more than any other aspect of a person's perceived value in our culture and in our society.  Incarceration is but one of the proofs.  Revolution and a second civil war are the only way out, and we really don't want to go through that.  It killed more Americans than any other war (all other wars) and did not resolve anything.  Let's not do that one again.   ​We've been waging illegal wars on on other countries since the end of the second world war. We need to stop that process.  We need a completely new foreign policy.  We are not doing a very good job of running our own country and we need to give up on the idea of controlling the world.  Dropping bombs and killing innocent people all over the world is wrong.  This is especially wrong considering that those we kill never did anything intended to harm the United States.  We are a danger and threat to every country on this planet. There is an expression "the root of all evil is money"... closely related is the modern equivalent, "the root of all evil is Capitalism".  Everyone in our country is money hungry. The American way of liferevolves around money and only money. It is the only thing that supersedes race.  All of our systems are designed around capitalism.  Those who run the country are capitalist. There is no democracy in this country, it's all a smoke screen - money is what matters.  The politics in this country are only concerned with money, not with solving national problems, but exclusively with money. We tax the poor more and the rich less.  The new tax law takes this truth and exaggerates it.  Actually, the new tax law puts our nation farther into debt than 'they' want to admit.  'They' advertise a resultant debt of $1.5 Trillion (unbelievable that we would do that to ourselves) but because of trickery and hidden gimmicks such as 'sunsets' that don't actually set in the real sense that they go away, a more accurate assessment of the debt would be closer to $2.2 Trillion. (unbelievable that we would do that to ourselves) Everyone of us knows in advance that the intention of this new tax law is to enrich those who are already filthy rich.  And we know beyond any doubt that everyone else will suffer economically.  We will all be more poor because of the effects of the tax law.  The really poor, those already deeply mired in poverty will be hopelessly crushed beneath a society without feeling.   As reality sets in, this enormous debt will be used as an excuse to remove more and more social programs that help ordinary people... the thieves will be yelling that we don't have any money and that we can't afford to help those people who need help... "let them eat cake"... As seen repeatedly in our government, we will shut down our systems with political in-fighting rather than finding ways to solve our problems.  We keep raising the debt ceiling and pushing the problems onto the generations that follow rather than taxing appropriately and attempting to fix things now.  The oligarchy doesn't even have thoughts of their own children and grand-children.  Love of their own family does not effect those in control.  They are not influenced to make good decisions.  More money now and damn everything and everyone else. The truth about ourselves is pretty bad.  But unless we recognize who we are in reality, we cannot make improvements.  We must know ourselves with some level of accuracy and then make collective decisions about our future. Each of us as individuals must learn to give up that 'tribal' loyalty we seem to feel toward either the  Democrats or the Republicans.  Neither of those parties will do us any good... and that's the truth !!!