In his column “What is the Main Street consensus?” columnist Gils Smart asserts:
“When Obama came into office, liberals liked to think we’d see fundamental changes. Instead, we’ve gotten involved in more wars in the Mideast…”
Also:
“It feels as if we’ve lost something, some connection, something fundamental. And on Main Street, people might ask: How does more government — more money printing, more welfare programs, more bureaucracy, more surveillance, more war, more spending — fix it?
The answer is, it doesn’t. So what does?
Maybe Main Street itself. The people of Main Street.
You.
You, who runs the Scout troop or coaches the youth soccer team, who volunteers at the local food bank. Maybe you’re the answer.”
WATCHDOG: President Obama has withdrawn most of our troops from Iraq and is doing the same so in Afghanistan. Apart from our brief air actions in Libya, we are not aware of any wars we have entered. Quite to the contrary, Obama has wisely resisted demands that we intervene in Syria.
Otherwise, with all due respect for Gil Smart, the above is at best maudlin, or perhaps what psychiatry might refer to as “identification with the aggressor.”
It is nice to talk about how everyone of us can help save the country by leading boy or girl scout troops, but the reality is that we have been wasting over 10% of our Gross National Product on a broken health care system, foolish foreign military engagements, and the War on Drugs. This is money that should have gone into investments.
As we write this, we are visiting Toronto, Canada. The obvious rapid economic expansion reminds us of the 1960s, the 1970s, the 1980s in the USA. Today, rather than building anew, the USA cannot find the money to even maintain the infrastructure of the past.
Change heath care to ‘Medicare for everyone’ or some form of a ‘single payer system’ which Canada and all other advanced nations offer, keep our troops out of wars except when the nation’s interests rather than those of the “Military Industrial Complex” are involved, and treat all drugs as a pubic health issue, not a law enforcement matter… then we will again move forward.
The USA is indeed in rapid decline. This is obvious to anyone who travels about and has his or her eyes open.
Even poor Mexicans don’t want to come here anymore. (As many leave as arrive.)
