The Slough of Despond

As you can see from the statistics on the left, my output has decreased substantially since May. Part of this is due to life changes, but my growing disillusion with our government leaders may account for more of the decrease in the number of postings I’ve made. I’m old enough to have been disappointed by our leaders more than once in my lifetime. Maybe it’s happened too often and this latest grouping of supposed leaders is the straw that broke the camel’s back.

I was hopeful that Obama would, in fact, attempt to change this country and return it to a position where it really was a force for good for its people and for the world. Clearly, that has not happened and it certainly does not seem likely to happen. We continue to live in a dream world; the only thing our leaders really care about is winning the next election. The idea of sacrificing for the greater good has vanished. The concept of responsibility is vanishing. We are willing to outsource everything from manufacturing to running our parks to feeding our school children to defending this country. And, we have constructed a system whereby it is just about impossible for anyone but a dyed-in-the-wool politician with gobs of money at her disposal to enter the higher levels of government. So, how can we change the way this country is run?

I attributed a fair amount of Bush’s problems to his inability to hire good people. Obama seems to have the same problem; his people may be smarter than the Bush personnel but they have little appetite for change and that is what we really need now. The chances of our winding up in tomorrow’s economy with the same risks we had in yesterday’s economy are quite high. People are still dying in Iraq and a lot more are dying in Afghanistan. What changes are being wrought in those hell holes?

How do we get people who understand mathematics and are not afraid of a filibuster? Bush got his way with less support than Obama has. Why can’t Obama act as well as he can speak? When do we get leaders who are willing to cut the largest defense budget in the world? Wouldn’t a smaller defense budget enable us to cut the deficit and do the things a civilized nation should do?

Sadly, I no longer see this happening in my lifetime.