America is only a shell of what was once a great nation

Bill Moyer’s new documentary called “Buying the War” was intellectually interesting in that the same reporters who repeated the lies at the build-up to war are now admitting that they were lies. Unfortunately, I believe no matter how much the Bush government’s corruption is exposed, neither will democracy in America ever be restored, nor will America ever again reclaim the dignity, prosperity or power that it once enjoyed.

Take for example the tainted pet food issue. It was discovered that all the tainted pet food found its source in China. It turned out that nearly ALL the pet food in America was tainted. Then they found that the grain that our cattle eat is also tainted with melamine. Then they found out that commercial human food like pizza dough was contaminated with melamine, all from China. Then we discover that 80% of the grain that we feed our cattle is imported from China. Then we discover that our farmers no longer grow grain. Until the issue of tainted pet food, China did not allow US agricultural inspectors into China to inspect the food before it was shipped. The net result was to discover that the USA, which once was the bread basket of the world, which used to ship food aid to India and China, now imports it from China. Where have all the farmers gone?

The same story goes for our manufacturing base. The USA, which once led the world in high quality manufactured items, no longer has manufacturing jobs but rather imports nearly all manufactured goods from China, Central America, the Caribbean, or Malaysia. America now ships the natural resources to other countries to manufacture goods for Americans to import just like when we were a colony of Europe.

Now the only jobs left are service jobs. And we are now creating an enriched middle class in formerly impoverished India by outsourcing our service jobs to them. So if there are no jobs left, where do people get their money?

They simply refinance their mortgage. How many mortgage brokers call you per day? I average 6/day. They all want to do me a big favor by putting money into my pocket and lowering my monthly payments with a low 1% loan. I already know that the best path to wealth is to decrease my debt. I have set upon an aggressive campaign to reduce my personal debt. But what about all the other people who fell for the seduction of the mortgage brokers? They all increased their debt in order to put cash into their pockets, got a reverse amortized loan which increases their debt every month, and then property values fell. The rate of people defaulting on these loans is astronomical, and it has caused a segment of the banking industry to collapse.

So now we have a country which imports grain, imports manufactured goods, has depleted our armed forces and therefore has to hire expensive mercenaries to fight our wars and do our domestic security, our property values are falling, our banking industry is collapsing, our dollar is declining in value, our schools are failing our children, we have a 40% drop-out rate from high school, hate and intolerance is growing, and we fight endless wars financed with debt. What's left? Only the shell of what once was a great nation. Our country will never recover from the damage done by the neo-conservatives.

Thom Hartmann calls them proto-fascists. They don't believe in government, and they set out to destroy this one. And they have succeeded. No Democratic president is going to restore what has been lost. Any Democratic president that might win the 2008 election will be blamed for all I just described. The proto-fascists will do everything possible to discredit him/her like they did to Jimmy Carter, and, if there is ever another election, I predict that a neo-con will win the 2012 election.

I predict that we will be spending Yuan by the end of the decade.