The Sage Observer

The 2014 Midterm Election

The 2014 midterm election is over and the people have expressed their wishes—at least some of them, those who took the time to vote. I must tell you. I am deeply disappointed. Not only will this cost our nation dearly, but we will have to live with its results for a very long time. The ignorance (meaning lack of knowledge or uninformed) of the American people is exceeded only by its apathy (meaning complete lack of emotion or motivation, i.e. disinterest—let someone else do it). You won’t like me saying that. You may even be offended; but it’s true. Study on it for a while. How many people didn’t even vote, their patriotic duty notwithstanding?

It is a fact and not just an opinion. Our nation is under continual threat. Not only is our democracy at risk as we speak, so also are we as a nation. We live in a world today in which, internationally, it is survival of the fittest. Every nation must be constantly alert to protect their national interests. That we are bounded on both sides by a great ocean is no longer a protector. This is no longer 1776. There are those who are a constant challenge to our sovereignty, economically and politically. Isolationism is no longer an option. The very consideration of it is silly. Look at Russia, China, North Korea, the Middle East and on and on.

For all intents and purposes, we the people have already lost our democracy. Our vote is only good on Election Day, supported by our Constitution; and that is being threatened even now. Read the papers. They’ll tell you I’m right. Our voting laws are being challenged by those on the Right as we speak. Then, once those for whom we voted are installed into office, they turn their backs on us and serve the interests of those who paid into their campaign funds. It’s a published fact that, on average, four hours out of every day is spent by our representatives’ soliciting political contributions for their campaigns. We can argue this until Hell freezes over, but not a few of these are nothing less than downright bribes. These people aren’t serving us. They have literally reduced themselves to that of puppets. They have sold themselves to the big money that pulls their strings and really runs our country. That’s who they really represent—a Shadow Government by the Corporatocracy and Very Rich and Powerful Elite, the .01% of us. To make matters worse, I firmly believe this Oligarchy crosses international borders, facilitated by Globalization and unpatriotic Corporations fleeing our country, evading our taxes, betraying the hand that has fed them—their customers (including our government who has provided them with all those “fat” contracts over these many years), their employees, and their stockholders (they have been stealing from them too through excessive executive salaries, and bonuses). It hasn't been enough that they have outsourced to slave labor abroad; they feel they must now evade paying their fair share of support towards our nation’s government. It’s utterly disgraceful.

But we are talking about yesterday’s midterm elections aren’t we. Did you notice? Billions of dollars were spent in political advertising during this campaign. Almost all were negative mudslinging. There was almost no discussion about issues, and their truthfulness was seriously lacking. What does this imply about the comprehension of the recipients who are influenced by this trash upon which they based their vote? What were the issues? In their speeches subsequent to the campaigns, all I heard, for the most part, was “We are headed into a new direction”. What direction? Trust me. You won’t like that direction when it really comes to light. If you listened closely, McConnell told us. In short, we will be spending less on the people and more on defense. To me that means continuing poverty, war, and rule by the Corporatocracy and Power Elite—the most currently important issue for our country today. Absolutely no one in authority discussed that as an issue for our nation—except for a very few callers into C-span’s Washington Journal. On the one hand, one complains of the threat to our freedoms; and, on the other hand they proceed to vote for the very people who are selling them out from under. Ridiculous.

No, I am not a Democrat. Neither am I a Republican. Although registered as such, I gave up on them (the Republicans) a long time ago. Their mismanagement of our government over the past thirty-plus years has been tantamount to a national felony. They are responsible for our debt. They are responsible for our wars. And, they are responsible for the crash in our housing and financial markets which was so utterly deep we would have gone into a depression even deeper than 1932, if not for the social programs in place at the time, i.e. Social Security, Healthcare, Unemployment Compensation, and Welfare. They are also responsible for the vast disparity of income and wealth over these past thirty plus years. And, we the people vote for them? For those of you who attribute some of the debt to the administration of President Obama, you have to be kidding me. The debt incurred under President Obama was the direct result of the financial crisis and the carried forward deficit from Bush which decreased under President Obama’s reign. Had President Obama increased that deficit, you might have had an argument, but he didn’t and you lose that one.

As to the Democrats, they are all we have left—our only hope. They are supposed to be the party of the people. The Republican Party has represented only the top 1% of us. The really sad part of what I have just said is that most of all those who voted yesterday have lived through and, therefore, know firsthand the truth of what I am telling you—and it is true, recorded in history,  on the books, as they say. Just take the time to study the facts. And yet, they voted for these people—Shame, shame, shame. As a Christian and an American, I want a government, to quote Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg in 1865, “Of the people, by the people, and for the people”. I want a government that represents all 100 per cent of, us, the people—not just the one percent. I want corporations that are responsible, patriotic, and honest, taxpaying citizens. I don’t want to be governed behind the scenes by a Corporatocracy and Power Elite, paying off my elected representatives secretly “under the table”, stealing my productivity, my fair share of what I produce, in the mean time.

This oligarchy is acting like a house full of kids running here and there, to and fro, every six ways from Sunday with no one to stop them—with no one in charge, bloodsucking everyone of us as they go. Are the kids going to run the house or the parents? So far, the parents are losing.

Ronald Miller

Email me at mtss86@comcast.net