Lambs To The Slaughter

Why we are completely justified, indeed, righteous, in our utter contempt for America & Americans:

When this pyramid of debt collapsed in 2008, the Rumpelstiltskins of Wall Street kept the gold while America’s middle-class families got stuck with straw.

Strangely, what anger there is about this financial shakedown of the middle class is largely misdirected toward Barack Obama and Big Government, even though the current president had nothing to do with creating the disaster and a lack of government oversight, not too much government, was a big factor in the debacle.

More strange, perhaps, is the easy acceptance of the new status quo. Convinced that the American Dream is the best dream possible, average Americans, unlike Europeans, find a way to blame themselves when their dreams take a big hit. Their style is to “take it all week on the chin with a grin” and not expect to be “runnin’ much of anything.” A cozy family, a softball game and a few beers with their buddies seem to be enough to satisfy.

In some ways, I admire that attitude. Life should be about the people you love and the simple pleasures, not a constant get-rich scheme. But it seems to me the working people of the United States have done their part for two decades. They have worked longer hours, they have become more productive, they have taken pay cuts, they have given up jobs to downsizing and outsourcing and have taken on two lesser jobs to make up the slack in the family budget. In the process, a vast amount of new wealth has been created but almost none of it has trickled down to the men and women who have done the hard work.

The enormous gap in wealth in this country is not fair and it is not healthy, either for the future of capitalism or of democracy. But don’t expect a revolution. The country song ethic will keep most folks quiescent, if not content. They will work even harder, keep sliding backward and “call it all livin’ the dream.”

We just don't get it. What is missing from the American mind? Why do the sheep want to be sheared? What will wake them up?