How Americans Lost Trust in Our Greatest Institutions
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/04/how-americans-lost-trust-in-our-greatest-institutions/256163/MUNCIE, Ind. -- Johnny Whitmire shuts off his lawn mower and takes a long draw from a water bottle. He sloshes the liquid from cheek to cheek and squirts it between his work boots. He is sweating through his white T-shirt. His jeans are dirty. His middle-aged back hurts like hell. But the calf-high grass is cut, and the weeds are tamed at 1900 W. 10th St., a house that Whitmire and his family once called home. "I've decided to keep the place up," he says, "because I hope to buy it back from the bank."
Whitmire tells a familiar story of how public and private institutions derailed an American's dream: In 2000, he bought the $40,000 house with no money down and a $620 monthly mortgage. He made every payment. Then, in the fall of 2010, his partially disabled wife lost her state job. "Governor [Mitch] Daniels slashed the budget, and they looked for any excuse to squeeze people out," Whitmire says. "We got lost in that shuffle -- cut adrift." The Whitmires couldn't make their payments anymore.
They applied for a trial loan-modification through an Obama administration program, and when it was granted, their monthly bill fell to $473.87. But, like nearly a million others, the modification was canceled. After charging the lower rate for three months, their mortgage lender reinstated the higher fee and billed the family $1,878.88 in back payments. Whitmire didn't have that kind of cash and couldn't get it, so he and his wife filed for bankruptcy. His attorney advised him to live in the house until the bank foreclosed, but "I don't believe in a free lunch," Whitmire says. He moved out, leaving the keys on the kitchen table. "I thought the bank should have them."
A year later, City Hall sent him salt for his wounds: a $300 citation for tall grass at 1900 W. 10th St. Telling the story, he swipes dried grass from his jeans and shakes his head. "The city dinged me for tall weeds at my bank's house." After another pull from the water bottle, Whitmire kicks a steel-toed boot into the ground he once owned. "You can't trust anybody or anything anymore."
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But how to make sense of it all? Trust in the church up 3%, but newspapers down 7%? Yeah, right, the preacher is going to give you the straight up news of the day. 
Trust in HMOs up 6%, but trust in unions down 5%? Of course, the people who TAKE your benefit dollars are going to be looking out for your interests more than the people who NEGOTIATE your benefit dollars. First thing what Johnny's got to do is figure out who has his interests in mind.
I have to go back to the words of George Carlin: "Americans will continue to elect these rich cocksuckers who don't care about them. They don't care about you at all, at all, at all! Americans will remain willfully ignorant of the red, white and blue dick that's being shoved up their assholes."