WORLD NEWS TRUST: If You're Not Angry and Bitter, You're Not Paying Attention" (Mary Lyon)

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Wed Apr-16-08 07:51 AM
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WORLD NEWS TRUST: If You're Not Angry and Bitter, You're Not Paying Attention" (Mary Lyon)

Mary Lyon, From The Left -- World News Trust

A one-sentence comment posted in the blogosphere really nails it. As the political hissy-fit over Barack Obama's 'bitter' remarks continues to heave itself on the floor like some three-year-old tantrum-thrower in the canned soup aisle at the grocery store, a blogger calling herself Lugnut spells it out:

'If you're not angry and bitter, you're not paying attention.'

The conditions in this country now, after the GOP has owned the White House for almost eight years, dominated the Senate for most of that time, and the House of Representatives since the mid-90's (except for the last year-and-a-half), have left America with a serious case of indigestion -- at the very least. The bile from years of reckless Republican charging and spending, holding no one accountable for anything, and allowing Wall Street to run amok is indeed leaving a bitter taste in the mouths of Main Street by now.

I can't help but suspect that this is the bitter fruit harvested from years of social engineering, GOP-style: Reverse Robin Hood Reaganomics. Millions of Americans believed it with all their hearts. They were told that government with its pesky regulations and safety-net programs was the problem, not the solution. They were assured again and again that if they just were patient while the elites at the top of the economic food chain cut to the front of the line, their turn would surely come, too. Shower the benefits on the wealthy and then watch them share the wealth, creating jobs and spilling such large crumbs off their groaningly overloaded banquet-table that eventually those blessings would trickle down onto everyone else, too. The have-nots might not have a seat at that table, but the bounty falling off the sides onto the floor would still be plenty. It sounded so good, so sweet.

What's basically happened, instead, is human nature, and the drive by big business and its lobbyists to build bumpers around the edges of that table, the better to keep all the crumbs on the table and prevent any from falling off. We're supposedly all taught to share in pre-school. Some of the haves, grown-ups as they are, especially those who can most easily afford it, evidently still haven't learned this. It seems to me when the have-nots have been forced to swallow about 30 years of these fairy-tales and have watched the promised happy endings stay perpetually just beyond reach, it shouldn't come as a shocker that hard feelings start to set in. Maybe even bitter feelings. I think there IS bitterness all over the country, from heartland to coastline. This is how it feels when large numbers of Americans wake up and realize they've been had.

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http://www.worldnewstrust.com/commentary/angry-bitter-attention-lyon.html