By Judith Gayle | Political Waves
It would seem that we have completed a pretty discouraging week, politically speaking, not just with the issues that loom large like the Benghazi analysis showing systemic security failure, frightening ecological reports coming out of West Virginia or Obama’s seemingly sincere but worrisome NSA evaluation on the collection of metadata and possible abuse to privacy. While these issues could bring a resurrection of public dialogue and activism forward, they seem more likely to act as confirmation of our worst fears, do little to lighten the dampened January mood, and prove that if it’s not one thing, it’s another, most often, aspects of the same situation thwarting one another.
Because the answer to any problem is squarely within it, we don’t have far to go to find our solutions. All three of those issues reflect the long-term dissolution of straightforward policies and programs that kept the nation humming for decades, leaving us in need of not just a tune-up but a complete overhaul of our systems, ethics and national vision. Coming to consensus is our challenge, and these dynamics are worth a review, in light of the coming Aquarian energies that highlight the individual within the collective, and — hopefully — the individual’s influence upon the collective.
The polls show that an overwhelming number of Americans no longer believe that government is our friend, and thumbing through the recent history of such an opinion, few would argue. The slowly encroaching change from populism to plutocracy that began mid-century and finally tipped us over the edge under George W.’s leadership offers proof to all but that meager one percent of wealthy citizens — including the Koch and Wal-Mart dynasties — that the nation has lost its balance and seems unable to right itself. Who else to blame but the dreaded and dysfunctional government, gone remarkably tone-deaf and unresponsive?