American the Banana Republic

Christopher Hitchens' article is well worth reading.

America the Banana Republic
The ongoing financial meltdown is just the latest example of a disturbing trend that, to this adoptive American, threatens to put the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave on a par with Zimbabwe, Venezuela, and Equatorial Guinea.

In a statement on the huge state-sponsored salvage of private bankruptcy that was first proposed last September, a group of Republican lawmakers, employing one of the very rudest words in their party’s thesaurus, described the proposed rescue of the busted finance and discredited credit sectors as “socialistic.” There was a sort of half-truth to what they said. But they would have been very much nearer the mark—and rather more ironic and revealing at their own expense—if they had completed the sentence and described the actual situation as what it is: “socialism for the rich and free enterprise for the rest.”

Think about it, spas for the AIG executives, and crap for the rest of us. Sound banana republic-like to me! But welcome to another aspect of banana-republicdom. In a banana republic, the members of the national legislature will be (a) largely for sale and (b) consulted only for ceremonial and rubber-stamp purposes some time after all the truly important decisions have already been made elsewhere.

So, what do we do?? Vote the BUMS out of office! Our government needs drastic reform and that would include ethics and INTEGRITY reform. How do we do it? By calling our legislators ALL the time, and every time, on any bread and butter issue that impacts the middle class.

What else? Help get freedom to organize and join unions nation wide. Unions built the middle class and it is time to rebuild our unions across the nation.