Good evening, ladies and gentlemen of the United States of America. Our union is in its weakest state in history.
Policy is decided more through campaign contributions than merit. Campaign finance reform is as unlikely to happen as Congress voting to give themselves a pay cut, because they’re effectively equivalent.
FCC deregulation has enabled the vast majority of all media to be consolidated to an oligopoly. Issues inconvenient to the parent companies’ (mostly Republican) political leanings aren’t covered in the media and are therefore effectively buried.
News has been replaced by entertainment and gossip. People are better informed about the visibility of Britney Spears’ vagina than the justifications for a war that continues to kill thousands of people.
We’re facing a severe obesity epidemic with no slowdown in sight. We can partially blame the lack of physical education in schools, which is increasingly being cut or downsized to save money. We can also partially blame farm subsidies (at our expense, and mostly paid to large farming corporations), which depress the price of grains below the real cost of production, so it’s far cheaper to produce and eat high-fructose corn syrup and starch than sugar and real nutrition.
The last two presidential elections have been fraudulently stolen by the Republican party, centered in Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004. This isn’t a rumor or speculation: evidence of this has only become stronger over time. The Democrats have done nothing. There’s no evidence that the 2008 election will be legitimate. If Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee, she will most likely engage in similar tactics.
George W. Bush has been the worst president in history. He and his administration have caused such significant harm to nearly everything about our country that we’re unlikey to see most of it resolved in our lifetimes. This was all apparent before the 2004 election, and almost half of the voters still reelected him.
Our civil liberties and Constitution have been completely ignored and violated, with or without legislation behind these actions, during the last 8 years. Most people have no idea what atrocities the government is “legally” able to commit against them under the guise of homeland security. But the actual law is irrelevant, since it’s not enforced — the executive branch violates the law frequently without ramifications. Their crimes go largely unreported in the friendly media.
Immediately relevant issues are masked by distractions such as abortion and gay marriage. Our political leaders and media use these controversial issues to stir up huge populations so they’ll ignore the issues that actually affect their lives, such as the domestic economy and health care.
The middle class continues to shrink dramatically. Cost-of-living keeps increasing while average incomes stay flat or decrease. Bush’s capital gains tax cuts let the richest people in the country pay a far lower average tax rate than middle-class salaried workers. Middle-class jobs are being replaced by unskilled jobs that offer insufficient health benefits and don’t pay a living wage.
Real-estate prices are far too high for anyone but the rich to afford homes in most major cities. Those who buy homes must contribute to the massive, record-breaking, unsustainable consumer debt, and they pay vast sums of interest over their lifetimes.
Our education system continues to waste massive amounts of money, yet completely fail at educating students. Our schools are less effective than almost every other first-world country.
Health care is so expensive that most people in need are forced to go without it. Doctors and consumers alike are getting squeezed out by insurance and pharmaceutical companies that continue to post record-breaking profits while people die.
Global warming is real, yet the executive and friendly media have successfully transformed it into a political issue and convinced people that it should be doubted and argued as fiercely as evolution.
The economy is collapsing. The middle class has already lost significant value from their investments and retirement funds, and will continue to lose more. The value of the dollar is pathetic. The national debt is out of control.
Worst of all, the population of the United States continues to sit back and let all of this happen. It’s easier to be ignorant than informed — easier to be apathetic than reactive. Just keep buying with your credit card, eating more calories than you’ll burn, and watching the packaged entertainment formerly known as “news” that you demanded. You’re probably too uneducated by our public schools to know what’s happening anyway.
All hope is lost only if you continue to let our once-great country degenerate. It’s only happening because we’re allowing it.
This is the time to change our course. Not next year, not the next generation. Now.
Voice your views. Educate the uneducated. Stand up for your rights. And demand a higher standard of living.
Let’s make our country great again.