The Rising Tide Of Anger In America

By James Donahue

My personal anger was boiling from the day the Supreme Court put George W. Bush in the White House. Most American’s didn’t seem to share my sentiment until near the end of Bush’s eight-year-long tenure, when they began to realize that they had been ripped-off by the crime bosses who had taken over Washington.

There was hope when voters rejected the Republicans, put Barack Obama in the Oval Office and gave him a Democratic Party majority in both houses to make the big changes Mr. Obama promised during his campaign. We thought it possible that something good was about to happen to make America shine throughout the world once again.

But something happened. Both Mr. Obama and the Democrats in the House and Senate were either brought down by the crime syndicate that operates the Federal Reserve, the big banks and lending institutions, plus the military industrial machine, or maybe they were so intimidated they lost their nerve. For sure they found themselves set up for disaster by the Bush Administration before Bush left the White House.

Obama found himself president of a nation fighting to head-off a massive economic crash, a deficit of incredible proportions created by a massive financial bail-out of the banks, insurance giants and mortgage institutions, and the cost of fighting two wars in the Middle East. There were massive layoffs occurring that were getting worse by the day. We were facing a crumbling infrastructure, a growing global climate change crisis, and an eroded sense of prestige on the world stage. It was almost too much for one new president to resolve, although Mr. Obama certainly appeared to be doing what he could.

The battle with Republicans over the health care issue, one of the major efforts taken on by Mr. Obama during his first year in office, has literally raged for most of his first year in office. The advertising campaign financed by the big insurance companies, and the money paid out by an army of lobbyists that invaded Washington, took their toll.

It wasn’t the first time this kind of a battle was fought in Washington. But it appears to be the first time that any administration has come this close to getting some kind of a bill passed that will help a lot of people in desperate need for medical services they cannot pay for.

The fight, however, has taken a terrible toll. A lot of Americans have become confused about just what the health care bill is going to provide. Many are convinced that they will no longer qualify for medical care at all. And they are getting mad about all of the massive government spending, the failure of Mr. Obama to generate the jobs they desperately need to restore their old life styles, and the fact that they are losing their homes through bank foreclosures.

The people know they have been cheated. But they don’t know exactly who to blame for what has happened to them. They see the politicians wrangling over these issues in Washington without producing solutions. And they cannot see the silent manipulators of high finance hiding in the shadows in the Capitol Building.

The fact that we have the first black president in office in American history has regretfully stirred racial tensions as the anger builds. For many it is easy to want to pin the blame on President Obama, only because of the color of his skin.

The early signs of big trouble may have been the Tea Bag movement, stirred by the Fox News hate-monger Glenn Beck during the summer of 2009. The movement was then designed to invade the legislative community meetings when members of Congress attempted to sell the public on the need for a health care revision. The Tea Baggers have since moved on to become an organization that appears to simply resist everything President Obama is attempting to accomplish.

The Republicans in both the House and Senate have banned together to do the same thing, although the Tea Baggers seem strangely unwilling to join the Republican side in all of this.  They have even split among themselves, not exactly forming a political party and not having a specific cause. The only thing that seems certain is that the group is comprised of a lot of angry people who do not understand why they are in their present dilemma, but they are lashing out against government in general.

And that seems to be what is happening all over America. The two recent attacks on IRS buildings and personnel appear to be the first signs of violence stemming from the growing tide of anger. There are indications that it could get worse.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that tracks violent extremist acts, has just released a quarterly intelligence report that identifies an alarming increase in “nativist extremist” and anti-government “Patriot” and militia groups occurring throughout the country.

The SPLC report said the number of extremist groups jumped from 173 in 2008 to 512 in 2009. The report said the increase in such groups is “cause for grave concern” because such groups have been known to spew violent acts like the bombing attack on the federal building in Oklahoma City in the 1990s.

The SPLC report paints an alarming portrait of what it calls “a radical ethos” that is becoming institutionalized in American politics. These groups, fueled by such hate messengers as Beck, Rush Limbaugh and numerous others who get quality air time on both radio and television, see the federal government “as part of a plot to impose a one-world government on the United States.”

This and all of the insane rhetoric emerging these days from the very floor of the Senate as conservative legislators make startling accusations and resort to out-and-out lying about what is right and what is wrong also is stirring the emotions of people at the grass root level. There is talk by television commentators about our “broken government” that no longer can act to fix anything. And from all appearances, this appears to be somewhat true.

It is no secret that government by committee, which our forefathers established when they wrote the Constitution, is not an efficient way of getting things done. There was wisdom in the decision to shift to a somewhat dictatorial form of operating when the nation finds itself in a state of war, because decisions must be made quickly and not wait for Congress.

America is not in a real state of war now, even though we are fighting two wars overseas. But we are in a crisis as severe as if we were battling to save the homeland from an invading enemy. Thus there is a need for leadership to agree to work together to fix whatever is wrong.

Instead of doing what seems natural, however, our legislators and the two existing parties have turned on one another. We consequently have a polarized form of government that cannot function fast enough to meet the crying needs of the people. And this, in turn, is generating the anger.

Our fear is that voters will express their extreme anger without reason at the polls this year as many of the members of the house and senate seek election to expiring terms.

We can predict voters will cast ballots out of a desire to “clean house” and toss out the people now in power. There will be a movement to send new blood to Washington. But in the process, and because they will be fooled by the expected deluge of corporate funded political advertising for a new band of paid-off candidates, they may pick an even more radical pack of legislators than we already have in office.

If they stack the two houses with a Republican majority, or conservative Democrats acting as wolves in sheep’s clothing, Mr. Obama will find it impossible to see any of his programs brought to fruitarian,

Even worse, if Obama achieves a health care bill this spring, it could be rescinded. Also at risk would be the extensions of unemployment benefits for millions of jobless Americans, stimulus budget plans designed to put people to work rebuilding infrastructure with federal dollars, and the movement to shut down the Iraq War and bring our troops home.

It will seem like the ghosts of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, and the big business interests that operated freely from behind the curtain, are back for business as usual.

If this happens, and the mood of the people gets any darker, we fear severe acts of violence may threaten to bring us all down.