Cash for Clunkers

That which is hateful to you do not do to others.
All the rest is commentary
--Hillel

Dyin' ain't much of a living, boy
--The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)

There's a feeling I get
When I look to the west,
And my spirit is crying for leaving
--Stairway to Heaven, Led Zeppelin

I got no car and it's breaking my heart
But I've found a driver and that's a start
--Drive My Car, The Beatles
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[This entry was prompted by the 10' entrance poster to the "Desert Wars" exhibit at the National Infantry Museum, entitled "Sole Superpower." It features an infantryman with weapon lunging forward in a style reminiscent of the Bolshevik agitptrop.]

The reality of the American experience has become bizarre and incomprehensible. We break the sound barrier with our combat aircraft daily, but we cannot reach the speed of thought.

This week's Good News about the Afghan elections is supposed to warm our little democratic hearts, but it fails to excite Ranger. We are told the elections are a success, but the war is a clunker. Unfortunately, we can't get a voucher and dump that war into the junkyard of history.

Instead, we show every sign that we'll dump more assets into that money pit. How much money does a country expend to build a failed state before one's country becomes a failed state itself? Nothing we do in Afghanistan will alter the fact that the entire country is a clunker that runs only because we, the U.S. taxpayers along with our leaders, are suckers being sucked dry by Afghanistan and Iraq.

Here is the homeland, indigent deaths and pauper burials are on the rise both here and abroad (UK Destitute Burials). This means people can't even afford to die in America, yet we have money to execute foreign wars. In addition, Social Security recipients will not receive a Cost of Living Adjustment for the next two years.

Will congressmen forgo their COLA? What about the President? (Do our Social Security recipients vacation at Martha's Vineyard?)

So, we do not have the money to pay COLA to our entitled, hard-working and deserving retired and disabled citizens, but we are led to believe that money will be available to reform our health care system. If there is no money for COLA, how do we have money to fight endless wars, and where will the health care money arise?

No nation, family, individual, state or local government can exist or prosper with misaligned goals based on faulty economic realities. America is slowly self-destructing before our eyes and with our complicity. We see but do not comprehend. Being a sole superpower should not be a suicidal role, yet that is how it is playing out.

You reap what you sow. It was a nice ride while it lasted.