Reagan had that ready smile and a head with nothing in it. I remember talking with him after a White House news conference and, after two sentences, the poor man was lost. He was already senile. But, because he read the teleprompter so well, and had George Will continually complimenting him in the Washington Post and on ABC TV, and while writing Reagan's speeches, calling him "the great communicator," most people were taken in and thought Reagan was just "a nice guy." Little did they realize he was dismantling America and giving the entire nation to the corporations and the war lovers; destroying all regulations that governed our safety in the skies and in the world, and discarding the valuable jobs a nation needs to survive.
After Reagan, we had Billy Clinton who proceeded to lose more American jobs as a result of signing the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and World Trade Organization (WTO). Under Clinton, Robert Rubin and Neal Wolin, in concert with the ultra right wing Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, destroyed the Glass Steagall Act which had kept the banks in check for decades. Thus, between Reagan and Clinton, the citizens of America were robbed of jobs. Also, Reagan began, and Clinton continued the outsourcing of jobs for corporations out of America.
Next, we had George W. Bush, who the dean of the White House press corps, Helen Thomas, called "the worst president in American history!" Bush further gave gifts to the corporatocracy by starting his endless wars against Afghanistan and Iraq. Make no mistake about it, American corporations have made trillions of dollars so far in these two failed and wrongful wars.
At this point, America is financially and morally bankrupt because Obama is nothing more than another operative for the corporations and the war machine that have drained our national treasury, along with the corrupted courts -- from local to the Supreme Court -- and a congress that looks out only for the money from the lobbyists except for a few honest voices such as Bernie Sanders, Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul.
In addition, Obama has expanded his wars and drone attacks beyond Bush. He has destroyed the U.S. Constitution with his further expansion of Patriot Acts 1 and 2, and presidential decrees of power. Thus, we have lost many of our freedoms in America as well as jobs, homes, and sustenance. Even the alleged "health plan" and "tax reform" plan he championed were hollow, and in the end bogus -- of no value to most of the population. But we must give him his due; he did help the unemployed temporarily by extending unemployment benefits, but by giving so much to the banks, to AIG, and to Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae instead of building roads and fixing the infrastructure of America, he bankrupted the country further.
Sorting it out, it appears to me that the common man is now trapped between a nightmarish Orwellian 1984 and an ignorant and "sleeping with TV" Brave New World of Aldous Huxley unless some miracle occurs. Rather than making America safer, Bush and Obama have created more danger for our lives. Even our military men, as well as our CIA, FBI and Homeland Security heads are living in a WWII zone -- none want to face the reality of how we are creating more enemies every day. They cannot stop these new threats until we withdraw from all the Muslim countries they have invaded and sent black ops into, such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, and others too many to be listed here (many new countries in Africa through the African Command sends black ops and agents into countries to sow discord and killing).
Sorting it out, America should become a truly moral country, no longer a hypocritical colonial power. As one former Iraqi politician put it, "What form of democracy is this that you brought Iraq: theft, killing, pitting one group against another, rape, torture, abuse -- this is not democracy, this is imperialism and desecration of the term democracy."
Unless we change our ways, there is no hope for the future in America. We are trillions in debt to China; we are controlled by politicians who owe more fealty to Israel even in the face of antagonizing the whole of the Muslim world (38% of the earth's population). We have lost all respect and allegiance in Latin and South America, our neighbors and the Chinese military see us as a paper tiger, and if the Chinese shoot down two of our communications satellites as they've shown they can do, you won't be able to get a glass of water from the tap, have electricity for your home or for the gas station, and you won't be able to prove you have money in the bank or to withdraw that money in time of need, and your grocery store will run out of food in a week or less.
Sorting it out, it appears to me that we are in a hopeless situation unless we change our ways in the world. But with a weak president who won't stand up for moral positions, a congress bought and sold by corporations and by Israel, a military run by men who are hopelessly inept -- things do not look promising on any front -- socially, financially, morally or militarily.
We will have to have a new social movement or party to correct the situation. If we don't, then the present "leaders" will lead this country into further ruin until it is utterly destroyed and disappears faster than did the Roman Empire.
