We Ask and Ask

How many times can a man turn his head pretending he just doesn't see? -- (Bob Dylan, 1963)

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The way it's supposed to work in a democracy is that the people raise the questions and their elected government provides the answers.

Our democracy is broken.  Government turns its head, just doesn't see.  The questions go on.  The questions go back in time.  The questions persist.  Where are the answers?

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Do we have to wait until a disaster overwhelms us before we make the radical changes necessary to protect our world for future generations? - John Gummer (2005)

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For 100 days and counting a disaster has overwhelmed us.  It is destroying life in the Gulf of Mexico.  It is destroying livelihoods on the Gulf of Mexico.  It is destroying a way of life on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico.

And still they want to drill.

Michigan's worst oil spill.  Lethal natural gas "fracking" explosions in Pennsylvania and Texas.  Disasters waiting to happen in Alaska.

And still they want to drill.

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(If) we cease to be one nation and become instead a collection of interest groups . . .each seeking to satisfy private wants. . . If that happens, who then will speak for America? Who then will speak for the common good? -- (Barbara Jordan, 1976)

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Not since the Civil War era has our nation been so divided.  Rather than the dawn of a new, better, post-racial era, the election of our first black president has only stoked the embers of latent racism back to flames.  Tea Party toters of hateful racist placards.  State laws mandating racial profiling.  Prattling heads on television and voices on radio preaching hatred of "them" in easily-recognized code, and getting rich doing so.

Rich. In 2007, the share of after-tax income going to the top 1 percent of Americans reached its highest level (17.1 percent) since 1979, while the share going to the middle one-fifth of Americans shrank to its lowest level during this period (14.1 percent). Between 1979 and 2007, average after-tax incomes for the top 1 percent rose by 281 percent after adjusting for inflation — an increase in income of $973,100 per household — compared to increases of 25 percent ($11,200 per household) for the middle fifth of households and 16 percent ($2,400 per household) for the bottom fifth). If all groups’ after-tax incomes had grown at the same percentage rate over the 1979-2007 period, middle-income households would have received an additional $13,042 in 2007 and families in the bottom fifth would have received an additional $6,010. In 2007, the average household in the top 1 percent had an income of $1.3 million, up $88,800 just from the prior year; this $88,800 gain is well above the total 2007 income of the average middle-income household ($55,300). Meanwhile, the percentage of their  profits that U.S. corporations pay in taxes continues to shrink.

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May there not be different kinds of patriotism as there are different kinds of liberty? -- (Emma Goldman, 1917).

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We have a so-called PATRIOT Act that protects our liberty by emasculating the Bill of Rights.  Some "Patriots" brandish guns, wave flags, shout "Support Our Troops" and revile the Commander-in-Chief as a foreign-born fascist socialist.  Other Patriots support our troops by demanding that they be called back home before any more are killed in an unwinnable, unwanted war that was launched on a sea of lies.

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Has the human being become less indifferent and more human? Have we really learned from our experiences? ? What about the children?  When adults wage war, children perish. We see their faces, their eyes. Do we hear their pleas? Do we feel their pain, their agony? -- (Elie Wiesel, 1999).

Afghan civilians killed  8,669. Iraqi civilians killed  392,979.

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What good is a house, if you haven't got a decent planet to put it on? - (Henry David Thoreau, 1852)

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"Mankind's home," Rolf Edberg wrote, "is the narrow borderland between the deathly heat beneath our feet and the coldness of space above us." This is the very borderland whose cordiality to life is being dramatically changed by carbon emissions and other human activity.  Less than a week ago, Republicans elected to Congress blocked the passage of legislation which, although too watered-down to be  a solution, represented at least a palliative.

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How many ears must one man have before he can hear people cry?  -- (Dylan).

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We ask and ask.