I have to stop reading the news because it’s starting to make me paranoid. Some things that have stood out for me lately:
- The U.S. has recently sworn in to his second term a man completely unqualified to be President.
- This same man has proposed a Federal Budget that slashes social programs, most notably Education, and forecasts with no supporting indicators huge growth in the economy while he calls for slashing a deficit of his own making that is larger than that of all his predecessors combined.
- America is embroiled in a fight to “bring peace and democracy” to a small, poor, but strategically located country that has been under the rule of a dictator who was largely financed by the U.S. in the first place.
- Civil liberties are under attack as evangelical Christians try to get discrimination codified as law.
- The CDC has found a rare, sexually transmitted disease spreading among gay men, a disease for which there is no known treatment.
- The poor continue to get poorer as the economy shrinks, cost of living increases, and what few new jobs are added to employment rolls are largely minimum wage, no benefits, hourly employment.
- The Democrats can’t find their asses with both hands.
If you guessed 2005 you’d only be half right. All of these descriptions characterize events from 1985. So nice when we learn from our mistakes.