Every once in awhile, I read an article that sums up everything that I have been thinking.  It ties up, in a few paragraphs, what my friends, family and co-workers talk about.  We talk about the state of the country, usually jumping from one topic to another, never really putting it all together. It gets harder and harder to remember everything that Bush and the "regressives" have done to our great nation.

David Michael Green is one of my favorite columnists/bloggers. Here is a portion of a column he recently wrote.  Thank you Progressor Green.  I will keep this when someone asks me why I have turned from a right leaning Independent to a Democrat.

Why are people so dissatisfied, telling pollsters in record numbers that the country has gone astray?

There's a simple answer, but the regressive right is desperate that you not hear it or think about it. You see, there's been an ideological revolution going on in America. It began in the 1980s with Reagan kleptocracy (in that sense, it's been a bit of an evolutionary revolution - however oxymoronic (or just plain moronic) that idea may be), but has really hit stride in the seven tortuous years of the Little Bush regime.

And the thing is, people don't like it.

Indeed, one could explain the public mood quite succinctly, as follows: The right sought power in America. They got it. They implemented their agenda. Unfettered. It sucked. People hate it.

I know, it's amazing isn't it? I mean, what's not to like about deceit, death and incompetence?

They were (minimally) asleep at the wheel during America's most severe domestic military attack in history, and are surprised that we might find that troubling.

They identify an enemy and claim that this person and his movement attacked the country, then they fail to come close to defeating this enemy in six years of war. Who's ready to sign-up for that?

They bring us another war, based on lies, which turns into a quagmire based on lies, and which has nothing remotely to do with American security other than to radically diminish it. Then they belittle us as disloyal for opposing the moral, fiscal and humanitarian disasters they've made.

They polarize the country economically in the name of their radical (supposed) free market ideas, which turn out to have a lot more to do with privileging certain elites than with privileging nobody, as per the theory. Then, as we are being gouged paying for gas, food and mortgages, they are astonished that we don't give them credit for the wonderful state of the economy. Hey, the Dow's up! What's wrong with you people?

They offer us record-setting deficits in place of record-setting surpluses, and are shocked that we aren't interested in such a golden opportunity to go broke.

They create a giant new government benefit structured to enrich insurance and pharmaceutical industries, while maybe incidentally also helping seniors once in a while, and they wonder why we're not enthusiastic.

They attempt to destroy Social Security, one of the most successful government programs of all time, in order to further enrich the already fabulously wealthy, and can't imagine that we wouldn't be all over that.

They allow us to suffer and die from diseases which might well have been cured by now, were it not for the fact that the religious radicals to which they cater have imposed their extreme fundamentalist views on the entire country. Then they're astonished that we choose health and longevity over blastocysts in petri dishes.

They legislate by an act of Congress intervention into a personal family tragedy, and are amazed that we aren't all clamoring to be treated like the Terri Schiavo family.

They block health care for children while uninhibitedly enriching crony contractors in Iraq and wonder why we don't celebrate their twisted values.

They demonize gays and minorities and immigrants and liberals in order to divert attention from their real kleptocracy agenda, and we're supposed to feel good about how they've restored dignity to American politics.

They imagine that good governance involves poor preparation before a natural disaster, criminal negligence during it, and shameful disinterest afterwards, and can't quite fathom why even an embarrassingly intimidated American press can no longer withhold its criticisms.

They not only stand by and do nothing about the planet's most serious environmental crisis ever, but they actually block other countries from rescuing themselves, all in order to maintain fossil fuel industry profits. And they wonder why we don't beg for more of that.

They turn our country into a hated international bully, proud to be an aggressor, a torturer and a hypocrite, and then they're shocked that we don't find that a compelling self-image.

They trample the Constitution in every way imaginable, from checks and balances to separation of church and state to due process to illegal search and seizure to stealing elections. After constantly telling us how much we should revere the Founders, they are somehow surprised that we don't approve of seeing their creation being trashed.

And this is just for starters...


Full article can be read here:
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/11567