More than a million Americans will lose publicly funded healthcare. Crime-wracked Oakland, Calif., where the number of murders nearly doubled last year, is cutting more than $5 million from its police budget. Massachusetts won't pay for dentures, eyeglasses or prosthetics for low-income residents anymore. Oregon public schoolchildren will likely attend 15 fewer days of classes. Ohio and Kentucky are closing prisons. Illinois is slashing child-care funds for welfare families by half. The Fire Department of New York, formerly the heroes of 9/11 but now just another costly line item in the city's shrinking budget, is set to cut eight engine companies and reduce staffing on the remaining units from five firefighters to four.

- From "The Fiscal Crisis" -- an editorial by Joan Walsh in Salon.com

Meanwhile, Bush pushes for more and more tax cuts. How can people not see the incongruity of this? From a selfish perspective, how can even those wealthier Americans directly benefiting from tax cuts justify the hastening of infrastructure collapse?Fewer cops = more crime.
Substandard education = less-prepared workers and also, likely more crime.
Less funding for poor kids = reduced ability to learn in school and, yes, probably more crime down the road.

Seeing a trend here?

Why are Republicans -- who by and large are supporting Bush -- so incredibly short-sighted? At risk of sounding melodramatic, do they not care about the world they're leaving behind?

And why are the Democrats -- who have managed to doggedly roll over and play dead (barring occasional blustery rhetoric) -- so damn spineless? Do they really feel it's better to be re-elected than to truly serve the public interest?

And is it any wonder that so many people become so jaded?

When will Americans wake up and firmly insist upon respecting and protecting the future viability of our country, even our world?

May it be in my time. Please.

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