What has essentially destroyed the American economy are a confluence of the 2001 Bush tax cuts for the wealthy; the trillions wasted on our illegal and useless wars; the egregious fraud and corruption that characterizes our banking system supported by the total dysfunction of our government as it colludes with big money interests, including the mainstream media, to undermine the Constitution, and the so-called American dream, which, for all intents and purposes, is hanging by three fingernails onto the side of a cliff.

When I say “dysfunction” I don’t mean that the people who are trying to take over the world and run it to suit themselves are not being successful, I mean our body politic is dysfunctional in the sense that We the People are no longer in control of our own lives. We are now the subjects and not the sovereigns of our own destiny. Our country has been stolen from us. If we want to get it back, voting is not going to be enough.

Of course, this is just my opinion. Well, actually, not my opinion exactly. My opinion is that it’s much too complicated to assign blame to any one, two or three things that have brought us to this point of systemic failure. But what I said above is still accurate. We are now a people who live in a world of myth and illusion. Most of us don’t even realize what we’ve lost. Until we do, we’re not likely to take any kind of action that will result in getting it back. Cutting back social programs especially will not help. Please don’t take this as an endorsement for Obama. It most assuredly is not.

— Mark A. Goldman