The Safety Net was shredded during the "good years."

Back when the oil was flowing and gambling on stocks seemed a sure thing, influenced by the fat cats from Wall Street and (once upon a time) Silicon Valley, the american people began to believe that anyone who wasn't driving a new car or living in a McMansion was probably a bumbler or lazy or doing something illicit. -- Living within your means was considered unpatriotic!

But anyway, perhaps because there wasn't a historic memory, or perhaps because they felt that "we" are a peculiarly graced and special people, and so the rules no longer apply. Whatever the reason, conservatives and centrist Democrats collaborated to dismantle and tear to pieces the safety nets that were created in response to the extreme poverty of the great depression.

We were made to believe that govt. programs were the work of socialist extremists. Now are roads are buckling, our bridges are falling down, you never know what bit of the infrastructure is about to give way and wipe out hundreds of homes, jobs or lives. And that doesn't even touch on the banking and investment houses, the health care system, the enviromental protection agency or even the justice system.

It's as if they've turned the US back 80 years. -- Well if a rising tide lifts all boats, I can't help wondering who drowns first when the ship of state is sinking. I don't expect we'll see any of the captain on crew willing to go down with the ship, and I know there are more and more mothers and children joining the tired old men and young bucks in the dining room soup kitchen where I work.

Welcome to America, circa 1929. The neighborhoods of foreclosed homes should be called Bushvilles...

Like FDR after Hoover, Barrack Obama has the chance to turn this country around. As a nation, we need Obama far more than he needs to be preseident. It's just remarkable he's still willing to take the job.