Vati = Vote Against The Incumbents.
[That's v-a-t-i, with a long A and a long I.]
The present state of America makes me sick. It actually makes me nauseous to ponder how far this once magnificent country has slipped into mediocrity. When I was a young man, fifty years ago, you could mention just about anything: And America was best at that. Back then, America enjoyed the best health care, the best schools, and the best working conditions on Earth, while we worked less hours, made more money, and enjoyed a life style never before seen upon this planet.
Our coal mines were producing more coal, our steel-mills smelting more iron, and our assembly-lines led the World in the manufacture of beautiful automobiles, refrigerators, wash-machines, dryers, and the hoard of smaller appliances and gadgets (which eliminated most of the drudgery of our daily chores) and introduced mankind to the life-of-ease, we all now enjoy. Now, American High School Graduates rank only average (whether tested in Mathematics, World History, Language, Science or any other critical field of expertise) and compared with the student's test scores, from the other industrialized nations.
Our so-called health care system stinks, it is without question, the most dysfunctional conglomeration of nonsensical laws bureaucrats have ever assembled. It assures illegal aliens and greedy politicians unlimited free health care, while it renders millions of hard working honest citizens incapable of obtaining any kind of health insurance. The new Social Security Drug Plan deducts a premium for drug insurance, which you can bet will double every year (for at least the next two years) from the social security checks, of subscribers. A great many drugs are not covered by this new plan, and it only pays a maximum of about 70% on any drug, a lot less on most. When the total drug bill (what the retiree and the government pays) reaches $2250.00, Grandma gets cut off, has to pay it all herself, until her total drug bill reaches $3500.00. Obviously if Grandma can not afford her drugs, her bill will never get to $3500.00, so she will go without her drugs for the rest of the year. Of course the monthly premium will still be deducted from her Social Security Check. The drug companies formulated this drug bill, got it enacted, and only the drug companies are going to benefit from it. (Our government gives them the premiums.) In short, this Shaft Our Grandparents Bill is nothing but a multi-million dollar windfall for the drug companies.
The above bill is sure not the worst medical bill our elected officials have ever enacted. It just happens to be the last that made me angry. Hundreds of anti consumer bills and amendments are on the books, which benefit only the medical and/or the drug industries. Foreign competition to American Drug Companies is nonexistent. If it was legitimatized, we could import drugs from reputable foreign drug facilities, for as little as 10% of the extortion we now forced to pay our American Drug Companies. Sad to say, but the Medical Cartels and Drug Companies, with their unchallenged power, are not the worst villains when it comes to manipulating our US Government [or our state governments] into giving them a license to gouge us. The international oil and gas conglomerates, the interstate utility companies, railroad companies, automobile and airplane manufacturers, the cable companies, international shipping cartels and a score of other business concerns all wield as much or more power over our Congress, Senate and President, than the drug companies do. Big Business is our real enemy. Big Business controls our government, and Big Business is the real reason America is losing ground on all fronts, the reason America is steadily slipping into mediocrity.
The companies mentioned above, along with a score of Countries and a hoard of other mighty financial cartels, funnel billions of dollars, pac-money, annually into Washington, to influence the Republican and Democratic Party Leaders (Lords) to legislate on their behalf. The leaders of the Democratic and Republican Parties, the Party Lords, in the Congress and Senate, now have more control over their subservient Congressman and Senators, than any Marine General ever had over his troops. The political parties control the pac-money. And the pac-money is what decides who will get elected, or heaven forbid, smeared.
These political Lords can't just walk down on the floor and tell a congressman or senator that they are fired. But they can have anyone that fails to kowtow to the powers that be, ostracized, rendered powerless, and they can definitely keep anyone from being re-elected. It is very important that we all understand that these Party Lords have strict control over our congressmen and senators. And folks that's not Democracy, that's Bureaucracy.
And if we are going to declare war against our greedy bureaucracy, prudence behooves us to learn all we can about our enemy. Now, I just pulled what I have written here off the top of my head. So if you find a mistake, don't get excited, it is not that important, the overall theme of this opinion is correct. And furthermore it is also correct that with a minimum of research, anyone can ascertain for themselves that this greatest of all nations, is rapidly slipping into mediocrity. And even the United States of America, the greatest nation that ever existed, can fall from within, if we continue to allow misguided politicians the right, to barter away piece after piece of good government, to anyone who is able and willing to pay for preferential treatment.
I have been telling people for years; when in doubt always Vati. But only in this last year has the urge to really push this concept become obligatory. Actually, Voting Against The Incumbents, is a very viable method of straightening out what is wrong with America. Many congressmen and senators win their seats by very small margins, less than 5%. So, if just 5% of the electorate would vati, we would probably get between 20 and 25% of the Congress and Senators. And you can bet we would get their attention.
If as many people vatied, as voted for Ross Perot (he got 18.9% of the popular vote) we would unseat half of both houses. Folks this is a plan that definitely has possibilities. Politician's egos are all wrapped up in their positions. Actually the only thing in the World politicians love more than pac-money, is their influential positions, their jobs. And on the very day our legislators learn that their electorate is actually going to vote them out of office, they are going to be magically stricken with a burning desire to legislate on behave of their constituency.
The only question left is, where are you going to place your loyalty, to the political party that you have been blindly supporting - or to America? You can't serve two masters, and be loyal to both. We have to take the power away from the political Lords, to the extent that it allows our elected representatives to vote the way we tell them to vote. Or in thirty years you are not going to be able to tell the difference between Washington and the corrupt Government of Mexico, or for that matter, tell the difference between America and Mexico.
Grandpa Nate @ Rawlins, Wyoming.