Americans Have Become Ameri-can’ts

Broken Promises Fall All Around Us

It is hard to imagine that most Americans thought this was “the great change President.” Obama promised all of us a new nation we could be proud of. Remember the promise of saving “Main Street” from being exploited? Recall the promise of helping middle class Americans? Well, where is this changed America?

During his first six months President Obama had already broken and/or forgotten most of his promises to the American people, who had the audacity to believe him. If you want to know where to find Obama, it’s easy — just follow the trail of his broken promises.

Obama tells us the U.S. economy is healing. However, what most of the American people see is a wide array of endless debt. Congress keeps on spending more money that we do not have. Our debt as a nation is growing significantly. The American people have no jobs. Daily living costs have increased dramatically. Credit card companies are still wreaking havoc with our lives. Individual debt is increasing.

Remember Obama pointing his finger at the “Drill baby, drill” lobbyists and saying no, we will not drill? Well, another broken promise is the Gulf of Mexico rig explosion and subsequent oil spill that shortly is going to become the largest spill in U.S. history.
Obama’s promise to save the middle class has vanished and so has our middle class. He also promised to return our soldiers from Iraq and to use diplomacy to encourage world peace; however, we have dug deeper into the Iraq foxhole, have escalated a major war in Afghanistan and have increased our military influence around the world. Nothing gained but more broken promises.

Obama promised to save the homes of Americans by providing a major refinancing program at low interest rates and he assured us all that banks will work with homeowners instead of foreclosing on their homes. However, Bank of America and others agreed to work with homeowners, signed contracts to divert foreclosures and then began foreclosure processes anyway. When homeowners complained to the federal government about these banks, they were told to file lawsuits against the banks. There was no protection or enforcement by the government to help homeowners from the bank’s manipulations and home slaughter.

The bottom-line is that Pres. Barack Obama sold Americans a bill of goods. He went on many television talk shows and rubbed elbows with Hollywood stars, showing he was just another good guy trying to become a star himself, but the truth is that the President is a liar and that he works for the Corporate-Military Complex that has taken over our Congress and directs the future of the U.S. Unfortunately, we did not heed the words of former President Dwight D. Eisenhower who in his 1961 farewell address warned us to beware of the take-over. Currently, the U.S. evidently is on course to create a World Order that is directed and supported by Corporations and enforced by the Military. The American middle class has become an endangered species and will be driven into extinction. There will be only the significantly wealthy and the tragically poor. It is the new direction of U.S. growth, a nation of right and left extremists with no balance in sight. We are pushing Face Book and Twitter on the populace. Those in charge want to flood the information highways with false and provocative “facts” that prove nothing but create rumor and confusion.What this does is to clog-up the truth. How do we wade through all the informational garbage out there and find the truth? It is getting harder to locate the truth than ever before, even with the information highway at our fingertips. This is a pre-determined process, to promote confusion and fear.

We have another President in power that has forgotten about the lives of mainstream Americans. Middle America is still being exploited by the Corporate-Military complex and there is nothing left to do about it. President Obama wants total amnesty for 40 million illegal immigrants who reside and work in the U.S. because our government does NOT enforce the laws that prohibit American companies from hiring illegal immigrants. In the process, our government has chosen to forget about the majority of Americans who cannot afford their daily living expenses and who have no voice in the direction of this nation’s growth. When the corporate sector and Wall Street tell Congress what they want, Congress jumps to complete the task. When the American people need their Congress to protect them from ongoing corporate oppression, Congress turns its head elsewhere.

There is little hope for the majority of Americans. Our Constitution no longer protects our civil rights. The checks and balances no longer are inherent within our government. Our leadership does the bidding of the Corporate-Military Complex and so, Americans are doomed. Is there a cure short of a complete revolution? It’s doubtful. Will there be a revolution on the grand scale that became the French Revolution when the ruling class became out-of-control and the people revolted? It is highly doubtful. Pick up the phones, email the President and Congress, Face Book and Twitter to your heart’s content, but remember the broken promises of a new President and his administration who promised all of us positive change.

Whatever we say about the Democrats we can say twice about the Republicans. The two-party system has failed Americans.
Once upon a time we used to be Americans, but now we are Ameri-can’ts.

Peter Stern, a former director of information services, university professor and public school administrator, is a disabled Vietnam veteran who lives in Driftwood, Texas.