Well…if your heart and the rest of America’s didn’t break a little when you heard of firefighters letting a couples house burn down because they didn’t pay a “firefighting fee”, then there is something seriously wrong with us and our society. But this is just the latest evidence of how the repubs vision for America will work for the little guy; how their “starve the beast”, tax cuts at all cost strategy impacts the real lives of citizens, from the homeowner in rural areas who has to pay extra for fire protection if they can get it at all, to the people of Detroit and other cities who see large areas abandoned by the police department because there is no way to raise the funds to hire officers to patrol. But, the rich still have the money to hire private police and, in some gated communities, their own fire departments who will, no doubt, sit and watch while houses outside their walls burn down because they have been successful in making sure there are no taxes available for these services for the rest of us.

What happened to the America where we felt and acted like we were all in this together? I think it’s a direct result of the repubs strategy to demonize our government and members of our society that are not like them. It’s easy to let someone’s house burn down or let them be robbed or murdered if they “haven’t taken care of themselves” or they don’t vote republican. As I said to T yesterday, “I’m glad I won’t be around much longer to see this wonderful country continue to decline” and I do believe the catch phrase that was first proposed in the comic strip Pogo from my youth: “I’ve see the enemy and he is us”…..geez….