Editors’ note: The Lions’ Pride is proud to present Dr. Mark Tiger Edmonds’ Curmudgeon Chronicles, a series of opinion pieces this former Saint Leo University Professor of English has written on diverse topics facing our nation and its academic institutions.

BY DR. MARK TIGER EDMONDS
Special to the Lions’ Pride

Well, it took them almost the whole eight years, but they finally got the country and the economy so messed up that we are likely on the brink of another Great Depression. And, while I don’t think there is much value in name-calling or blaming, there is always great benefit in analysis.

I think they did it on purpose. They would have to be blind, deaf, dumb, retarded, and in a box to not figure out where all the policies America has been pursuing would lead. Let’s review.

The war on Iraq has cost more than any other war in the history of mankind and armed conflict. And no one really believes anymore that we should have attacked Iraq, much less that we should have spent trillions of dollars on the effort.

None of that money has or will be used to keep Americans employed, happy, healthy, solvent, well educated, and fed. This war has cost us our future. And there has been the tragic, pointless loss of many lives on both sides. The people who brought us this immoral, unjustified, unnecessary conflict appear to want to return this country to a World War II mentality. They seem to really need an enemy for us to hate, to bring us together against, to focus on. This bunch has been real big on unquestioning allegiance and knee jerk patriotism.

That may be so that they could rob us blind while we were busy waving flags and checking out the color of the current alert level. Or it could have been a tactic to take our attention away from the constitutional rights and liberties that they have usurped. Either way, the country is a poorer place because of this war and this administration.

But the last eight years have also seen some pretty weird economic policies, too. There has been massive downsizing, out­sourcing, riffing, and other means of taking jobs from American workers. The current immigration policies have been catastrophic to the country, in terms of the economy, and the culture.

The Global Economy has been real good for the super-rich people in charge of it. After that, the oil producing nations, China, and a few other Asian and other foreign nations have prospered. And we’ve gotten poison dog food and deadly toothpaste, inferior products of all kinds, and doubled prices on just about everything. The economy of the United States is in worse shape than it has been in decades. The super-rich are even super-richer. And the rest of us can’t afford to drive to work.

So I think we should figure out whose fault it is. Who screwed up and cost four thousand soldiers their lives? Who made such a mess of the economy that Americans can’t afford groceries? Who decided that we no longer need constitutional protection from our own government? Let’s identify and punish those at fault.