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America Is Angry -- Is Anyone Listening?

Ask someone how they feel about their country today, or if they feel betrayed, or whether they believe America will ever be the same again. Then stand back and listen.

Wall Street

The Establishment’s Tin Ear

“What’s changed,” one Newsroom Magazine contributor recently suggested, “is that prior to last year we believed it was us, personally, who were responsible for the explosion of overdraft charges, over limit credit card fees, and sharply escalating interest rates.

Now we know that it was not us, but greed, criminality and an omnipresent bunko mentality among our nation’s bankers.

Institutions we once trusted have been taking advantage of us. That they continue to behave stupidly and greedily — means that all of us are now having to pay for their misdeeds.

Bankers don’t know how much trouble they’re in with their customers — believe me, the revolt against them has only begun.”

America is damned angry today. All one need do to know the depth and venom of our national anger is to inquire of one’s neighbors, co-workers, friends, family or strangers on the street. Ask someone how they feel about their country today, or if they feel betrayed, or whether they believe America will ever be the same again. Then stand back and listen. You’ll not need a microphone or hearing aid, for the responses from most people we know are loud and clear.

America is scared. And for good reason.

Perception As Reality

Just ask and you’ll soon know how strongly Americans are pissed-off about what’s happened with a passion most of us have never before witnessed. The last time young Americans experienced anything close to today’s growing public anger and fear were the days following the 911 attacks on New York and Washington.

Some Americans, grandparents and great-grandparents who remember the national anger following on after the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor, well know that an angry America is prone to action toward those who precipitate such anger.

What one hears from ordinary Americans about the underlying causes of today’s immensely dangerous problems are not always accurate, or well understood, for there is immense confusion about what’s factual, what’s speculation, what’s spin and what’s unknown. And with good reason. Economics, finance and politics are more than a little baffling to people trying to raise a family, keep up their mortgage, and find a secure place from which to begin again.

Inattentive Government

What are easily understood, however, are actions — or failures to act. It is here that what’s technically accurate matters far less than what’s perceived. For it is perception that drives anger — a reality seemingly beyond the grasp of the powerful and elite who seem to have a tin ear when it comes to  hearing that which they may prefer not to know. For banks, the heart of such feelings, we learned, is a widespread and growing sense that banks have a “total disregard and disrespect for their relationship with the consumer.” Even Federal Reserve Chairman Benjamin Bernanke tells us that after all that was done to save the big banks, they are pushing those monies around for their own benefit, not lending to those individuals and small businesses who must eventually pay for their bail-out.

We May Be Passionate, But We're Largely Ignorant About What Matters To Our Survival

If you take the time to listen to your barber, taxi driver, carpool chums, or classmates you’ll discover a common thread or theme: The Band Of Brothers is not listening. Not to you, not to me, not to congress — and most certainly not to responsible adults such a Brooksley Born who tried to stop the financial train wreck ten years before it happened.

The Wall Street – Treasury Complex is not listening. Government is not listening. Business is not listening. Politicians aren’t listening. The White House isn’t listening.

Nobody, it seems, is listening to the rumblings along Main Street. Today’s angry Americans — the ones in trouble, unemployed, living on the streets, or facing foreclosure — know they have been wronged. That’s what’s stirring nascent feelings of revolution. The reality is  clear however: millions of our fellow citizens believe they were wronged by all of those who are not listening.

With good reason. When 15 million families are suffering from unemployment, foreclosure, financial collapse and hunger they are not forgiving of those who stole their lives, prospects, dreams  and livelihoods. Especially not when the culprits go unpunished, or worse, enjoy massive salaries and bonuses with the monies they garnished from millions of American families facing bleak futures and uncertain opportunities.

Wrongdoers Must Be Brought To Justice

From what we’re hearing, Main Street America is immensely angry, but as yet uncertain how to demonstrate that anger. What ordinary Americans know, or believe, is that the establishment  has failed to do anything to protect them while enriching and excusing those who openly did wrong. It’s hard for working people to understand why congress and the White House so aggressively sought to protect the bad guy bankers, financiers, credit reporting agencies, insurance companies, derivatives traders and governmental agencies that precipitated the financial markets collapse.

America Is Angry -- Are The Banker's Listening?

While widely held notions that government has done little or nothing to protect ordinary Americans are largely untrue, only the most erudite and knowledgeable Americans understand how broadly the government acted to avoid a total collapse of credit and financial markets. To their credit, swift actions avoided a complete financial market melt-down. At what cost remains to be seen, for the immense debt assumed by the government now threatens this nation as surely as Al Qaeda terrorism.

Still, no matter the reality of what was done properly or successfully, perceptions drive a fast developing avalanche of public opinion that questions everything while besmirching those who took action. Should public contempt and demand for civil uprising against perpetrators, both public and private, reach critical mass, it could produce massive disruptions and dislocations.

Disinformation Obfuscates Reality

Big Media is not delivering what people need to know. Instead they are delivering what people want to hear, or see, or argue about. Thus disinformation obfuscates reality and masks out the harsh realities of impending disintegration within our society, culture, economy and military. Dismissiveness and declaration offered as if probative thought run rampant today.

While our debt mounts, our inability to focus on what matters most extends the bubble of ignorance. As with every other bubble, this one will crash down upon itself. Reality may not be what we seek as a nation today, but like the first light of dawn, it will surely follow our national indifference to our own abdication of responsibility.

But we are not a fearful people, nor are we stupid or inattentive. We’re just distracted by the profitable flow of the inconsequential that fills the time between commercials. The politicians lied to us, the businessmen stole from us, the doctors played on our mindless passion for more of everything — whether good, or bad.

Bursting Bubble

Those who think America does not understand the depth and risk from last year’s immense failures aren’t listening. We do know something is wrong — it’s the details we’re yet to grasp. We know that politicians, bankers, big company CEOs, insurance executives and bureaucrats all failed us. What we don’t know is how we disconnected from reality and empowered them by our inattentiveness and willingness to become politicized. It is we who gave up our right to make important decisions by letting others drive our passions for far less important, but sharply divisive, single issues.

When the bubble breaks. When the truth is known. When reality forces its way into our national consciousness we’ll likely come to our senses. Perhaps then there will be an immense uprising in the great heartland beyond the ornate fiefdoms of Wall Street and Capitol Hill.

I wouldn’t count on it — unless someone has been hired to define the campaign, raise the monies for television advertising, and tell us what we must do to save our nation. Otherwise, few of us would know what to do, for we put ourselves in this mess by not thinking for ourselves.