headlines...

Sometimes headlines tell a whole story. 

These are clipped from the front page of the New York Times on two successive days, Monday and Tuesday of this week. (Click to enlarge.) And the headline to come on Wednesday? Here's the preview via digital news:         

Record High Close for Dow 

Who can take a look at what's happening and still be in denial? Nothing hurts the 1% — recession, sequester or "recovery"; the billions keep coming, no limit. No limit either to the burdens put on the rest of society, especially those who struggle the most. They take hit after hit from the skewed priorities and values of the obscenely unfair system that calls itself "free enterprise."

The problem is much deeper than can be understood as a political contest between the GOP and the Democratic Party. Major constituencies that favor the Democratic Party certainly want to change the miserable state of affairs. They are trying to move the country in a more progressive and humane direction, although the record and role of dominant Democratic leadership is often part of the problem, It is itself too cozy with and complicit in the enormous power that big money holds over Washington and all of the country's politics. Still, if we are to move forward, it's necessary to face up to the absolute need to break the GOP's stranglehold on Congress, its dog-in-the-manger blockade of government.  That's very hard to accomplish even though the GOP seems to be in desperate straits. Whatever progress can be achieved right now if public anger is brought to bear on Congress, it's not too early to look to next year's mid-term elections. Conventional wisdom says low voter turnout is inevitable in an off-year election, and shameless gerrymandering has the game fixed in advance.

Can the pundits be proved wrong (once again)? Given what the economic royalists have done to the country, is there enough public anger (and the will to organize) to beat the odds? 

What do you think?