OPINION: Where is America really going as a nation?

As somebody who has been on this planet for almost 77 years, I have never seen in my lifetime the chaotic mess that we have today in our political system.

We (the American people) put into the highest office in the land a man without any experience in how to govern because he was a historic figure and his first term in office was a disaster. But then we elected this same man to another four-year term in office in the hopes that he would be able to steady this Ship of State.

In the past eight years, we have had an economy that has not reached 3 percent increase in Gross National Product — the worst economy since the Great Depression. We have an administration that keeps telling the young people of this country that our economy is on the rise and you will have better-paying jobs.

In reality, the unemployment figures show about 5 percent unemployment in the country, but the bean counters forget to inform the public that 95 million people are no longer on the unemployment stats and another 25 million people are working part-time jobs and most of the jobs created are in the service industry. They are low-paying minimum-wage jobs and many people are working two minimum-wage jobs just to make ends meet. We have 47 percent of this population on food stamps and other social benefits and that does not include Social Security.

I have seen in the past 50 years a concerted effort on the part of the liberal educational system to dumb down test scores, to distort facts, figures and history itself — to put forth an agenda that we are all the same and we are all entitled to all the same as everyone else. We are all of the world and all of the global fellowship of man and if we just keep trying, we will achieve this social utopia.

As a result of this liberal approach to education, we now have a programs that hand out for the most part worthless degrees that 50 years ago would require a high school diploma and the continuing higher cost in education to obtain one of these worthless degrees.

The student loan debt in this country is now in the trillions of dollars and will never be paid back by the borrowers. If you have a loan that you will be paying on for the next 15 to 20 years, you cannot afford to buy a home, save any money or even, in reality, start a family. This in turn increases our national debt and forces the Federal Reserve Bank to print more money to keep up with the cost of “inflation,” which in turn lessens the value of our dollar.

I have seen in the last 50 years the absolute decline of our industrial base and our once economic power reduced to secondary industrial production and the only thing that has kept us afloat in this ever-changing economy is our advanced technology production.

The only bad thing about that is we are exporting that technology overseas to other industrial powers who in turn sell their products back to us. So we are becoming a service industry nation to the more industrial, ever-increasing Third World powers. “Made in America” was once the gold standard of the world economy and today it is a joke for we produce very little in the way of industrial goods.

In the past eight years I have seen race relations sink to a level that I have not seen since the 1960s Watts riots. I have seen prominent race baiters being invited to the White House for conferences, the most prominent of them Al Sharpton. I have seen an American Communist sitting on the White House staff and finally be exposed and removed from that position, only to become a commentator for CNN.

I have seen in the past 50 years a foreign policy by both administrations that President Eisenhower voiced his concern about in his farewell address to the nation: Beware of the Military Industrial Complex. I have seen this country involved in “pocket wars” that have produced absolutely nothing in the way of world stability, but have made some individuals and corporations extremely wealthy and have caused a great deal of pain to families who have lost the “flower of youth” to these senseless interventions.

I have seen this great country of mine go from the envy of the world to a pitiful perspective of what it once was and I am angry over its decline on the world stage.

I have seen our political system corrupted by greed and dishonesty by both parties and the helpless feeling that comes from watching something happen and you can’t prevent it. I have seen this political system turn this country into a conglomeration of “useful idiots” who, like sheep, will follow the Judas goat to slaughter thinking that paradise is just around the corner.

I have seen this design of One World Order slowly but surely being put in place, the grand design of a socialist utopia, where all your wants and needs are taken care of by those who have designated themselves to “keepers of the keys to the kingdom” and this now those in this generation of useful Idiots are more than willing to go to their own demise. They are totally oblivious to Cuba, to Venezuela or any other socialist nation that has tried this experiment in “human utopia.”

So one must ask, where are we going?

Garvey is a resident of Kalispell.