The summer soldier

The following is an excerpt from an exchange of emails I had with Dave and Drew, the gist of which was my disbelief that there appears to be no organized call for a congressional investigation into actions of the financial sector and the possibility of their defrauding the public. Drew mentioned posting what follows below as he felt I had hot on something important.

Am I surprised that there isn't a current move to prosecute/investigate of its own volition? No. Am I surprised that more people in the general public aren't screaming for an investigation? Yes.

Now perhaps the reply could be made that the system is broken and that the people can scream all they want and no one is going to do anything because the politicians are in the financial warlocks' pockets. I don't deny that many are indeed in the pockets of bankers, but I resist the idea that WE, in the public sense of the term, have no power. I'm sure corporate interests would prefer that we THINK we have no power because, in a way, just believing that means they've already won. Anyone who doesn't vote and keep themselves politically involved under the pretense that it is a waste of time has peddled off one of the few democratic weapons they possess for complacent nihilism. It isn't a clear-headed appraisal of the deficiencies in our political system, but a failure to struggle when struggle is most obviously needed. Civic disengagement is an agent of social atrophy. I can't always say with certainty whose purposes it will serve, but it will never be your own.

"THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman." -- Tom Paine

Of course things aren't as bad as Paine's day, but they aren't ideal...