I shouldn’t be sitting here. I should be marching somewhere, carrying a placard, shouting rebukes at America’s feckless stewards.  But there are no protests to join. The population is diverted by the promise of football, by a singer’s overdose, by the tragedy in Norway …

To rule the masses, give them bread and circuses, the ancients advised.

Today, the circuses abound. But the “bread” is in danger of disappearing.

Meanwhile, in Washington, the people we elected to manage our lives are showing each other how tough they can be – and how reckless.

But the fault is ours, not theirs.

We have become too complacent, too passive, too ready to let slippery politicians decide our fate. Especially we liberals.

Look how the Tea Party has grabbed the Republicans by the throat, merely by getting out there and raising hell.

Look how the Republican leaders in Wisconsin are being routed now that the voters have decided they’ve had enough of their Simon Legree policies.

And we, the liberals, we the potential victims of the largest sell-out in U.S. history, we sit at our computer keyboards and tap, tap, tap away, sending out pleas like messages in a bottle, hoping someone, anyone, will heed our cry.

How do we expect politicians to fight for our cause if we don’t make them do it?

Have we forgotten FDR’s admonition to “make” him do what he already wanted to do?

Why don’t we make those idiots in Washington raise the debt ceiling – without shredding our social safety net?

I guess we’re waiting for someone else to do it for us.

Wall Street, perhaps?

I see the stock market is beginning its inevitable slide. I’m sure the money men won’t take that sitting down.

And they’re among the power brokers who fund those obscenely expensive election campaigns. They have strings they can pull.

We have our computer keyboards.