Written by Heidi   

The Romney/Ryan ticket is now set, and those who are paying attention are devouring all the data they can find about the Tea Party darling now attached to the cipher that is Romney. As the chosen ones to represent the current GOP, these two are the epitome of the great ingratitude to what America has been, and how they have become successful. If by successful, we mean powerful and rich.
Romney's attitude of entitlement regarding his company, his salary even when not working, his government-grant grabbing when overseeing the SLC Olympics, his non-payment of taxes, and his desire to reign over people he clearly doesn't understand or care about, has been fully parsed. It doesn't seem to have turned off very many people. If by very many, we understand his low 40-something approval rating to still mean tens of thousands of voting people. The addition of Ryan as the GOP VP candidate tops off a ticket being symbolized by a man replete with unearned, unexamined and unproductive wealth with a man whose claim to fame is his plan to balance our budget by clawing back what services are left for the elderly, the poor, the disadvantaged, the other-than-white, and women as an entire group. He is also all about getting government oversight off the backs of mega-corporations, directing it to the business of regulating women's bodies, and providing additional help to those very same corporations.
Their approach to life, that "they built it on their own" is a myopic and ungrateful slap in the face of their families, their communities and the governments who supported, encouraged and rewarded their work. Their inherited money, and in Ryan's case his government provided social security, loans, health care and actual employment, gave them the start they each needed to be productive. Ryan's productivity is questionable, if we count the bills he actually passed in his 13 years in Congress (2) and Romney's is purely self-serving, creating no wealth or jobs or safety net for anyone but himself. And today they both enjoy government provided pensions and health care, both much richer and complete than those offered the little people, the American majority.
I have yet to hear either one of these "self-made" men express one single word of gratitude for the government that supports them and their families, or helped them get started. Not one word of appreciation for the clean water they drink and jet ski on, the clean air they breathe without thought and the uncontaminated land they build their houses and businesses on. And yet, it was the American government that established laws to protect their right to own land, their right to have clean water and air to sustain them, and a gorgeous country to travel through and vacation in. These same laws are those they want to gut, clearly not even making a connection between the "theirs" that they "got" and how it was kept beautiful for them.
If the GOP wants to reign over a contaminated country enslaved to short-term financial gain, completely blind to the happiness and health they have from living in a clean, beautiful, regulated and protected country, and to the benefits they get from a safe infrastructure and available healthcare, I can't stop their strange desires. I almost want to wish them success.....if only I could keep them in the close borders and boundaries of the kind of culture and country they would create along with those who elected them. A region of rich, white, traditional men without creativity or joy and the struggling masses who serve them; a region of polluted waterways and toxic land and unbreathable air that would of course affect them all; a land where the very sick would die on the streets and the churches would turn their heads. A country of shiny things supported by an economy of constant desire and an everlasting power struggle between companies for the most profits and religions for the most power. Let them have it. This would be a vision of Dante's hell, where desires are never filled, souls are never sated, and the total lack of gratitude would engender a people of constant dissatisfaction, self-pity, fear and greed.
Without gratitude and humility, there is no appreciation for the good and recognition of the bad; no true honesty or happiness, no fulfillment.
If this extreme GOP ticket wants to be taken seriously by anyone with one thimbleful of compassion and care for others, they will need to find it in their cold and ungrateful hearts to acknowledge their families, their communities, their government and their country, for all they have done to contribute to their "individual" success. But I suppose that is doubtful, because such acknowledgment would require a true understanding about why our regulations and laws, our safety nets and oversight agencies, our not-for-profit policies and programs are a beautiful and beneficial part of America.

Article by Heidi Hall
www.compassionandchange.com