Unending Folly

Dear Editor,
    In regards to the column, "Point Austin: August Horribilis," [News, Aug. 15]: Michael, while you make a compelling case for one sucky summer, newswise, I think you contradict yourself. You are correct in sensing that Chronicle readers, and even non-Chronicle readers, share a sense of "helplessness" over the depressing, mind-numbing events occurring on our home turf and abroad, where our military continues to make enemies faster than we or our supposed allies can kill them. But you can't contend we're helpless on one hand and in the next breath say that it's all of our faults for our government's continued bloody folly. That is a crock of crap. Those of us who are paying attention to our government's evil role in the world's calamities and its support of an increasing police state at home do what little we can to make sense of it and fight against it as best we can. The horrible truth is we have little power to effect immediate change. The American system of government has been corrupted, and was decades ago, and citizens can take to the streets, protest and vote for candidates who fight the corruption, but to what end? Most members of both major political parties serve their corporate and defense industry masters to our detriment. As horrible as all of this is, the greater travesty lies in our so-called leaders' unwillingness to confront our environmental meltdown, fiddling with their smartphones while the world burns. Mother Earth will have the last laugh at our unending folly.