America! Motto: We Coulda Been A Contender

We live in a country where, because of this:

Squeezed by rising living costs, a record number of Americans — nearly 1 in 2 — have fallen into poverty or are scraping by on earnings that classify them as low income.

Things like this happen:

Banks stand to lose millions of dollars in debt repayments if the biggest municipal bankruptcy in American history is allowed to proceed. But the real victims of the financial collapse in the US state of Alabama's most populous county are its poorest residents - forced to bathe in bottled water and use portable toilets after being cut off from the mains supply. And there is widespread anger in Jefferson County that swingeing sewerage rate hikes could have been avoided but for the greed, corruption and incompetence of local politicians, government officials and Wall Street financiers. Mrs Lucas's monthly sewerage rate bills - the amount levied by the county to flush away waste and provide water for baths and showers - has quadrupled in the past 15 years. She says it is currently running at $150 (£97) a month, which leaves little left out of her $600 social security cheque for food and electricity.

And where, what is supposedly the party that is for the people, the democratic party, does this

Senate Democrats are now considering dropping their demand that a payroll tax holiday for workers be offset by imposing a small surtax on millionaires, according to Democratic aides...

And when the party that's supposed to be for the people doesn't respond to what most of the people want, this is our electoral alternative at the moment: 

So here's our question: Why bother? You vote for democrats and you get republicans. You vote for republicans and you get republicans.

And here's another question: Why is the story about Tammy Lucas and the rest of the folks in Alabama who have had the invisible hand of the free market turn off their water supply only being reported in the foreign press?

Also, too.