Monday, March 29, 2010

Does this resemble you?

I am sure it doesn't, but...

It seems we have become so lazy or self-absorbed in trivia, some fed to us by the drama queens in our own lives and much more via the news media, that a majority of US citizens have literally tuned out and are leaving their important thinking for others do. The most important decisions we seem to be able to make on our own are things like what to watch on TV. Taking the time to become informed about the political, social, or environmental issues of the day is to be studiously avoided.

The final outcome of a country's people foregoing the heavy lifting required for informed decision-making is that the country becomes vulnerable to the master manipulators among us. For example, people completely ignorant of the facts behind the Nobel Prize winning scientific discovery of global warming and its consequences are easily persuaded to continue the ruinous behavior that is detrimental to all life on the planet.

Because we failed to act quickly in our own best interests, the people in this country responsible for relieving the citizens of trillions of dollars in savings and equity are in a position to do the very same thing again.

The very same people can do the very same thing… again.

Because we have been so focused nationally on sorting out the truth to the health care debate and its hundred billion dollar annual cost, we have allowed ourselves to be distracted from our wars. Phony wars based on lies and waged for the benefit of companies like Halliburton and Blackwater are where we waste hundreds of billions of dollars a year, gaining nothing except the opportunity to waste more money.

(You may disagree if you think spending billions of taxpayer dollars blowing up mountains and deserts while losing thousands of American lives in the process is good for America.)

We spend billions chasing long dead media darlings like Osama bin Laden(the only bite he has left is a sound bite). We pour billions more into a protection racket dedicated to making travel impossibly difficult and whose policies have literally rendered personal privacy in America a thing of the past, but haven't made us any safer from fanatics.

Fear mongers have convinced us we will be much safer as soon as big brother has a window opened into every corner of our lives. By dedicating ourselves to perpetual ignorance and prejudice we have opened the door to all master manipulators. We seem quick to forget that those who stick their heads in the sand are leaving their butts in the air for opportunists to take advantage of.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Misery Loves Company!

If you have or soon could have:

No coin, no cash, no credit and no credibility left.

And if you are literally:

Down to the last roll of the dice,
or the last spin of the wheel,
or the last flip of the coin.

Guess what?
Things can only get worse.
Have I cheered you up yet?
Misery does love company.

Have you lost your job, your house, and your family?
Do you have at least one tooth trying to fall out of your
head now and do the rest seem destined to follow soon?
Is there no insurance of any kind protecting anything of
yours although you paid in for what seems like forever?
And are you still years away from being eligible for
Medicaid or Social Security?

Is your wall papered with late notices? Has your license
been suspended for back child support or court fines? Is
there nothing left in your house to turn off but the water
and that's just because the water department is busy? Is
your camper in good shape?

You'd better hope so.

Or maybe your significant other of many years (some bitter,
some sweet) has decided to stick it out ( I mean, what choice
does she really have?) and is busy purchasing dinner at the
day old Exxon deli while you are filling up the home away
from home camper; soon to become home. You are eating
at the Exxon deli because the Exxon card is the only plastic
still honored in your wallet... for one more payment cycle.

As I mentioned, misery really does love company.

And yet our government is pouring trillions into the deserts
and mountains abroad. We can’t afford healthcare, we can't
help our own homeless, we can't afford good educators or
legislators or honest "Captains of Industry" no matter how
much we are willing to pay them. Enough, clearly and simply,
isn’t enough.