TLDR alert
Oh, one could say that every generation has had it's problems , looking back through the wars, civil rights , great depression, the industrial revolution, the mass immigration(s), civil war & revolution etc we've never been what one might coin a quiet sanguine nation.
the end result was , at least up until the present generation, a fairly high standard of life style. Yet things have not been so rosy of late, despite the signs and symptoms of that decline being with us for quite a while. Such is the insidious nature of unchecked capitalism , like a dog let off it's leash to pursue whatever mischief it may unknown to it's master
yet we do have a system, supposedly a democratic republic, or something to instill the specter of choice, albeit two parties, and two subsequent candidates who are greased throughout their campaign, and into office by the same factions they end up bowing down to once in falls somewhat short of an being definitional correct.
then the fun begins, the pundits of the right or left demand change , decry past injustices , insist on what they feel is the right path for America, and Americans, while expecting any given administration to turn on a dime. The fact of the matter is, most new administrations don't roundfile their predecessor's legislations , nor can they as easily as they might wish to
One can set one's clock on the usual spitfest of labels aflame with, republican, democrat, liberal, conservative being in the limelight portraying it's usual kaleidoscopic logic within moving goal posts
the unfortunate truth is, once the rhetoric and hyperbole has faded into media history, door #1, or door#2 remains the same choice here. This lack of choice evident in a populace that has grown more in debt while making less (adjusted for inflation) , has had it's youth progressively sink academically, has a marked increase in prison population, obesity, and poverty, with an inversely proportional decrease in job opportunities , appreciable lifestyle, and civil rights
the gridlock of pundits grinds it's way out the wind sock media machine as we cheer on from our couches gnawing on our tasty bits of industrial wallyworld waste, resting on our fat laurels, quoting passages from founding fathers . The organizations that have sprung forth to mitigate the mayhem abound with their hand out , proliferating one's snail mail and e-mail alike begging to save America from itself.
Political news is now Imus / Beck / Hannity / O'rielly / Limbaugh / Colbert / Stewart , so if you've ever missed Cronkite now's the time to say so
The natural human response they all predicate their shtick on is that someone, something has to be held responsible leads to a collective archie bunker mentality quick to marginalize the limo libs, the neocons, the gays, the hippies, yuppies , rabid right or loony left as the perp of the obvious decline in family values, bearing the onus of societal separationalism, the harbinger of the muchenhouser economy now in it's agonal respirations.
Their subsequent balkanization breeding self righteousness creates a litany of book sales and lecture circuits, but never really does reveal the man behind the curtain, nor would revealing the forest from the sleaze be anything less than political suicide And as long as J.P. Morgan's observation of the common worker is extended to a team mentality the mass mesmerization will continue to cloak that one human element gone wild , greed (sadly, greed porn is such a narrow market, no dvd is available at this time)
No, it's better to hang onto that arrogance that if we are anything less than numero uno on this rock it's some particular administrations fault, someone let the dog out while we we're looking who should be scapegoated in Wolf Blitzer's situation room, and ignore the possibly we might have left the barn door wide open to the many cannibalistic predators capitalism can breed for a generation
Then again, why would anyone striving for that brass ring dis the carny ? no no, better to go a few more rounds and see if it could actually be caught, prosperity is around the corner! speculators accumulate! the core spirit of the American dream being that chance, and so like a scene from Logans Run they go willingly into the game wishing for their chance to compete
Unfortunately that dream predicated on equal chance equates to the nightmare that eats our young without it, which seems to elude a complacent populace's ADD good for no more than 35 minutes of American Idol and 25 minutes of commercial breaks touting products that don't do what they say they do inbettween , and we wonder why we have such a cluster f*ck government
As the good ship capitalism slowly lists to port, the bailout pumps only gain time, and more time for the upper than lower decks, to realize the magnitude of a metastasised malignancies ruthlessness
Prior to this, anyone delving into the details is simply OC, anyone crying foul insane, and anyone that could possibly follow the $$$ through a myriad of fiscal smoke and mirrors infused with enough legalese to move Perry Mason to convulsions wasn't really taken seriously. We just all went home tired at the days end of work to a cold brew, the 'ol lady, and reruns of Seinfeld no matter what safe and sound in our cocoon of entitlement
Now it's different, now the folks down the street have been foreclosed on, the factory downtown is closed, that 401K has vaporized, Buffy and Muffy's college funds have gone up heating fuel smoke, granny's blown the farm on her last 6 months in intensive care, and the Jone's are on the dole yet again, folks are finding less and less of those garden variety bogymen to lynch in the court of public opinion. By gawd, it's enough to make yuppies piss purple cappuccino these days!
Only when socialism is at the gates of failed capitalism do the cannibals look up in fear of something that might actually deny their access to the trough, if not eat them , a switch any glutinous entity would clearly detest, though it may stand on it's hind legs announcing itself competitive, it's true nature is to crush any competition, which is exactly the position it has assumed.. Further, it would seem all the countries this beast we've let roam unmonitored have a beef with it's unmitigated gall to sh*t where it eats . I guess you can pick your nose, but not your neighbors eh?
Locally, I hear that pubic gestalt has created some colorful town meetings of late, mostly focusing on some rep who happens to be on the wrong side of collective opinion, yet an available and easy target none the less. Then there are those who write or call their reps in a more civil manner. All would claim to deny apathy while conversing with no less than the modern day Job in the belly of the beast mammon, but who's faith and allegiance remains unclear
Individually we fare no better , having been sold out by unchecked greed, and then screaming for change, with the albatross of materialism about our necks. The potus, and all of the potus's men aren't going to put that together again by throwing money at it, which is slowly being proven about as effective as giving a truckloads of herion to junkies. The sine wave economy, or rather what's left of it, along with all it's systemic perversions will simply reappear after the $$$'s gone.
Unashamed materialism and consumerism have polluted that original message of capitalism mutating it into the beast it is today resulting in the loss of the collective steam it once had. Yet efforts to paint it all a partisan problem remain most delusional, if not detrimental . The implications of the marriage of wealth and power are much more far reaching in our society , if not an outright historic redux, and as such no potus should be expected to tap his heels together 3 times muttering 'there's no place like home' as a fix
The axiom of business i use is no different than that which works for governing a populace, you've good, fast & cheap. Pick two because anyone that sells you on all three show well be suspect of selling you snake oil, but boy o' boy, one can drag out the same bottle of snake oil and resell it every 4 years here
Now you may ask, how is it we've come to this point? I'm not greedy am i? and you might even be correct in the monetary sense, yet fail the spiritual litmus if you are one to ridicule those kids flung off the capitalist merry go-round, or laugh at your fellow man down. I guess it's just socialist to even think of hand outs these days and an outright liberal label to show concern, yet the confusion with a hand up, which is exactly the nemesis of true equitable capitalism seems categorically shuffled into that same mix
want examples? our media is lousy with survivors, idols, winners, openly dumping on losers to the point where fair play and sportsmanship are almost a quaint echo of the past. never underestimate the power of social engineering, especially on the morally bankrupt.
While in reality land, the real Donald Trumps that we've elevated to idolatry have proven to be mostly corporate whores and scrooges bent on openly sniveling their way in the front door of Congress, instead of buying their way in the back door per usual...One would think that would be clue enough for anyone smarter than a bag of donuts our system is sick, unethical, an inequitable
One could also say 'why the vitriol, things have been bad before, they'll turn around, have faith. Really? so who foots the bill? , lemme see, that damage includes a treasury being investigated by Congress, foreign debt holders who are actually worried enough about our solvency to approach the IMF for sdr's as a global benchmark, a deficit worthy of a Rod Sterling monologue, the mother of all pork taking wing despite it, our our army staged across America for civil unrest, individual states selling bridges and/or forwarding iou's, and a trickle down system that's resulted mostly in poverty up.
One might also ask naively ask 'aren't you a capitalist'? to which i'd reply your da*med right i am, but realizing the above could well result in fiscal terms as a generation of economic slaves in bailoutistan should be enough for any real red blooded main street American capitalist to cry in his cornflakes. Further salt is rubbed into that wound as Big Bro's colorful rhetoric is pressed through the bullsh*t filter carefully weeding out the perps , and you'd want to have faith in party lines? you know, those same fools who've been in bed so long with these perps it goes unnoticed these days? my good gawd, we should be floating wall street along with their cronies out to international waters and let 'em do a little bailing on their own here, not playing the same tired partisan circlejerk
Better still, you might ask 'what's really changed' instead of what your told will change, and perhaps you'll find the only real glimmer of hope in our public gestalt. It's moved the lesser among us to target and label each other, the better thought among us to consider what it means to be American, and even the brightest of us to consider that heart wrenching introspect of delving into the fundamentals of what is believed and revered as Americana
What could we agree on so far? I say it could well be divided we fall , needing no more proof than the flock of secessionists vultures circling us as we speak
And so here's the challenge for those of you who just might be of latter caliber, after all us small time two bit capitalists love a challenge, don't we? Release the crutch of partisanship that hobbles you, and answer the basic simple fundamental question of 'what is America' and 'what is an American' from the ground up, from you, your words, not something handed to you from on high....easy to ask, hard to do you say? indeed so, yet simple fundamental revelations have had a very strong impact in our past here.
~S~
