People often ask me what I think about politics and I say I don't any more than I have to. I have a touchy stomach. I also have a low tolerance for IDIOTS.
I also have a less than substantive opinion of two-faced charlatan double-fisted liars, cheats, and crooked as a pretzel totally lacking integrity self-centered bullshitters, and those are often the better aspects of modern politicians.
I know I know. Even the Bible talks about those who would pander to the "itchy ears' amongst us, but GEEZ.
I keep wondering if those who actually have both hearts and brains will SUDDENLY awaken from their long slumber, see what is going on, and start taking to task those who are trying to dismantle our very democracy. The very same slugs who hate other people, thrive in whatever cesspool they deem is good for THEM and to Hell with everyone else. Those who would care SO LITTLE about our planet that they would even doom their own grandchildren and great-grandchildren to either no lives at all, or lives smothered in global warming and toxic waste. Truly bizarre.
Those who would AND DO ONLY what is politically expedient for themselves. Now I understand human nature and the nastier side of our personas, and I can forgive some of this bullshit as merely our fallen natures rising up occasionally. Then again, the Republicans for example, have been wending their way down this very same primrose path, with increasing gusto, for decades. THIS begins to cease to be a short-term fluke, aberration, or a single moment in time now long forgotten. It is nothing of the sort when these bastions of selfishness FORGET that we are ALL human beings and should be treated with dignity and respect, that we are SUPPOSED to look out for each other, and there but for the Grace of God go THEM. Take for example the Governor of Florida, or the Governor of Wisconsin. I rest my case..
The Keystone Pipeline is a classic example of the fallen nature of man on steroids run amuck, and the muck winding up as an oil-sludge-covered toxic swamp affecting ground waters, vegetation, forests and wildlife and rivers/streams for miles around and for generations to come. You point out the pitfalls and the staggering pile of evidence from previous brainfarts like this and all that gets ignored because it is as Al Gore once said, an inconvenient truth. The facts get in the way of the profits to be made AT ALL COSTS, and THAT is what truly a lot of this is all about. Like the Koch Btothers often prove. Put them up against Richard De Vos and family or Warren Buffett. The Koch's? NOT EVEN CLOSE.
PROFITS AND POWER, AT ALL COSTS, and trust me the costs are monumental.
Where are the bright young educated perceptive visionaries of the future WE NEED RIGHT NOW?
WHERE ARE the Benjamin Franklins and theThomas Edisons, and Eli Whitney and so many more like Ransom E Olds, Henry Ford, Walter P Chrysler...and the list goes on. Education is bereft of the proper funding because interest in the future of America I fear is waning. I wonder if the average American is even sure this country HAS a future. AND if it doesn't then why should we be concerned about the things that are destroying it RIGHT NOW. TO HELL with the children and their children and THEIR children. Good God. NO, it is ALL about immediate gratification, instant profits, and momentary pleasures at the expense of EVERYTHING else.
AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL? America, covered with rust, and landfills and piles of toxic waste, ticky tacky housing developments almost astounding in their mediocrity and shameless in the obscene profits gained by building en masse at the expense of true beauty and creativity and a sense of the future...and cement everywhere to put roads and highways and shopping malls on and soon to be abandoned for the sake of obscene profits the INDUSTRIAL PLANTS which at one time GAVE AMERICA it's affluence, it's respect in the world, it's advances and even interest and huge advances in technology but which now sit decaying and demonstrating our complete lack of awareness of what we used to be about.
BEHOLD THE BIG BOX ERA.
AMERICA"S SPACE PROGRAM which put people on the MOON, was born in the seminal fluids of research and nationalism. BY GOD WE ARE the best in the world and BY GOD WE'RE GONNA PROVE IT and prove it we did, and then we forgot. We got lax, got lazy, got lost in a morass of work to pay the bills for things we don't need paid for with money we don't have ALL to make our increasingly fatter butts more comfy and to IMPRESS THE NEIGHBORS most of whom we don't even know and could care less about truth be told and also truth be told they could care less as well. SO what IS the point?
Now who cares if we are 1st in anything? 26th? We are falling behind in the world almost faster than our infrastructure is crumbling under our feet and tires. ALMOST EVERYTHING we have spent decades and trillions of dollars BUILDING is fading and now even third world countries are passing us in many many ways. Sad.
Donald Trump is a classic example of a buffoon, who has made a lot of money which is what has gotten him the attention he so desperately seeks, (attention and approval and affirmation), but has NOT made him any smarter nor more perceptive NOR GOD KNOWS visionary. His vision(s) are a hodge podge of gobbeldy-gook cooked down to a pablum consistency similar to mentally deficient gruel, and ONLY because he has JUST ENOUGH gray matter to help him construct an articulation of things which touch raw nerves among a certain element of the American public. The politically bereft, angry by nature, being massaged by an ambitious circus sideshow medicine man with few morals and even less vision. It is MIND-BOGGLING how he has gotten this far politically or any other way for that matter. He loud-mouths his way into the center of the stage and then pushes out rhetoric through his toxic lips that in most other times and places would be laughed at and derided for the bullshit it is.
Not that it is bullshit 100% A few things that he says are problem areas in the culture today ARE. It is not the things he cites as problems but the lack of coherent answers to address those problem areas that get me, and then for Gods sake WHY THE APPLAUSE? WHY THE LEVEL OF SUPPORT he is getting?
It's all for show, and there is an element of people out here who hear only what they want to hear, believe what they believe to be true whether it is or not because the idea of it tickles prejudices they have (probably parental taught too), and that is all they care about. They are NOT interested in facts or figures or TRUTH. TRUTH TO THEM is what they perceive it to be and they will not believe in anything else or budge from some pretty idiotic positions and beliefs. THIS is an America I don't believe our founding fathers ever envisioned and the things a lot of Republicans, some Democrats and Independents too, are so far removed from what is considered BASIC AMERICAN VALUES that it is hard to believe I was raised in the same country as these bozo's. WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BASIC AMERICAN VALUES?
I guess that clearance sale at Wal-Mart paid off. FOR THEM, ALTHOUGH NOT FOR AMERICA.
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BASIC AMERICAN VALUES?
WORLD WAR II.
What?
Yes, World War II, it's aftermath, the baby boomer generation, Mickey Mouse, and the military-industrial-technological explosion that followed the two wars of the 40's and 50's. For the very first time, en masse, things like the GI BILL and massive loans to veterans (which were good btw) gave the average American access to home ownership, a college education, GOOD PAYING jobs mostly making goods and providing services at a rate never before seen in this country.
It fed the pent-up need that the two wars created and then fueled a new-found longing on the part of Americans to live in greater affluence than their parents had.
Along with the expansion of government at every level and the massive infusion into research and development in weapons, consumer goods, and medical research which altogether brought about an avalanche of further progress and success, and indeed AFFLUENCE unparalled to that point...WE BEGAN TO CHANGE. The more things we amassed as singles couples and families, the more important those THINGS became to all of us, and the increasing importance of THINGS began slowly but surely to bring about a decrease in the importance of PEOPLE, especially those beyond our own families, street, town/community etc. Add in the advent of first the Television era, and the telephone, and ultimately the internet and the transformation of an America firmly focused on God/family/children/community and faith-based compassion for ALL of us BY ALL of us. That has shifted. Additionally, our steady increase in mobility also changed us as a culture. We MOVE a lot. We travel a lot, We spend HOURS a day on the internet to the point a lot if not most of our socialization is with people we never see and barely know except for a profile on a website somewhere. WHAT HAPPENED?
WE HAVE CHANGED
and I am not by nature against change. HOWEVER the change has to be an improvement to be valid to my mind...and some things I feel ARE an improvement at least as they were originally envisioned. Some of the things that constitute modern American society today are a super-sized version of what was intended...and that is NOT necessarily a good thing.
WHAT HAVE BEEN THE TRADE-OFFS? IMPROVEMENTS, but did we lose more than we gained? Where are we going as a country and has our journey changed because of the changes such as technology and for the better or not?
THE JURY IS STILL OUT...but in the next section to follow, we shall take a look at some of the changes good and bad, and try to determine whether we gained or lost overall. Are we better off now?
STAY TUNED.
TO BE CONTINUED:
No comments:
Post a Comment