I really got nothing today, so I’m just going to whine.
I’m frustrated, because the world that should be shaping up by all rights and by all evidence seems to be taking forever to move forward even a little.
The obstructionist tactics of those who oppose this great evolution in thinking are desperate and silly, and will only delay the inevitable, costing any number of avoidable costs. These changes will come, to be sure, but in the meantime, people who could benefit from them are starving and homeless, jobless and helpless.
This saddens me. God gave us a world to protect, to steward, and we have dropped the ball badly.
Footprints on Mars. Cleaner skies and water. All people living the dream of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness,” just as our Founders demanded, pledging their lives, sacred honor, and fortunes to achieve. Freedom meant more to them than money.
We’ve lost that ideal. We’ve lost the American dream. It’s been warped into the shabby British saying, “I got mine, Jack.”
That’s not freedom. That’s slavery. That’s what conservatives want us to hold onto, to be enslaved to our wallets and bank accounts.
This all makes Jesus’ life that much more poignant, if you think about it: he demanded his disciples give up all worldly things, that God would provide. Imagine how Jesus would react to this latest craze of tallying up dollar bills? I can’t help but think He’d not be too pleased.
Too, our Founding Fathers might have a go at us for this attitude. Ben Franklin was all about saving pennies. I wonder how he’d feel about the squanderings all of us, but particularly the wealthy, commit in the name of “freedom.”
And it’s hard to opt out of it. Sure, we all know stories of the guy who clips coupons and buys second hand suits, and still has a rotary phone, but it takes dedication and stamina and let’s face facts: who wants to live like that? I’m sure for every success story like that, there are hundreds, maybe thousands of people who tried and realized, “This isn’t for me.”
There’s nothing wrong with that. The fault lies in our stars, literally. We worship celebrities who have no competitive advantage over us beyond a slightly better physiognomy and much less shame. We treat rich people like rock stars, as if someone having a bigger bank account will confer some boon upon us.
Oh, they might but like the guy who scrimps and saves, for every single one who benefits from largesse of those eating at the table, there are tens of millions fighting for the crumbs scattered about the floor.
This is trickle-down economics. There has to be a better way.
I’ve often written of the confluence of Marxism and capitalism, at least as proposed by Adam Smith originally. Today, I’m more convinced than ever that this is the direction we need to move in. No more corporations. No more “Too big too fail.” No more shirking responsibility off onto society when things go bad, but when things are good, suddenly everything is “Mine! Mine! Mine!”
I have no problem with claiming what’s rightly yours, but that includes mistakes and you get to have yours only after you’ve paid fealty to the things that got you to the point of earning serious coin: the society around you. This means if you’re going to have layoffs, you’re going to think long and hard, because those workers are basically your partners, either in the workplace or in the community. If you’re going to pollute, you’re going to be the one to clean it up, and not pay some fine to the town. And so on.
That’s freedom, and it comes with the acknowledgement that you owe a debt to society that never ends. Indeed, all money is debt. It’s just comes in a form that can be easily traded.
We have to stop deluding ourselves and start informing ourselves and each other. This is the future coming at us, and none of us has ever been there before. We should have our eyes open.
“That’s what conservatives want us to hold onto,” and Democrats as well, with “health care reform” that does nothing substantive to reduce profits of pharma and health care delivery corporations, and requires purchase of health insurance to assure greater profits (if slightly lower margins) for health insurance companies. Not to mention things like bankruptcy reform, etc.
And the American people in general with their rebellion when a 2% reduction in federal spending is required. The “sequester” removes 2% of the slop from their feeding trough and they rise up in indignant outrage and demand that the spending cuts be replaced with “tax the rich” so that they can continue feeding happily while someone else pays for it.
I share your frustration.
Maybe the first step should be to stop flogging for the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Constitutional Law Scholar, crypto-Republican Barack Obama who frustrates each and every one of your fine sentiments and good intentions.
grrr I am so bad at code
so heres the link lol
You got an electable alternative?
I’m all ears. But until you can show me a liberal who can win, I’ll vote the lesser evil every time.
The thing is, you can’t, and you know it. And THAT’S part of the problem, too.
All the lefties I know—and they’re almost universally Obama supporters—keep going back to him and making excuses for him. He’s like a local oyster bar where you’re virtually assured to get hepatitis on top of puking out one end and having diarrhea out the other end. But there’s nothing you can say or do to dissuade them from going there and slurping down smelly, green, putrid soft-sell corporatist Democratic right wing agendas.
I’ll be waiting indefinitely for all the mea culpas from Obama supporters when he fulfills—or attempts to fulfill—all his corporatist, anti-labor, anti-democratic, anti-constitutional promises such as:
• Trim, eliminate, or privatize social security
• Privatize public schools and destroy teachers’ unions
• Ensure fraud and felonious business practices by failing to investigate or prosecute the financial sector
• Eradicating our great grandchildren from existence by approving the XL pipeline
• Offshoring yet more American jobs and hobbling labor by pursuing a Pacific Rim NAFTA-style trade agreement
If enough self-described so-called “Democrats” had supported Jill Stein—who actually campaigned for everything they purport to want—it would have pushed Obama to the left. But no, they spent all their time going nuts about Romney and belittling Stein because, why? She threatened their great champion’s chances in close races. And don’t tell me that she wasn’t a viable candidate. If Romney had pulled ahead–and there was a time when it looked like he might win–you still would have supported “the lesser evil” even when he was no longer a viable candidate, instead of the candidate that most represented a leftist agenda. Until they’re willing to take responsibility for the fact that their blind allegiance to a charismatic candidate who actively pursues everything they stand against, they should quit going back to the oyster shack and quit their bellyaching. He’s your candidate. His prerogatives are now yours. You don’t get to have it both ways. Own it.
If the “liberal party” had even required Obama to run in a primary at all, instead of crowning him candidate merely on the basis of a first term, the electorate would have had a chance to evaluate him on his actual merits, requiring him to compare his performance against Democratic principles rather than against a former Republican insane nitwit and a current running Republican shape shifter. He would have been revealed as the corporatist tool that he is. Anointing a person as candidate without even the pretense of a primary election reveals just how thoroughly corrupt the political party system actually is.
Climate change will soon make a mockery of the right-wing, left-wing and all of the foolish machinations of mankind. When the Southwest becomes uninhabitable from 140 degree heat, mass starvation sets in from failed crops, large populations living in coastal cities become environmental refugees from flooding and swarms of tornadoes and superstorm cells roam the interior of North America almost continually, politics is going to seem very petty indeed!