Just a glance at the headlines of the day makes you wonder why we allow the people in charge (congress) to be in charge when they are apparently lacking in skills required. Click the pictures to read the stories behind them.
It is a sad reflection on our country when you throw in the insanity of the Republican primaries where potential presidential candidates show how little they really know, how much less we really know and how the system is dysfunctional.
“When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property.” - Thomas Jefferson. A shame that our politicians make far more money than the average “poor” American, and for what end? What have they achieved? Iraq: 9 years, nearly 4,500 soldiers died and untold billions of dollars (I believe the figure is around $800 billion). You decide if it was worth it! Of course we still have Afghanistan and Iran looks promising for the future.
Jefferson was no fool to corrupt politics and the dangers that lay ahead for this country. “I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country,” he also said. And: “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”
Reading the headlines it appears we have fallen into the very clutches Jefferson warned about. Big corporations run this country explaining why the pharmaceutical industry can use people as guinea pigs for drugs that later get pulled. Sure they are entitled to profits but when those profits are in the billions of dollars and the American people are not improving from their ailments, something is wrong. It explains why our air and water and soil is getting more toxic by the day and why the industry likes to offer platitudes about “naturally occurring levels” of toxins to offset their damage. Do we hear about the Gulf oil spill? Nope old news.
We hear about testing in schools and yet, according to the headline above, our schools are failing and how No Child Left Behind left every child behind. If you know me you know that I have been harping on this subject for about a decade. The testing is stupid because that is all they do. It was designed to be one of many measures but because lazy bureaucrats and politicians (politats) like quick fix numbers it became the ONLY measure.
Soon we may find ourselves tranquilized as a nation. Forget Orwell’s “1984” because reality proved that novel tame at the best. I keep thinking of Charlton Heston in the movie “Soylent Green” yelling out the discovered truth about the future food of humanity; “Soylent Green is people…”
The presidential debates appear to be about incompetencies and lies, something that smiling make-up faced politats like to pretend does not exists until some zealous media person digs up old tapes and pictures, hookers and arrest records, lawsuits and more. It seems like the bottom of the barrel has been scraped and what we have on the spatula is a mound of rancid fatty oil that offers no value, no sustenance and can be itself labeled toxic. That is not how a presidential campaign should be run. It is not a Kardashian’s night out. It is not a cousin of Lindsay Lohan. But it sure is close.
Jefferson was no fool. Neither was he perfect. “Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.” We rely on talk-everything. Talking political heads. Talk-therapy. “Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have. The course of history shows us that as a government grows, liberty decreases.” Sound familiar?
“I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” Another Jefferson quote.
And for the current Republican candidates, another Jeffersonian tidbit: “I never told my own religion nor scrutinized that of another. I never attempted to make a convert, nor wished to change another's creed. I am satisfied that yours must be an excellent religion to have produced a life of such exemplary virtue and correctness. For it is in our lives, and not from our words, that our religion must be judged.”
And as for our current $15.12 Trillion in National Debt, Jefferson said: “To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude.” By the way each taxpayer owes $134,176.
Offhand I would imagine the founding fathers if this country would be pissed off right about now! Click the below image for an eye-opener. It might explain why we are poor!
-MisterWriter
