I, like so many others, watch the same television network news and news programs. I hear how the economy is starting to turn around. There are reports of a drop in the number of claims for unemployment benefits, and an increase in the number of new orders for goods and services, and a slight increase in the number of new employees. I, too, want to believe that things are getting better. But is an increase in the DOW and the NASDAQ an indication that the lot of the average American is improving? Are these the people with the discretionary income who are the “investors?” I don’t think so. I am more inclined to believe those playing the stock markets are those who have lost little or nothing compared to mainstream America. So, don’t treat us like a bunch of mushrooms, keeping us in the dark and feeding us a steady diet of bull shit. Give people credit for being smarter than that, and stop patronizing them. They have more on the ball than the so-called educated and accomplished are prone to acknowledge. They, also, have a much better grasp of right vs. wrong.
We are, also, treated with television coverage of contrived demonstrations by the Tea Party, who I regard as a bunch of ignorant rabble rousers operating on the lunatic fringe. But that element is balanced by the wide-eyed do-gooders who know their cause is just, which gives them the license to flaunt the law and impugn the motives of those who dare to disagree with them. None of this charade contributes to what ails this country. All it does is reflect to the world a bias that is not very well grounded in fact, or a sense of concern for the real issues affecting the majority of all the good and decent people hurting from what has been done to them, and which will likely only get worse.
I live in a small hamlet on the fringe of a major metropolitan area, populated by good souls that, in many respects. mirror the images of people long forgotten and who did manifest the finer aspects of our human nature. I see a general malaise and bewilderment at what has come down on their heads, and a haunting worry that it is only going to get worse. There is the young man who has one of two small grocery stores in town. He is not in the league with big supermarkets some 10 to 15 miles distant, so his customers are those who buy the bread and butter items that will carry the purchaser over to his/her next trip into town for some serious grocery shopping. He worries about what the “sin tax” is going to do to his sales of candy, beer and cigarettes. He is concerned about the impact on his business, plagued by the increased cost of health insurance for him and a handful of employees. Will he be able to reconcile all of these factors into a profit sufficient to keep him and his family going?
There is the guy who owns and operates a small auto repair service and towing business. He is a retired career Navy man who served his country with distinction. He is active in civic affairs and is proud of his service through the local chapter of the American Legion. His daughter, who recently completed her tour of duty as a Navy enlisted woman, is now trying to get through college. But, the reports we all heard on the evening news of financial assistance have not quite materialized because of bureaucratic encumbrances never anticipated. She is not sure she can pursue her dream and still make ends meet. Her Dad wonders what happened to a yet unfulfilled promise from a country that benefited from his years of dedication to the service of his country. People have deferred routine maintenance and service on their cars in an effort to stretch a dollar just that much further. Money is tight.
The little flower shop and copy center is only a faded memory locked behind a closed door that once held hope and promise for a lady who believed in the American dream. The end came much too soon with nowhere to go.
Such are the vicissitudes of but a few people sharing a common bond in this small community. But they reflect a growing concern as to where all this is taking us. They no longer believe in the promise of upward mobility on the ladder of progress. They no longer believe that the government really gives a tinker’s damn about them and their plight in life. They are suspect of the real motives of the White House, the Congress, the Supreme Court and all those “public servants” who have laid claim to space in those houses under the banner of “serving the people.” More and more, they see them as shills for big money, corporations, defense contractors, corporate news media, etc., in their quest to slowly starve the host they feed on. They raise poignant and valid questions for which there seem to be no answers.
I genuinely believe the roots of all that has befallen us rest in an erosion of the moral values upon which the very fabric of our national character once rested. We seem to have lost sight of the fact that we are both temporal and spiritual beings. Therein lies the classic struggle of man from birth to death. The temporal embodies our kinship with other living creatures, predicated on the need to satisfy our physical needs in order for the species to survive. The spiritual ties us to our Creator and sets the boundaries and limits on the excesses of the temporal. But we can readily identify with all that relates to our temporal existence. The spiritual, or ethereal, is not visible to our mortal perception of things. Rather, at best our spiritual existence can only be conceptualized by a belief or a simple act of faith. It is a tough contest between those two aspects of our human nature.
I think religions and religious institutions have let us down in a great many ways. There are the scandals that are rocking the very foundations of the Catholic Church. But, the incidence of pedophilia and homosexuality seem to be as rampant or worse in other religions. They just aren’t garnering the same scrutiny by the press and tend to be relegated to the shadows. All of them need to reflect on their rightful place as the moral compass for a civilized society. They need to become relevant to life in this complex world of today. Outmoded notions of piety and sacrifice don’t cut it these days. Dogmatic pronouncements on how to ensure a path to hell and admonitions to repent simply don’t play well in Peoria. We need a strong moral compass we can support and believe in, and religious institutions that have that as their raison d’etre. That is why they exist; not to fill sports arenas, preaching that God wants all of us to be rich, and raking in millions of dollars so the anointed head of the firm can live in opulent splendor. Celibacy does not work, never has worked and has only reaped centuries of a hypocrisy that has fostered aberrant behavior. Authenticity demands that celibacy should be out and the conjugal bed very much in. It would probably bring us all together in a bond between clergy and parishioners that would give new vitality and relevance to institutions that have, for far too long, been lacking in the conduct of our daily lives.
However, we must assume complete responsibility for allowing ourselves to be seduced by materialistic and hedonistic pleasures that are only relevant to our physical being. We can touch them, feel them, smell them, taste them, ad nauseam. That has led us to buy, buy, buy and enjoy, enjoy, enjoy. Consequently, we came to live in more house that we could comfortably occupy, with marble and granite counter tops, sumptuous wood finishes, etc., all indicative of a “faux” mansion that would be the envy of those we were seeking to impress. There was a Mercedes, BMW, Lexus, you name it, in the garage only because of the easy credit and long-term contracts that made it all possible.
Athletic clubs and gyms were bursting at the seams while we worked up our daily sweat that would lead to the perfect body and sexual pleasures never imagined in days gone by. All for the asking, easy money and a payment plan to suit all occasions. Women ceased to wear clothes. Rather, they resorted to what appears to be the upper half of a slip or a nightgown for a top, skin-tight designer blue jeans, capped with a generous display of cleavage. Modes of address totally inappropriate for teenage girls and matronly women. The end result is the appearance of refugees of all ages from a house of ill repute or a sleazy, pole-dancing strip joint. Now, I grant you, under the right circumstances and in privacy, few men would be averse to having a good look, but not in public or polite company. After a while, the old notion that once you have seen one set you have seen them all sets in. I wonder what all those stylish women would do if every man they passed openly complimented them on a splendid set of “jugs?” There would be righteous indignation and the suits for sexual harassment would clog the court systems. I wonder how women hooked into that perverted concept of being “in” would react to that bare-chested man with washboard abs if fashion dictated that his hairy scrotum discreetly hang through a hole sewn into the crotch of his pants. I rest my case.
But, those who convinced us that materialism and hedonism were the only roads to the good life are the same ones that impoverished us by money we couldn‘t afford, credit we couldn’t pay back and, eventually, the loss of the economic system that made all these things possible. What happened to all that we were promised would come to us through our newfound decadence? The unbridled greed of those who peddled that trash and led us down the primrose path now take away our jobs, our homes, and the social safety nets we once took for granted. It is gone and those we assumed would be looking out for our interests are, instead, in the hip pockets of the predators who have reduced us to an impoverished existence fraught with bewilderment and dismay. They are all getting richer and their tastes are getting more lavish, while what was once our Shangri La is now laid waste with nothing to take its place but hopelessness and utter defeat.
If we are to survive and rebound as the people we once were, and restore the character passed on from a rich heritage that made us great, I think it is absolutely imperative that we reassess the merits of a sound base of moral and ethical principles to guide us through this one and only earthy journey we are all destined to take. It is time to give new meaning to dignity and honor in the way we live our lives and treat each other. We must remember that it was not what and how much we consumed that made us the envy of the world, but what and how much we gave back to the world and those less fortunate than we. We need to value less what we have and more what we are. We need to be less the takers and more the givers. We must seek to judge less and tolerate more. We need to seek a new understanding of what love is, in all its forms and manifestations. Lust is fleeting and saps the vitality of our humanity. Love nourishes that same humanity, both physical and spiritual, and it is the bond that holds us all together in a common journey to make our world and ourselves better in every respect.
Vast wealth and power can never get enough. They will suck the very life-blood out of those who create the wealth and support the institutions of power, with an avarice and appetite that can never be satisfied. We must put in a system of regulations and oversight that works for the benefit of the people and keeps those sworn to serve us honest. We can no longer take a ho-hum attitude at the blatant corruption of a government created by the people, and government officials who are put in office by the vote of the people. They must be held to account by a system of checks and balances that seek to keep government working for all of us. They must conduct the peoples business in the open. The massive influence of lobbyists and what we euphemistically refer to as “campaign” contributions have no place in our democracy. The influence of money must be routed from the system, despite what has been wrought by the infinite wisdom of those swathed in black robes, and who go through the motions of rendering legal opinions based on the rule of law and, ostensibly, for the welfare of the people. Politics should be an honorable pursuit and not conducted behind closed doors or in secret meetings. There is much to be said for transparency in all our government affairs.
We must maintain a level playing field with our economic partners in the world community. We must first look out for our own. That means a healthy society that offers the promise of upward mobility to all. We must stop our national obsession with the pursuit of empire and concentrate more on a national pursuit of excellence in all that we are and all that we do. Return the monies squandered in the pits of foreign conquest to the people of the United States. Restore the integrity of all the systems that serve us, an economy that will sustain us and a society that will value us.
Of all the institutions that have taken a heavy hit in this so-called “recession,” I regard the assault on education as the most egregious by the predators who have reduced us to a beggar society. Education, more than anything else, is what lifts us up to greater heights and a healthier society. Education is there to develop and hone the latent talent and intellect in us all, be it a vocational or an academic pursuit. Wealth can lavishly endow and support the private schools that serve and indoctrinate their progeny. While they prosper and flourish in this current milieu, public education is losing ground at meteoric speed because of budget cuts wrought by governments that no longer have the means to fulfill all their responsibilities to their citizens. That simply cannot continue. For, if the monstrous evil of vast wealth, unlimited power, and all the influence it can command triumphs over the majority, they will reduce us to a two-class society characterized by a class of bottom feeders, and locked into abject poverty that has no other purpose than to eek out an existence of various forms of indentured servitude that will slowly and mercilessly starve and deprive us of all that lifts us up and restores our human dignity.
Time to get angry, informed and involved. Washington needs to be purged of the common whores, in all their manifestation, restored to that “shining city on a hill,” and its place as a government of, for and by the people, supported by all the regulation and oversight necessary to ensure it will remain there for all of us common folk, Not just the few who live in a persistent delusional state that, somehow, they have been endowed by some evil deity as materially superior. That they enjoy even a modicum, much less a divine endowment of spiritual superiority is nothing but a myth that is readily apparent to us all.
I would rather put my feet under the kitchen table of those proudly known as the “salt of the earth,” sharing a good helping of ham hocks, beans and cornbread, than I would by a bounty the likes of which most of us can only imagine; a vulgar display in opulent dining halls created for the cockroaches of privilege to indulge their gluttonous appetites, all at the expense of the poorest of the poor. Cramming for the finals at the end of life won’t change their destiny. If there is a God in heaven, they have already ensured their place in hell.
Cowboy Bob
May 5, 2010
We are, also, treated with television coverage of contrived demonstrations by the Tea Party, who I regard as a bunch of ignorant rabble rousers operating on the lunatic fringe. But that element is balanced by the wide-eyed do-gooders who know their cause is just, which gives them the license to flaunt the law and impugn the motives of those who dare to disagree with them. None of this charade contributes to what ails this country. All it does is reflect to the world a bias that is not very well grounded in fact, or a sense of concern for the real issues affecting the majority of all the good and decent people hurting from what has been done to them, and which will likely only get worse.
I live in a small hamlet on the fringe of a major metropolitan area, populated by good souls that, in many respects. mirror the images of people long forgotten and who did manifest the finer aspects of our human nature. I see a general malaise and bewilderment at what has come down on their heads, and a haunting worry that it is only going to get worse. There is the young man who has one of two small grocery stores in town. He is not in the league with big supermarkets some 10 to 15 miles distant, so his customers are those who buy the bread and butter items that will carry the purchaser over to his/her next trip into town for some serious grocery shopping. He worries about what the “sin tax” is going to do to his sales of candy, beer and cigarettes. He is concerned about the impact on his business, plagued by the increased cost of health insurance for him and a handful of employees. Will he be able to reconcile all of these factors into a profit sufficient to keep him and his family going?
There is the guy who owns and operates a small auto repair service and towing business. He is a retired career Navy man who served his country with distinction. He is active in civic affairs and is proud of his service through the local chapter of the American Legion. His daughter, who recently completed her tour of duty as a Navy enlisted woman, is now trying to get through college. But, the reports we all heard on the evening news of financial assistance have not quite materialized because of bureaucratic encumbrances never anticipated. She is not sure she can pursue her dream and still make ends meet. Her Dad wonders what happened to a yet unfulfilled promise from a country that benefited from his years of dedication to the service of his country. People have deferred routine maintenance and service on their cars in an effort to stretch a dollar just that much further. Money is tight.
The little flower shop and copy center is only a faded memory locked behind a closed door that once held hope and promise for a lady who believed in the American dream. The end came much too soon with nowhere to go.
Such are the vicissitudes of but a few people sharing a common bond in this small community. But they reflect a growing concern as to where all this is taking us. They no longer believe in the promise of upward mobility on the ladder of progress. They no longer believe that the government really gives a tinker’s damn about them and their plight in life. They are suspect of the real motives of the White House, the Congress, the Supreme Court and all those “public servants” who have laid claim to space in those houses under the banner of “serving the people.” More and more, they see them as shills for big money, corporations, defense contractors, corporate news media, etc., in their quest to slowly starve the host they feed on. They raise poignant and valid questions for which there seem to be no answers.
I genuinely believe the roots of all that has befallen us rest in an erosion of the moral values upon which the very fabric of our national character once rested. We seem to have lost sight of the fact that we are both temporal and spiritual beings. Therein lies the classic struggle of man from birth to death. The temporal embodies our kinship with other living creatures, predicated on the need to satisfy our physical needs in order for the species to survive. The spiritual ties us to our Creator and sets the boundaries and limits on the excesses of the temporal. But we can readily identify with all that relates to our temporal existence. The spiritual, or ethereal, is not visible to our mortal perception of things. Rather, at best our spiritual existence can only be conceptualized by a belief or a simple act of faith. It is a tough contest between those two aspects of our human nature.
I think religions and religious institutions have let us down in a great many ways. There are the scandals that are rocking the very foundations of the Catholic Church. But, the incidence of pedophilia and homosexuality seem to be as rampant or worse in other religions. They just aren’t garnering the same scrutiny by the press and tend to be relegated to the shadows. All of them need to reflect on their rightful place as the moral compass for a civilized society. They need to become relevant to life in this complex world of today. Outmoded notions of piety and sacrifice don’t cut it these days. Dogmatic pronouncements on how to ensure a path to hell and admonitions to repent simply don’t play well in Peoria. We need a strong moral compass we can support and believe in, and religious institutions that have that as their raison d’etre. That is why they exist; not to fill sports arenas, preaching that God wants all of us to be rich, and raking in millions of dollars so the anointed head of the firm can live in opulent splendor. Celibacy does not work, never has worked and has only reaped centuries of a hypocrisy that has fostered aberrant behavior. Authenticity demands that celibacy should be out and the conjugal bed very much in. It would probably bring us all together in a bond between clergy and parishioners that would give new vitality and relevance to institutions that have, for far too long, been lacking in the conduct of our daily lives.
However, we must assume complete responsibility for allowing ourselves to be seduced by materialistic and hedonistic pleasures that are only relevant to our physical being. We can touch them, feel them, smell them, taste them, ad nauseam. That has led us to buy, buy, buy and enjoy, enjoy, enjoy. Consequently, we came to live in more house that we could comfortably occupy, with marble and granite counter tops, sumptuous wood finishes, etc., all indicative of a “faux” mansion that would be the envy of those we were seeking to impress. There was a Mercedes, BMW, Lexus, you name it, in the garage only because of the easy credit and long-term contracts that made it all possible.
Athletic clubs and gyms were bursting at the seams while we worked up our daily sweat that would lead to the perfect body and sexual pleasures never imagined in days gone by. All for the asking, easy money and a payment plan to suit all occasions. Women ceased to wear clothes. Rather, they resorted to what appears to be the upper half of a slip or a nightgown for a top, skin-tight designer blue jeans, capped with a generous display of cleavage. Modes of address totally inappropriate for teenage girls and matronly women. The end result is the appearance of refugees of all ages from a house of ill repute or a sleazy, pole-dancing strip joint. Now, I grant you, under the right circumstances and in privacy, few men would be averse to having a good look, but not in public or polite company. After a while, the old notion that once you have seen one set you have seen them all sets in. I wonder what all those stylish women would do if every man they passed openly complimented them on a splendid set of “jugs?” There would be righteous indignation and the suits for sexual harassment would clog the court systems. I wonder how women hooked into that perverted concept of being “in” would react to that bare-chested man with washboard abs if fashion dictated that his hairy scrotum discreetly hang through a hole sewn into the crotch of his pants. I rest my case.
But, those who convinced us that materialism and hedonism were the only roads to the good life are the same ones that impoverished us by money we couldn‘t afford, credit we couldn’t pay back and, eventually, the loss of the economic system that made all these things possible. What happened to all that we were promised would come to us through our newfound decadence? The unbridled greed of those who peddled that trash and led us down the primrose path now take away our jobs, our homes, and the social safety nets we once took for granted. It is gone and those we assumed would be looking out for our interests are, instead, in the hip pockets of the predators who have reduced us to an impoverished existence fraught with bewilderment and dismay. They are all getting richer and their tastes are getting more lavish, while what was once our Shangri La is now laid waste with nothing to take its place but hopelessness and utter defeat.
If we are to survive and rebound as the people we once were, and restore the character passed on from a rich heritage that made us great, I think it is absolutely imperative that we reassess the merits of a sound base of moral and ethical principles to guide us through this one and only earthy journey we are all destined to take. It is time to give new meaning to dignity and honor in the way we live our lives and treat each other. We must remember that it was not what and how much we consumed that made us the envy of the world, but what and how much we gave back to the world and those less fortunate than we. We need to value less what we have and more what we are. We need to be less the takers and more the givers. We must seek to judge less and tolerate more. We need to seek a new understanding of what love is, in all its forms and manifestations. Lust is fleeting and saps the vitality of our humanity. Love nourishes that same humanity, both physical and spiritual, and it is the bond that holds us all together in a common journey to make our world and ourselves better in every respect.
Vast wealth and power can never get enough. They will suck the very life-blood out of those who create the wealth and support the institutions of power, with an avarice and appetite that can never be satisfied. We must put in a system of regulations and oversight that works for the benefit of the people and keeps those sworn to serve us honest. We can no longer take a ho-hum attitude at the blatant corruption of a government created by the people, and government officials who are put in office by the vote of the people. They must be held to account by a system of checks and balances that seek to keep government working for all of us. They must conduct the peoples business in the open. The massive influence of lobbyists and what we euphemistically refer to as “campaign” contributions have no place in our democracy. The influence of money must be routed from the system, despite what has been wrought by the infinite wisdom of those swathed in black robes, and who go through the motions of rendering legal opinions based on the rule of law and, ostensibly, for the welfare of the people. Politics should be an honorable pursuit and not conducted behind closed doors or in secret meetings. There is much to be said for transparency in all our government affairs.
We must maintain a level playing field with our economic partners in the world community. We must first look out for our own. That means a healthy society that offers the promise of upward mobility to all. We must stop our national obsession with the pursuit of empire and concentrate more on a national pursuit of excellence in all that we are and all that we do. Return the monies squandered in the pits of foreign conquest to the people of the United States. Restore the integrity of all the systems that serve us, an economy that will sustain us and a society that will value us.
Of all the institutions that have taken a heavy hit in this so-called “recession,” I regard the assault on education as the most egregious by the predators who have reduced us to a beggar society. Education, more than anything else, is what lifts us up to greater heights and a healthier society. Education is there to develop and hone the latent talent and intellect in us all, be it a vocational or an academic pursuit. Wealth can lavishly endow and support the private schools that serve and indoctrinate their progeny. While they prosper and flourish in this current milieu, public education is losing ground at meteoric speed because of budget cuts wrought by governments that no longer have the means to fulfill all their responsibilities to their citizens. That simply cannot continue. For, if the monstrous evil of vast wealth, unlimited power, and all the influence it can command triumphs over the majority, they will reduce us to a two-class society characterized by a class of bottom feeders, and locked into abject poverty that has no other purpose than to eek out an existence of various forms of indentured servitude that will slowly and mercilessly starve and deprive us of all that lifts us up and restores our human dignity.
Time to get angry, informed and involved. Washington needs to be purged of the common whores, in all their manifestation, restored to that “shining city on a hill,” and its place as a government of, for and by the people, supported by all the regulation and oversight necessary to ensure it will remain there for all of us common folk, Not just the few who live in a persistent delusional state that, somehow, they have been endowed by some evil deity as materially superior. That they enjoy even a modicum, much less a divine endowment of spiritual superiority is nothing but a myth that is readily apparent to us all.
I would rather put my feet under the kitchen table of those proudly known as the “salt of the earth,” sharing a good helping of ham hocks, beans and cornbread, than I would by a bounty the likes of which most of us can only imagine; a vulgar display in opulent dining halls created for the cockroaches of privilege to indulge their gluttonous appetites, all at the expense of the poorest of the poor. Cramming for the finals at the end of life won’t change their destiny. If there is a God in heaven, they have already ensured their place in hell.
Cowboy Bob
May 5, 2010
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