Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Fighting the end of the "American Dream"

Truth be told, I see the decline of the American Dream happening sooner than later. I'm not being cynical, just realistic. There's people who think that all they have to do is vote for Obama and it'll magically put our country back together again. They think by just doing this and "liking and sharing" some photo or article on social media, they've done their part and can go back to watch "American Idol" or some other insipid crap like that. The same naive sentiments also exist on the other side of the aisle where misguided working class folks believe the jobs will come flooding back once corporate taxes are slashed and regulations gutted.

I believe the "Glory Days" died right around the time the first airplane slammed into the World Trade Center and when subsequently, patriotism was dumbed down for mass consumption and maximum profit. I honestly believe the majority of the American public is not willing to turn off the TV, learn outside of their usual 5 minutes of daily exposure to Fox or MSNBC, open their minds and make the informed choices to fix the mess we're in. It get so frustrating to be one of those "outside the wire", one of the minority who gives a damn, especially when you live in rural America where people complain about the jobs they've lost, all while pushing their shopping carts full of junk food through WalMart.

So here's the rest of my rant...I'm sick of the people who complain about paying taxes and government spending, even though our local roads look like something from Baghdad, circa 2003. I've had it up to here with people who have no problem with borrowing billions of dollars from China to bomb a country into the Stone Age, then rebuild it, but don't want to spend a fraction of that to rebuild our own crumbling infrastructure. It is really hard to not slap upside the head the people who bitch about being "taxed enough already" when they often don't pay any net income tax and actually get back more on their return than they paid in. I'm absolutely fucking done with the pervasive atmosphere of anti-intellectualism, group-think mentalities and the arrogant notion that their ignorance is superior to science, despite all evidence to contradict their asinine claims.

You know what? There are many days where, if I had the money, I'd prefer to sip a cold beer in the cockpit of a sportfisher off the coast of South America and watch the implosion from afar. It is a daily struggle to try to help people who don't even want to learn anything new and even harder to fight those who are willing to destroy the country for another tax cut for their corporate overlords. Today's another day...once more into the fray.

7 comments:

  1. I couldn't agree more but for those of us who enjoy your rants and appreciate your writing, here's to you tangling in the fray long into the future.

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  2. Great writing! Very appreciated, right about now!

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  3. Couldn't have said it better myself!

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  4. Mom advice. Sometimes you have to let your kid run into a wall and bloody his nose badly, before he'll learn to stop running like crazy on the tile in sock feet. You don't like to watch it, but even smart kids have their 'not listening to sanity' moments and so, allowing the faceplant to happen is the only thing that really works, sometimes, to get the lesson across. I can see this being applied to today's economy and attitudes... we may have already had the faceplant though...?? We'll see.

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  5. Some think I am pessimistic too. Whatever- I could not agree more with you. This country is imploding and I could give a care for me- But I do care for my children, grandchildren and theirs.... I do not just see the fall of the USA, but a takeover. And I wonder what life will be for generations to come.

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  6. Actually, the crumbling of the American Dream started about 20 years ago, maybe even 30. It was difficult to watch then, even more so when you don't know how to change things or *if* you can change anything. America hasn't hit bottom yet. This is going to take a long time to crawl out of.

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