Tag: politics

The Rich Got Richer-The Poor Got Poorer

jamieLeave a comment

Are you surprised by headlines like this? The poor always seem to get poorer, right? I could go off on a tangent about how our socialist president has somehow managed to redistribute the wealth…in the direction of the wealthiest, but there’s a more important point.

Oh wait. No, there really isn’t. As long as the poor stay poorly educated, they will continue to be a drag on our society, instead of becoming a much needed source of new American innovation. Of course, rather than investing in our youth, our leaders choose to buy into a national policy of war, greed, and violence. The American people are weary of the death and suffering resultant to the never-ending war on terror…and don’t get me started on the war on drugs.

How about a war on stupidity?After about a half century of personal observation, I’ve reached a conclusion. Well, actually a couple, but let’s just talk about one. A big one. Maybe the biggest: People are getting dumber.

Stupidity is on the rise in America, and it is a far worse crisis than even obesity. You see it everywhere you go…you can’t walk out your door without something happening that just makes you shake your head at the sorry state of humanity in 2014 USA. It’s in the news, and all over the Interwebs…and yes folks, even on TV.

The mainstream media fights for your advertising dollars by trying to pull you Right or Left. There is no objectivity, but instead you get a smooth slideshow of homogenized headlines, intended to be dumbed-down just enough that the stupid among us feel smart, as they quote the buzzwords and party slogans, while the intelligent minority simply shakes their collective head in disbelief.

Shaking our heads? Nay, we SHOULD be horrified!

Because it’s not just TV or just the news. Every aspect of the entertainment we are fed is becoming increasingly stupid. Simplified, polarized, pre-packaged and wrapped neatly with a politically correct bow, the only way you get any real news is from whistle blowers like Assange or Snowden. There is NOTHING real about Reality TV, except that it gets people to do REALLY STUPID THINGS to be marginally famous. One day maybe we’ll wake up and see that Reality TV stars are the modern day freaks of nature, the sideshow attractions in the Hollyweird Carnival…the Media Circus, if you will.

But the problem doesn’t start with Hollywood or TV. It starts in Congress. Nowhere is there greater stupidity on a near daily basis. Cue the lawyer jokes if you must, but the truth is…and we all know it…what makes sense to lawyers is gobbledy-goop to most of the rest of us.

So let’s elect all the lawyers and send them to Congress because…hey only a bunch of lawyers could spend $700 BILLION on war, while only budgeting $35 BILLION toward educating our children and $70 BILLION towards advancing science and research. Only a bunch of lawyers could find a way to spend more money trying to rebuild Iraq ($60 BILLION, most of which wasted) than we spend educating our own children. Only a bunch of lawyers could fight over a few million dollars spent to provide healthcare to the poorest among us while borrowing money from our grandchildren to so they could spend $6 TRILLION ON WAR thousands of miles away.

Educating our citizens should be our highest priority. It’s the key to a vibrant and booming American economy…educated people tend to want to improve things and have the tools to do so. That means progress, which means jobs and economic growth. Stupid people tend to end up homeless, on welfare, and in jail far more often than educated people.

You’d almost think that the lawyers in our capitols were trying to keep people uneducated for some reason. Perhaps pliability is more valued than an informed constituency. Perhaps creating future voters who are gullible enough to accept lip service and empty promises, rather than real solutions and action, is the goal. Maybe some folks thinks that dumb people who will cling to a party line in conformity, rather than actually do any research into the issues, will make the best constituents? Hmmm. Food for thought.

First things first…let’s stop electing lawyers. Let’s elect plumbers and carpenters and small business owners and farmers. Let’s elect people, not parties vying for dollars from big corporate benefactors.

Then, how about we start with cutting a few billion from defense, and putting it directly into making people smarter and research more effective. Just a few billion, we’re not talking about a fortune. Nip $100 Billion off the defense budget and we double our Education AND Research budgets. I know…throwing money at the problem doesn’t solve everything, and education issues are way more complicated…yeah yeah blah blah. Well. maybe it will at least slow down the rising tide of stupidity…a little?

But nobody in Washington really wants that. The lawyers want to stay there (ahem: term limits) and they don’t want anybody getting any smarter. Because if we get smarter, we might send them packing. And more importantly, because if the poor get smarter, it won’t be so easy to pull the wool over their eyes. It won’t be so easy to talk about income redistribution while taking from the poorest, so that the wealthiest can be just a little…or a lot…wealthier.

From the WallStreet Journal:

Wealthiest Households Accounted for 80% of Postrecession Rise in Incomes

The rich got richer-The poor got poorer.

A recent article by Labor Department senior economist Aaron Cobet highlights the sharp disparity between the wealthiest and poorest Americans in the aftermath of the 2007-2009 recession.

“While average income has returned to pre-recession levels, income gains have been distributed unevenly,” Mr. Cobet said.

The economist mined Labor Department data to show that the top 20% of earners accounted for more than 80% of the rise in household income from 2008-2012. Income fell for the bottom 20%”.

via Wealthiest Households Accounted for 80% of Postrecession Rise in Incomes – Real Time Economics – WSJ.

 

Reference links
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/04/17/wealthiest-households-accounted-for-80-of-rise-in-incomes-in-recessions-aftermath/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War
http://www.cfr.org/defense-budget/trends-us-military-spending/p28855
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=1258
http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-wars-in-afghanistan-iraq-to-cost-6-trillion/5350789

A Small Part of History

jamieLeave a comment

It’s hard to believe that 4 months have passed since my previous post. A lot has happened. Lots of changes. A new season. A new President. A new economic crisis.

Change is good, right? Well, maybe not all of it.

I guess I made a conscious decision somewhere along the way to sit out the election season. It wasn’t that I had no opinions…no, I had plenty. I think instead it was just a sense of frustration in the process and the inability to see any real change in the making. Which is odd, considering both the major candidates were running on a platform of Change.

But here we are, and I find myself convinced that yet another fraud has been foisted upon the unwitting American public. The press has colluded with the powers that be to render the voice of the people ineffective and void. Sure we had a choice. I just wished there was one I could get behind.

So along came election day and I prepared myself to perform my civic duty. Still, I could not decide.

Hours remained until the first results were to start coming in, and I could not make a selection. The press had convinced me that my vote was useless in any case, that my residency in Connecticut ensured that my electors would be voting for Sen. Obama regardless of my ballot. So why, I wondered, should I bother?

I decided to make a difference anyway. I took my son with me, two days shy of turning nine, and a video camera. I filmed as we drove, explaining to him that HE would be making our choice for President. As I could not decide, HIS would be the vote that would not count. OK, I didn’t put it exactly that way…

He earnestly protested, saying that he could TELL ME who to vote for, but that the law required me to actually CAST THE VOTE. Despite my attempts to convince him otherwise…that we could get permission from the election officials, and that I was sure it would be OK…I finally agreed to his compromise.

We entered the polling place, and got our ballot. I prepared my black marker to fill in the correct bubble, and bent down so that he could whisper his choice in my ear…”John McCain” he told me.

So be it…choice made. The bubble was filled in, as well as the requisite additional local choices, and we were off to the ballot reader to submit the document.

Strangely, allowing an almost-nine-year-old to fill in the bubble for our choice on the ballot was an act of treason, but depositing the completed document in the electronic scanner was perfectly permissible…and so he sent our ballot off into the void of useless votes.

Outside the polling place I asked him the reasoning behind his choice for President. He explained that he felt Sen. McCain’s service to the country in the military was the main criteria which qualified him to lead our country, and that even though most of his friends thought Sen. Obama should be President, he wasn’t afraid to believe otherwise.

Tears nearly filled his eyes the next morning when I informed him that Barack Obama would be our next President. I think he was more concerned that his friends would make fun of him (they didn’t) than anything else. But I knew at that moment that my vote…our vote…HAD made a difference.

It made a difference because my son had a chance to be a part of it. He participated in the American Experiment. He somehow could feel what it meant, and not only learned about the process, but also about what it means to stand up for your beliefs in the face of disagreement.

I doubt he understood the ramifications of the election…I doubt any of us will truly understand them for years or decades to come. But I think that he felt a little bit of what it means to be a part of history…a small part.

So now we all will sit back and wait to see what changes will come. I think we’ll all be disappointed.

Change rarely comes in drastic abundance. Change in this Grand Republic comes in trickles and drops. And while our destiny is certainly in the hands of our leaders, so too is it in our own hands. Will we rally together behind this new administration, or will we fall to bickering and blaming of the other side?

Time and history will tell.

We are all part of history. That lesson is the most important one to be learned as an American.