Monday, July 6, 2009

Suck It Up Americans

The news is not good. Everywhere on the horizon are predictors of collapse; the financial and economic sectors are dismal, banks are failing at the rate of three or four a week, joblessness is heading toward ten per cent, if not substantially higher, most of those with sufficient assets to invest have lost more than thirty percent of their nest eggs, obesity and diabetes are rampant among the population and Michael Jackson is dead. The Iraq War (may be) is winding down, but we are still faced with a lengthy interminable conflict in Afghanistan.

It is now time for our current president to give the message that should have been given eight or more years ago to a public that has been fattened (apparently almost literally) for the kill. Suck it up, Americans. It is the time to face that nasty truth; the truth that has displaced social security as the third rail of American politics. You, meaning we, are PERSONALLY responsible for whatever predicament you (meaning we again) are in. We have slowly allowed ourselves to become a nation of victims which means nothing other than finding someone else to blame for our own problems.

Example number one of the victim mentality; the Madoff victims. The Madoff guy fleeced a substantial number of investors of billions of dollars based upon a scheme that was, literally, too good to be true. Factoid number one for the victims. If it was too good to be true, it wasn’t. Some internal mechanism shut off the element of common sense and replaced it with the greed factor in each of these investors who thought they were putting something over on the rest of the investors in America who didn’t have the contacts to invest with Bernie. Making double digit returns on an investment when the rest of the country was falling flat should have been a sufficient indicator that something wasn’t right. Suck it up, Madoff investors, and stop whining. You got what you deserved.

The unemployed are example number two. The same inertia that keeps us sitting in front of a TV set watching interminable episodes of mind numbing shows while munching potato chips washed down with Pepsi or beer has gripped those who have become unemployed or about to become unemployed. Americans are supposed to be entrepreneurial in their approach to life and that means taking personal responsibility for your own life and state of affairs of that life. It is not the government’s job to make nice arrangements for you to begin job re-training, probably for some job you’ve never dreamed about. It is your responsibility to turn off the TV and make your own arrangements to become what you want to be for the rest of your life. Suck it up and get your ass busy.

Governmental-enabling; several examples. Where did Bush and his cronies get the idea that America could go to war without involving America? By that, I mean a tiny subset of Americans, professional soldiers and sailors and airmen, were charged with the responsibility of carrying out two wars which did not involve in any way the rest of the public. Hell, we were not even expected to pay for it. We were not expected to have our sons and daughters drafted to go in and fight for the freedom that was espoused for the Iranian people. We were just expected to sit in our comfortable living room, munching potato chips and drinking beer (see previous example). I can tell you one thing; if a draft was announced by Bush at the time he announced his plan to invade Iraq, or if he announced that a tax increase would be necessary to pay for the damned war, all of America (I mean all of America) would have examined the spurious and shifting rationale for invading another sovereign nation a heck of a lot more closely. Most of us were involved in the wars only to the extent that we watched TV news channels in the half hour just before American Idol. The second example of governmental enabling is the subsidy government pays for large farm corporations. More billions are paid out to famers for not growing things than has ever been paid out for welfare. Why does our government enable this situation? Votes. The so-called farm states carry enough political muster to control elections and assist or defeat any candidate who dares take on this travesty. Conservative Republicans can rail on and on about some poor inner city black family receiving food stamps and that family’s lack of character for staying on the dole while some fat cat is forced to pay for it. At the same time, they ignore completely the large farm corporations who make this inner city family look like a grain of sand on the beach of farms subsidies. Billions and billions of dollars are poured annually into large corporations for questionable work product, the likes of which have never been seen in the history of man. The GM and Chrysler situations are but pimples on the butt of the large corporate giveaways. But, they all have one thing in common; corporate America does not have to be responsible for their actions/inactions in the field of commerce. Suck it up, corporate America.

Obesity is a major killer. Nicotine is too. So is alcohol. These are, perhaps the best examples yet of the need to Americans to suck it up and take personal responsibility for one’s own welfare. Study after study affirms the observation that unhealthy life styles contribute to the causes of all kinds of diseases. The victim mentality emerges from within this morass as the proposed new health care plan suggest treating all Americans without regard to pre-existing illnesses, etc. At the same time, all Americans will be forced to pay the disproportionate costs of medical care for those who indulge themselves with nicotine, food or alcoholic beverages. Type 2 diabetes is out of control in the country. Yet it could be eliminated almost completely by shutting off the TV set for one hour each evening and walking during that hour. There should be two tiers of costs for this plan; Those who live healthy life styles should be taxed less than those who don’t. Simple as that. Suck it up, Americans. Take charge of your own personal health. Don’t expect others to pay for it when you get sick from an illness that is caused by one of your indulgences.

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