Will Americans "wake up and smell the coffee" in time?

Will Americans "wake up and smell the coffee" in time?

 

We Americans have been pretty much "conditioned" to compartmentalize our views on government.  On the one hand we've been taught that we are those rugged individuals who pull ourselves up by our boot straps, the self-made man/woman. 

And we are directed to sneer at our government for being some giant, over fed Slug, gobbling up our tax dollars, unable to do anything right.  Yet, on the other hand we are totally reliant on our government to provide critical services which are too large and expansive and non profitable for private corporations to take on.  Services such as a standing army, national guard,Coast Guard, building and maintaining highways and bridges, public education, local police and fire protection, public water systems, establishing and regulating rules to protect our workers and to also protect what we eat and drive and the air we breathe and the water we drink.  

We Americans expect that our taxes will be used by our government in our best interests.  That is what some people would call, "Socialism".  And some or all of these types of services are essential to any group of people who want to call themselves a Nation.  If we don't provide some level of public services, why in the world would we think we could be a Nation?  We would become regional Kingdoms run by giant corporations. 

It would be a return to what we refer to as, "the Dark Ages".  What we forget to consider when we are trashing our government and its Socialistic services, is that at the same time we are sending off our tax dollars to be used for the good of the people, wealthy corporations are plotting ways to cream off as much of these dollars as they can.  So there becomes a tug of war between government and corporate plans for all our money. 

We must remember that the bottom line for corporations is growth and profit.  A corporation must constantly expand and show its stock holders and board members a profit.  If it cannot do this it will be gobbled up by a corporation that can.  This happens constantly.  Just look around for some of those small corporations that once were familiar to you..  They are no longer separate companies.  If you find their name just keep looking and you'll find the words, "A division of..." 

It is government's job to care for the needs of its people.  That's our bottom line.  Regardless of whether there is a profit or not.  Corporations only provide for the people's needs if it brings in profit.  People's needs are way down the list as far as corporations are concerned.  But they are smart enough to know that they need us to believe that they care for us if they are going to continue to harvest our money.  So we are constantly being schmoozed.  And we seem to love being charmed by these clever Pied Pipers of Madison Avenue. 

 We Americans need to wake up and smell the coffee, if we can still afford the coffee to smell.  Look around the world.  Where is the greatest growth and prosperity?  Is it among nations, ending poverty, caring for their elderly, educating their children, building safe homes and buildings, providing health care, ending the rape and plundering by rebel forces?  Or is it among the international corporations?  If America is so powerful and has spent so much of our money overseas, why is there no change?  Indeed, why are things getting worse?  More starvation, more desperate people willing to kill themselves for some mythical world in the sky?  Where has our Middle Class gone?  Why does the richest nation in the world have a growing poverty and unemployment population?  Why are we being told that our money must be used to provide "protection" from little oil bearing nations, to prevent Terrorists from destroying our wonderful way of life, when that wonderful way of life is being sacrificed in order to feed the huge war machine? 

But the people I call "The Empire Builders" are busy misdirecting us.  We are fighting over whether women should be allowed to be in charge of their own bodies, whether people of the same sex have a legal right to love and care for one another, whether some of Earth's people should be beaten back from our boarders, whether Muslims are able to be Americans and to build a building on land they own.  The endless bickering is no accident.  Divide and conquer has always worked. 

Until we Americans come to understand that our very future as a Free People is in the balance, we will sit by and watch ourselves being stripped of our last dollar and our last bit of dignity. 

 

Curious Carl