White haired Republican in suit on camera. Let's call him Senator Wasp.
WASP O.C.
WE REPUBLICAN BELIEVE IN FAMILY VALUES.
WHICH IS WHY WE ARE TRYING TO ELIMINATE SOCIAL SECURITY
(Tears up Social Security card)
AND MEDICARE BENEFITS.
(Tosses pill bottles over his shoulder.)
Cut to moving van pulling up to a house. A young couple stand in the doorway as their elderly parents
totter slowly and grumpily to house.
WASP. V.O.
WITHOUT SOCIAL SECURITY YOUR PARENTS ARE MORE LIKELY TO MOVE IN WITH YOU.
Cut to couple watching TV from bed in cramped living room.
AND THAT MAKES FOR MORE FAMILY CLOSENESS.
Cut to children changing a drip bag next to granny's bed.
WITHOUT MEDICARE BENEFITS, YOUR CHILDREN WILL HAVE MORE QUALITY TIME WITH THEIR GRANDPARENTS.
Cut to wife carrying bed pan from room.
AND YOU WON'T HAVE TO DEAL WITH THE INTRUSION OF NURSES AND OTHER CAREGIVERS.
WASP O.C. IN 2010 A VOTE FOR REPUBLICANS....
Young husband adding tennis balls to a walker.
IS A VOTE FOR FAMILY VALUES.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Friday, September 3, 2010
Government is Not a Business
Any politician that says to you that he is qualified to be an executive officer of your city, state, or country is trying to sell you a bill of goods. You cannot run a government like a business; they are two different and distinct entities. Government is there to help its people. It is not there to turn a profit. Once you start using business school criteria to justify government spending, you end up with no services, except maybe defense. And despite the constant hammering by government officials whose only constituency is made up of defense contractors, we are in little danger of being invaded. Terrorism isn't going to be fought or won with more and more nuclear missiles or higher grade battleships or more high-tech tanks. Terrorism is fought and won on the street with specialized weapons that take out one person with a bomb strapped to his or her chest. No F-16 is going to help you there.
Why is it that people are too afraid or too stupid to realize that they have a greater likelihood of needing governmental services like unemployment compensation or food stamps than of becoming part of the 1% of the people that control half the wealth. The problem with the American dream is that everyone believes they can achieve it. They can't; it's that simple; look around. If you search the world around you, or more precisely, the country around you, you will see the vast majority of people that have no shot at becoming uber-wealthy. You can see them all around and objectively say, no, no, no, no. Everybody in a public servant's uniform is automatically eliminated. They will never, short of winning the lotto, become super-rich. Guys wearing cheap ties and polyester shirts (yes, you can tell, if you can't, you're never going to be in that 1%) are not getting there. Same goes for guys that wear black shoes with blue suits. Safe, maybe; appropriate, no.Then there's the woman in the long sleeve t-shirt worn over a tank-top and sweat pants. Unless she looks like she can run the 100 meter dash in under 11 seconds or is tall enough to change the channel at a sports bar without using a stool, she isn't getting there. This is all to say that with an unbiased eye, you can find people who will always be middle-class.
Now, the paradox: you're that person in others' eyes. They see you and realize you'll never control real wealth. Nobody can ever admit that they will never be that elite group of people that either had incredible preparation, opportunity, and good fortune to become the best at what they do or inherited millions. The latter is certainly a more prevalent group. And believe me, that group is the group most protective of the group. They don't want you with them. They recognize the reality of a zero-sum game. Money is finite, except in Brazil where they print it as they need it. If you obtain wealth, you cut into their take. Ergo, they're not giving you the password or the location of the secret clubhouse.
So that begs the question: why do you continue to vote in elections to help them protect the limited pot? Every vote for conservatism is a vote to help those that have keep the have nots right where they are. Oh, they play into your dreams and aspirations and they tease you with the possibilities of what could be, but you ain't getting in. Never, never, never. They'll tell you that with hard work you too can get the American dream. All you have to do is pull yourself up by your own bootstraps and not look to government to help you. You know why? If you don't look to government to help you, it can help the rich. Big government contracts that you'll never see; government bailouts that will never reach you; government subsidies for agricultural conglomerates that serve only to keep American produce at higher levels and hit you in your daily grocery shopping. And don't forget those great government defense contracts that benefit so many of you; NOT!
How do they convince you? Defense!!!! We must protect ourselves from [fill in the blank]. We don't need tens of thousands of fighter planes to protect this country. We don't need hundreds of thousands of tanks to keep our enemies at bay. And frankly just how many intercontinental ballistic missiles do we really need? Defense today involves a guy looking a shepherd in a suspected terrorist encampment or village knifing a major operative. It involves detecting nuclear dirty bombs before they are detonated in a major American city. Today's defense needs a multitude of vaccines for the potential chemical warfare that one individual with a glass vial can wage. The gargantuan military industrial complex of the past is no longer viable or necessary; it is obsolete...unless, of course, you are one of the multitude of "family values" republicans that is feeding at the trough of its PACs. As always, the guerilla capitalists are squeezing every last dime out of it before they have some young, ambitious genius figure out how to re-direct their businesses and then that is where the money will flow. And that genius? He or she gets a vice-presidency with a nice salary and he or she will think he or she hit the big time. The genius will be held up as an example of the good, old American spirit that made this country great. And you'll buy this line hook, line, and sinker just like you buy all the products that you have been force-fed over the years. Don't believe me? "L'Oreal because I'm worth it." Really? Seriously? Do you really think that one hair dye is better than any other? If you do, you are officially sucked in and cannot be saved.
The so-called American drive and spirit is a myth. People work hard and prepare for life in this capitalist society believing that continuing on this path will lead to success and untold riches. It won't and it never has. But nevertheless you hear these living-in-the-fifites, Leave-It-To-Beaver right wingnuts extol the benefits of getting "off people's backs" so they can then "pull themselves up by their own bootstraps." If I here someone say "bootstraps" one more time I will explode. No one has bootstraps; no one can afford them. Almost half this country is living in poverty or close to that edge and the tragedy is that many of these misguided souls believe they are "middle class" Americans. They have been sold that bill of goods by the exploitive republicans using their gullibility to stoke the fires of their irrepressible human crunching machine. If republicans and Democrats would honestly articulate their respective views of government (and for the republicans, this would require the use of a truth serum of some kind), no American would ever vote for a republican candidate again. People have to start seeing through this smokescreen; they have to stop day-dreaming about their future as millionaires while they are washing the dishes of well-fed fat cats sitting in the high-end Georgetown restaurant; in short, they have to find the man who is behind the curtain. It isn't any benevolent buffoon pressed into service as a kindly wizard; it is evil incarnate and it must be stopped.
Why is it that people are too afraid or too stupid to realize that they have a greater likelihood of needing governmental services like unemployment compensation or food stamps than of becoming part of the 1% of the people that control half the wealth. The problem with the American dream is that everyone believes they can achieve it. They can't; it's that simple; look around. If you search the world around you, or more precisely, the country around you, you will see the vast majority of people that have no shot at becoming uber-wealthy. You can see them all around and objectively say, no, no, no, no. Everybody in a public servant's uniform is automatically eliminated. They will never, short of winning the lotto, become super-rich. Guys wearing cheap ties and polyester shirts (yes, you can tell, if you can't, you're never going to be in that 1%) are not getting there. Same goes for guys that wear black shoes with blue suits. Safe, maybe; appropriate, no.Then there's the woman in the long sleeve t-shirt worn over a tank-top and sweat pants. Unless she looks like she can run the 100 meter dash in under 11 seconds or is tall enough to change the channel at a sports bar without using a stool, she isn't getting there. This is all to say that with an unbiased eye, you can find people who will always be middle-class.
Now, the paradox: you're that person in others' eyes. They see you and realize you'll never control real wealth. Nobody can ever admit that they will never be that elite group of people that either had incredible preparation, opportunity, and good fortune to become the best at what they do or inherited millions. The latter is certainly a more prevalent group. And believe me, that group is the group most protective of the group. They don't want you with them. They recognize the reality of a zero-sum game. Money is finite, except in Brazil where they print it as they need it. If you obtain wealth, you cut into their take. Ergo, they're not giving you the password or the location of the secret clubhouse.
So that begs the question: why do you continue to vote in elections to help them protect the limited pot? Every vote for conservatism is a vote to help those that have keep the have nots right where they are. Oh, they play into your dreams and aspirations and they tease you with the possibilities of what could be, but you ain't getting in. Never, never, never. They'll tell you that with hard work you too can get the American dream. All you have to do is pull yourself up by your own bootstraps and not look to government to help you. You know why? If you don't look to government to help you, it can help the rich. Big government contracts that you'll never see; government bailouts that will never reach you; government subsidies for agricultural conglomerates that serve only to keep American produce at higher levels and hit you in your daily grocery shopping. And don't forget those great government defense contracts that benefit so many of you; NOT!
How do they convince you? Defense!!!! We must protect ourselves from [fill in the blank]. We don't need tens of thousands of fighter planes to protect this country. We don't need hundreds of thousands of tanks to keep our enemies at bay. And frankly just how many intercontinental ballistic missiles do we really need? Defense today involves a guy looking a shepherd in a suspected terrorist encampment or village knifing a major operative. It involves detecting nuclear dirty bombs before they are detonated in a major American city. Today's defense needs a multitude of vaccines for the potential chemical warfare that one individual with a glass vial can wage. The gargantuan military industrial complex of the past is no longer viable or necessary; it is obsolete...unless, of course, you are one of the multitude of "family values" republicans that is feeding at the trough of its PACs. As always, the guerilla capitalists are squeezing every last dime out of it before they have some young, ambitious genius figure out how to re-direct their businesses and then that is where the money will flow. And that genius? He or she gets a vice-presidency with a nice salary and he or she will think he or she hit the big time. The genius will be held up as an example of the good, old American spirit that made this country great. And you'll buy this line hook, line, and sinker just like you buy all the products that you have been force-fed over the years. Don't believe me? "L'Oreal because I'm worth it." Really? Seriously? Do you really think that one hair dye is better than any other? If you do, you are officially sucked in and cannot be saved.
The so-called American drive and spirit is a myth. People work hard and prepare for life in this capitalist society believing that continuing on this path will lead to success and untold riches. It won't and it never has. But nevertheless you hear these living-in-the-fifites, Leave-It-To-Beaver right wingnuts extol the benefits of getting "off people's backs" so they can then "pull themselves up by their own bootstraps." If I here someone say "bootstraps" one more time I will explode. No one has bootstraps; no one can afford them. Almost half this country is living in poverty or close to that edge and the tragedy is that many of these misguided souls believe they are "middle class" Americans. They have been sold that bill of goods by the exploitive republicans using their gullibility to stoke the fires of their irrepressible human crunching machine. If republicans and Democrats would honestly articulate their respective views of government (and for the republicans, this would require the use of a truth serum of some kind), no American would ever vote for a republican candidate again. People have to start seeing through this smokescreen; they have to stop day-dreaming about their future as millionaires while they are washing the dishes of well-fed fat cats sitting in the high-end Georgetown restaurant; in short, they have to find the man who is behind the curtain. It isn't any benevolent buffoon pressed into service as a kindly wizard; it is evil incarnate and it must be stopped.
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