Frustration

The recent absence of any new posts by me isn't a reflection of my interests in politics. Actually, it is quite the opposite. I keep up with politics as much as I used to, and that is the reason I haven't posted.

I used to think that if I made logical arguments I could change something. I don't think I can though. At least, not the people who really need to be convinced. The people who despite any evidence, despite all reasoning, despite being proved incorrect time and time again will not change their views.

Ironically, it took the historic election of the first black president to make me more cynical than I have ever been.

Why? Because nothing has changed. Because the problems are too big, too vast.

And very wealthy and powerful men don't want these problems to be fixed. They would lose far too much money.

I've been looking at problems in the country differently lately. I've been looking at them with just money in mind. Wondering why laws that make no sense cannot be changed, why injustices that have existed for so long continue to exist. And the conclusion is always the same, it's because of money.

There is a lot more money to be made if Americans are scared. If they are scared of their neighbors, if they are scared of foreign sounding diseases, if they are afraid of the government.

Security systems, prescription pills, antibacterial soaps that will only make bacteria stronger, gun sales.
________

(I'm only really going to focus on one example right now, but I feel it makes my point well.)

Why rely on your immune system when there are so many products to replace it?

But once again, this makes sense. Killing all germs, trying to hard to prevent your body from doing its job will make your immune system weak. And once you actually get sick, your body will have very little defense.

(You are a bad parent if you allow your child to become sick, so be sure to sanitize everything. And believe me, the small cost of protecting your child from life will pay you back in the end.)

Which is great news for hospitals. The sicker Americans are, the more money that can be made.

Perhaps that is why our food is getting worse and worse each year. And the reason Americans are getting fatter and fatter.

Skinny healthy Americans are terribly average consumers. And remember how unpatritotic it is to be average. If you want to save this country, you must consume, and continue consuming, except more and more, like a drug addict.

And business operates on this model. This model that everything must grow. Growth! Growth! Never stopping, only growing. In a world of finite resources this would be terribly unreasonable. And selfish. And evil in face of the scarcity seen in so much of the world.

But over consumption is a virtue. It has been made into a virtue. Because if Americans don't feel guilty about eating too much, about using too many resources, about having too many children, well, the more profits there are to be made in the end.

Well, at least until the whole thing falls apart.

And, when it does, if there are any of us left, which there probably will be, well, I'm sure there will be excellent business opportunities.

Update:

I just found this article to help give me a bit of credibility here.

Freedom

Conservative's Freedom:

Being able to make an unlimited amount of money.
Being able to buy anything (gas-guzzling cars, guns, every competitor.)
Owning lots of land.
Earning an untaxed income.
Passing down huge untaxed estates. (Oh Sam, after Pa died, the gubbyment took the whole farm, we are going to have join the sex trade).
Using as much gasoline and power as wanted.
Keeping all traditional definitions intact. The meaning of words is very important to conservatives... unless that word is patriotism and the president's party changes.

CHOICE!!! Well, not when it comes to the choice of same-sex marriage, assisted suicide, recreational use of drugs (though both parties are very weak on this issue), or abortion. But! Conservatives want you to have the choice of...a doctor! Yeah! And, you get to pick which health insurance company gets to fuck you over when you, or family members, are dying!

Freedom of speech: Hey! That liberal attacked what (insert favorite conservative voice) said! He/she is trying to stifle his/her freedom of speech!

Look! Obama laughed at a joke about Rush Limbaugh dying. Which is far worse than Limbaugh's saying he hopes Obama fails! And criticizing that remark is a violation of free speech. (I don't give a shit that he said he hopes Obama fails, I just know that if a liberal would have said that, it would have been the end of his career)

Freedom of religion: TEACH CREA-I mean, INTELLIGENT DESIGN IN THE CLASSROOM! It's only fair! Equal time!

(Geroge H.W. Bush: No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.)

Them liberal activist judges took away our freedom of mandatory school prayer!

Freedom of Assembly: Bombing abortion clinics. Ok, that's not fair at all.

I'm tired, and that's all I can think of.

I need to start writing again.

Ideas are always popping into my mind, in such a form that they would be perfect to insert into a blog. I just never get around to it. Not sure why, as I love to write. I would say that I will make a better effort at writing blogs on a regular basis, but I probably won't.

Perhaps if I start to carry some paper around with me, I think that might help. Just write down whatever comes to mind. Whenever. That should help. That way I won't forget. I'll try it.

School is over, and so is my career at USI. I am pretty indifferent to my experience there. It served a purpose, which was to wake me out of my plans that I didn't really want for myself.

I still think positively about my former goal of becoming a teacher. I almost wish that I could actually do it. I don't think I would have done a very good job though.

I think I just wanted to get paid to talk about things that I thought were important all day. I didn't think I could actually change anything by doing this.

This was part of my plan I devised when I thought I knew how the rest of my life would unfold.

When I didn't have an uncertain future. I had things I could count on, I had an easy path with no mystery. Nothing in my future was hinging on chance. It was based on love, and working around that love to accommodate our hopes and dreams.

As soon as that certainty and love faded, so did a lot of my plans for the future.

One day, about half way into my first college semester, I decided I didn't want to go to USI anymore. I didn't want to be a teacher anymore. I decided, after a few hours of browsing universities, that I would go to Indiana University. I had always wanted to go there anyway, I just hadn't mostly because I thought I was in love.

It amazes me when I think back, when I remember who I was and what I thought and believed just how wrong I was about everything.

I'm sure that will continue happening. Hell, I'm 19. I'm pretty sure anyone who reads this is young as well. None of us have any idea what we are talking about.

So, I decided to major in political science. And then I decided to major in philosophy. Not sure if I am going to law school, but I am most likely going to go to graduate school.

I am working out, trying to lose some weight before I move to Bloomington. I am doing this out of the same hope as usual. The great motivator of sex. That isn't the only reason, but that is the funniest to say right now.

I hope I can actually stick with it this time. I have failed every other time I have tried.

I hope I can actually stick with writing this time. I have also failed at that, though I did have a great streak going. However, I do look at some of the earliest posts on this blog and cringe. How quickly my thoughts evolve nowadays.

I just posted this on Ian's wall, and I thought I should make a blog of it.

I thought of the perfect role for me if I do decide to come to International Day. I'll come dressed as a hobo, and sleep under the table with newspapers covering my body.

Fits in with last year as well, since I was the successful business man living the American dream. The person that we are taught to aspire to. I guess it turns out that the American dream was just an advertising pitch. It was a right wing booth, and I was the embodiment of the success the right says everyone is capable of achieving.

This year we live in a blue state, and I become the cost of the American dream. Sure, many people have found it, but at what cost? Not everyone can afford home ownership. Not the people Americans can now buy cheap food from at Walmart. Maybe they could have before that giant corporation closed the store they owned. Perhaps I was one of the many who was promised a home with a mortgage I could afford.

Who could blame me? I had been taught that this was my goal in life. To own a home, to raise a family. Sure, I wasn't born rich and I wasn't particularity bright, but I was an American, this is what was owed to me!

Then the bubble popped, I lost my shitty job, and the bank foreclosed. Now I am homeless and I live under a table at the American Booth. A cost of those living this dream. A cost of those who teach us it is possible. And a cost of those who profit from continuing this lie.

But... maybe this is all too deep for a bunch of third graders. I'll just play it for laughs.

Something for you theocrats to get angry about.

And something that I take great pleasure in. Though, I realize it wasn't intentional, this is a great sign of things to come.

Well, let me back up a bit. Some silly people thought that because John Roberts screwed up the oath, Obama wasn't really president.

Now, he was president. The people who thought he wasn't president are ignorant of what our constitution says and still suffering from sore loser syndrome (see: OBAMA ISN'T A CITIZEN OMGZ). Sure, the oath for the Presidency is in the constitution. It isn't relevant anymore though. See, back during the great depression, everyone was getting really impatient. They wanted to get rid of Hoover, but they were stuck with him until March. They had to wait a long five months after the landslide election before FDR could take office. They didn't like that. So, they passed the 20th Amendment.

Section one says

"The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the 3d day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin"

So, oath or not, Obama was president at noon.

But, for whatever reason (most likely to shut up the paranoid right) Obama and Roberts decided to try it again.

BUT ALAS THERE WAS NO BIBLE!!

NO BIBLE AT THE SWEARING IN.

GLENN BECK IMMEDIATELY EXPLODED.

I, for one, am incredibly happy that damned work of fiction wasn't included in swearing in my President. Perhaps this will be a far more moral administration, after all, Obama didn't use an evil book written about a murderous desert god to start his administration.

Glenn Beck then began to lie on Fox News. He stated that Obama is the first president EVA to not use a bible! Well, he needs to hire new researchers. From Thinkprogress.org:

"Beck is simply wrong. As Slate recently reported, official records kept by the Architect of the Capitol show that Teddy Roosevelt did not use a Bible in 1901; and Lyndon Johnson is rumored to have used “a Catholic missal aboard Air Force One after Kennedy’s assassination.” According to his own letters, John Quincy Adams placed his hand on a constitutional law book rather than the Bible."

Geez, I wish Bush would have placed his hand on a constitutional law book... or at least I wish he would have read the Constitution at some point. That's besides the point.

Before President John Tyler, there is no evidence any presidents used a bible to be sworn in. Those damn heathens.

Well, sorry kiddos, but your dream of an American theocracy is going to have to wait for at least four more years. Sarah Palin could usher in a new era of a government ruled by a nonexistent character!

Palin '12! Palin '12! Palin '12! Palin '12! Palin '12! Palin '12! Palin '12!

No, No! Palin/Jindal '12!

Down with reason, up with BABIES!!