The Chants Could Still be Heard from the Depths Below…

In doing some research to live in another country I’ve come to realize that our country likes to do things that make the least possible sense. Just look around and you’ll see it everywhere. It’s so pervasive it’s almost like a disease.

Examples…..hmmmmm?

Land of the free? Except we demand that you have to sign an oath or lose your job. Incarcerating drug offenders doesn’t prevent drug addiction, so what do we do? Lock up more drug addicts! The death penalty doesn’t deter anyone from committing crimes and has repeatedly proven to have put innocent people to death, so what do we do? “Put in a speed lane” for state sanctioned murder just as every civilized nation on earth is abolishing it! Oil companies like Exxon are making record profits (a billion dollars a day even) while the majority of us struggle just to get by, so what do we do? Give oil companies massive tax breaks!

We say we love the “free market” and while we don’t mobilize to create a single payer, universal health care system that would cut costs, create portability and offer more choices, we instead give all sorts of corporate welfare benefits to highly profitable healthcare companies - gives new meaning to the phrase “free market!” The technology of our military has failed to help us win wars in Vietnam, Korea and now Iraq, so what do we do? Increase military budgets to over $1 TRILLION dollars a year!

We like to believe that we’re #1 in the world in every category and yet most Americans couldn’t find more than 2 European countries on a map. (And it’s not just because “soma people out there in our nation don’t have maps!”) How would we know we’re #1 if we don’t even know where to compare us to? The fact of the matter is that we aren’t #1 in almost every category.

We used to love our GDP numbers but the European Union is now essentially equal. Infant mortality? Not even close, in fact Cuba has got us beat. Government corruption? No way. Freedoms? Nope but it should warm the cockles to know that at least we’re tied with Botswana for freedom of the press. Education system? Are you serious?

But we are at the head of the class for a number of things we might not wanna tell momma about. We top the charts for climate changing pollution and how about military spending. We spend more on our military than the entire world put together! And aren’t we proud that we’re #1 in the number of handgun deaths or the number of people we incarcerate and the amount of money we spend on prisons. Or we could create a plaque and throw it up on the wall for being #1 for having the most amount of deaths due to medical errors or the record setting numbers of uninsured or the fact that we’re #1 in healthcare spending (more than double our nearest competitor) yet we don’t live longer or healthier than almost every industrialized country on the planet and that even takes into account the effects of diet and obesity <-- oh yeah, we're #1 in that too!

The U.S. was once the envy of the world but the legacy of those long lost days still lives on in the hearts and minds of many Americans despite the harsh reality.

So I have a bold new proposition. We'll simply ignore the truth and just chant: WE’RE #1! WE’RE #1! WE’RE #1!

What could be the worse thing that happens?

….And they continued to chant as the once mighty ship slowly sank.

What happens when the tables turn?

A little piece of advice to the people presently raping this country: you better keep this economy doling out just enough to satiate the masses because if you don’t, you’re gonna have a lot of really ticked off people. When they can no longer be distracted by token issues like illegal immigration or gay marriage and when even brain dead entertainment like “American Idol” can’t quiet them, they may go looking for answers. When they do, people like me are going to help them find ‘em.

While the masses have been distracted by the latest opiate, people like me have been paying close attention. We’ve been studying and learning and growing smarter, and when the people start suspecting that something is amiss with their country, we’re going to tell them why. When the people can’t be satisfied by latest minutia they’re not going to ask YOU how their disillusion came about. People are easily manipulated but they’re generally smarter than that. They’re going to seek out those people who have consistently gotten it right, those who are outspoken, the ones who have respect for the truth above any ideology, and the people who don’t stand to gain anything by it being shouted from the highest mountain top.

I hope the prospects of the likes of me finally having the ears of the people in order to tell them how and why you do the things you do scares the living crap out of you. I hope it scares you at least enough so that you wake up, stop standing in the way and give the people what they need. It may just stave off a bloody revolution. After all, the majority thinks this country is great because of its economy. If they lose this great facade and are left to stumble behind the curtain, believing that our greatness lies just beyond it, only to discover that the last vestiges of greatness have been unraveled by the likes of you, you and your minions are going to be in a world of shit, the tables will turn and you will no longer have control. No one will. It might not happen now, it might not even happen soon but for your own sake make no misunderstanding, history illustrates that you better not get this wrong.

A couple of points to think about: just because the people are not demanding it now doesn’t mean that they never will (and when they unify you won’t be able to resist). The decisions that you make here and now could reverberate around the world – you really don’t want there to be a unification of people and workers internationally, you’ll never be able to exploit them again. If something like that were to happen, the system in which you gain so much at the expense of so many may be torn down and a new one that puts you squarely at the bottom may take its place.

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