The Sunday fireside chat

Where are we, and how’d we get here?

   Over the past twenty to thirty years our National constitutions, institutions, identity, politics, economy, education, manufacturing, and middle class have been seriously eroded, and are on track to being completely decimated. Why has this happened; how has this happened; and, what has been the driving force behind it all? Can we all agree that, through our general apathy, greed and avarice have been the driving forces? That explains the “what” and the “why”, but how do you explain the “how”?

   Any attempt to find a significant description of “how” seems to lead off into a distracting discussion of who is to blame. Let’s take blame out of the equation by admonishing everyone to simply look in the mirror. We have been known, on occasion, to be our own worst enemies. That still leaves the question of how did we arrive at a point where so many of us feel despair, frustration, disillusionment, and alienation. There must be another force at work. Perhaps it’s a force that we are reluctant to talk about, or feel too inadequate to talk about. If that force turns out to be “Big Business”, I have to let you all in on a big secret: it isn’t any where near as complicated as the purveyors of Big Business would lead you to believe. Most of us can add, subtract, multiply, and divide.

More than that, it simply is not.

   Oh, they make up fancy words to try to scramble our brains and make us think we couldn’t possibly understand the “complexities” of it all. Nevertheless,  broken down into simple terms and language, “Big Business” isn’t all that “big”. It’s rather mundane and monotonous, if viewed in its basic form.

   So, maybe the “how” is that we have allowed something pretty simple in nature get out of hand, and, while we were sleeping, get the upper hand on ruling and running our lives. Perhaps, our Free Enterprise System is working too well.

·        Can we all agree that we, the 99%, have been asleep at the wheel, as we’ve allowed our elected officials to become highly paid servants of the “owners” of Big Business, the 1%?

·        Has our collective siesta allowed for the corruption of our our educational system through the manipulation of our elected Officials?

·        In addition, by “dumbing down” Public Education, have we a Generation who can’t read, write, spell, or use the English language properly anymore?

I must say, “Yes, yes, and yes” to the above.

·        Why would any one individual, or group, even think about doing something like that?

·        How would it serve any one individual, or group, bringing our education system to its knees?

I have to believe the only people in this Country who could possibly benefit are the “Captains of Industry”; yes, the 1% we refer to these days.

   By simply decimating a generation, or two, through poor quality education, the 1% removes any and all threats to its existence by removing the Middle Class. They will then be able to run the entire show without opposition, and have a subservient class to do menial tasks for very little compensation. These owners of the wealth will continue to make money hand over fist via their outsourcing of higher skilled tasks to even cheaper labor sources. They get to have their cake and eat it, too, and all at our expense.

·        Is this the type of nation we think of when we think of the United States of America? 

·        Is this the state of affairs we now accept as the norm for our daily lives?

·        Is this the Nation, and Society, we want to leave to our children and grand children?

Some how, I think the answers to those questions is a resounding NO!