Wednesday's Fireside Chat With Your Uncle Hutch

Where are we, and how’d we get here?

From November 1980 to November 2010:

	Years In Power
U.S. House Democrat	18 years
U.S. House Republican	12 years
U.S.Senate Democrat	12 years
U.S.Senate Republican	18 years
U.S. Congress Democrat	12 years
U.S. Congress Republican	12 years
Republican In The White House	20 years
Democrat In The White House	10 years

source: http://elections.mytimetovote.com/new_york.html

Over the past twenty to thirty years our National constitutions, institutions, identity, politics, economy, education, manufacturing, and middle class have been seriously eroded, or completely decimated. Why has this happened, how has this happened, and what has constituted the driving force behind it all.

I think we can all pretty much agree that greed and avarice have been the driving forces. General apathy of the population as a whole has allowed greed and avarice to be that driving force. 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.

The numbers I have listed above would, on face value, tend to rule out the U.S. Congress which shows an even split over recent years. The two to one .Presidential figures really don’t come into play, as a President does not make law in this democracy.  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, really, 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. I think we can all pretty much agree that we’ve been asleep at the wheel, as we’ve allowed our elected officials to become highly paid servants of the aforementioned purveyors of Big Business. I think, similarly, that our collective siesta has allowed for the corruption of our our educational system. In addition, by dismantling the National educational institutions, we now have a Generation who can’t read, write, spell, or use the English language properly anymore. Why would any one individual, or group, even think about doing something like that? How would it serve any one individual, or group, to even attempt bringing our education system to its knees? The only people in this Country who could possibly benefit are the “Captains of Industry”; yes, the 1% we so often 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 folks 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? I s 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.