How to watch a train wreck

OK, so I just can't stand it anymore! I have a damnable manifesto of reaction to what I see and hear these days, that has me standing braced in my living room, yelling at my TV. I expect little more from this writing than the cathartic unloading of the confessional. I have no illusions that my thoughts have any weight or value when expelled from me to you. If you're reading this, you have way too much time on your hands, or are bedridden. Either way, my sincerest sympathies go out to you.

We've watched with rapt angst as our nation and way of life have been attacked by enemies foreign and domestic. We've hoped our beliefs in our government would be realized. We've hoped that the American men and women that have found their way to the halls of power brokerage would be, at the very least, as smart as most of the rest of us. We've hoped that the illusion of representation included us. Folks, our hopes are of little consequence to anyone but ourselves. Hope, by itself and without proactive involvement, is an illusion held by people that have not yet gotten angry enough about the injustice surrounding them, (you know it does), to decide that the status quo is no longer good enough and that "good enough" is the enemy of great. That's when you feel your shoulder blades meet a wall. Expressions like "a line in the sand" and "enough is enough" ring with clarity inside your consciousness.

I don't know if I can totally and exclusively call myself a conservative or a liberal. I think I'm like most people on this planet, just a guy tryin' to do better at livin' my life than I did yesterday. That comes with trying to understand and incorporate all my experiences into an understanding of the world and my little place in it, that affords me some trust in my perception of wisdom. Admittedly, that is a full-time challenge. I'll also admit that I am unabashedly arrogant enough to convince myself that I can cypher out life's little realities, truths, and contradictions. Some of which, I'll try to put into words here.

With all that said, whatever I say next ought to be really really valuable, huh? I don't know if that is a very wise expectation for you as you read this, but here goes...

Is it just me, or was Chicken Little a prophet? Every Globally recognized Communist since Stalin has predicted the failure and defeat of the United States and Capitalism, from within. Most of us just cavalierly laughed and thought, "silly little nutball, how naive of you." Arrogantly, I personally thought, that can never happen. There's too many checks and balances in place for that to happen. We, as a nation are as out-of-balance as Germany was just prior to the Third Reich's coming into power. Are we the naive ones? Can this be happening to us?

I know that I am really afraid of what could actually happen next. Nothing will shock me at this point. Talking heads relentlessly spouting well-crafted talking points and sound bytes that we all recognize as B.S. are indoctrinating the sheeple on the left, and mesmerizing the weak-minded that have been dumbed down by the last thirty years of decline in societal morality and discipline.

I remember a time when the media was a check on political party bluster, not it's primary asset. I remember when we all were a little sceptical when we knew we were being sold something. It seems that America has become a nation of addicts waiting for the next fix of anybody telling us we want what they are selling so that we can feel better. The result of that trap is the soft indoctrination that reinforces the sentiment that we feel bad and need to feel better. I think, sometimes, we should feel bad. Feeling bad compels people to change their circumstances, not have them redefined for us.

Words, ideas, concepts, ethics, morals, relationships, realities are all being systematically dis-articulated and reassembled by parasitic forces in our lives in order to make room for irresponsibility and a total lack of accountability. Dead is the inherent compatibility of "new and improved." Sometimes, and more often than not lately, the "new" is synonymous with the latest dilution or facsimile of what was. That depends on what the definition of is is, of course.

We have become a nation that abides conflict within itself and within ourselves. No other moden nation has willfully chosen its own decline and survived. Why is a nation of over 300 million, (not including the octi-mom's brood), allowing a hand-full of idiots to define the dumbest of alternative choices for nearly all of the most important decisions we make about our lives?

I think those of us with a little snap and the frame of reference to be able to recognize good from bad and bad from evil must now scream from the rooftops. "Stop that train... or at least get the next generation the hell off the tracks!"