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Comments to a Grand Friend's Post

An exceptionally eloquent writer, Grumpy Old Man (GOM), posted a brief essay yesterday that spawned a comment in me that I use for today's post. First, I post GOM's essay in italics, then my reply that is an elaboration upon the actual comment I posted on his site.

Grumpy Old Man Wrote:

Did anyone listen to the President's State of the Union address? I just couldn't bring myself to listen to more war mongering. I did hear on the radio that he talked about healthcare. No doubt, it was about those "personal savings accounts"” that are so advantageous to private businesses. He tried to do the same thing with Social Security. Luckily, he failed.

You might know that I signed up for Medicare part D. It was a mistake. They are discriminating against people with mental illnesses and their medications. I found out that Medicare part D is being run and administered by private insurance companies. No wonder. It is a colossal cluster f*ck and they will not pay for my medications. Medicare part D has also turned my father's pharmacy into a nightmare. I guess I am going to have to write my state representative and my congressman. At least those bastards will kiss my ass for a vote.

Sir:


I agree with your assessment of Bush. To me he is simply an imbicilic bumpkin who had the perfect blend of doltish, lackuster, laziness mixed with enough charisma to get him selected by the manipulative big-business folks as their puppet. He was a perfect choice, for the modest amount of charisma he has was needed to sucker enough of the US population into voting for him for office, and the doltish laziness was needed to ensure he would not defy the wishes of his puppet masters... big business.

Now that he is in, he is simply a puppet without an active braincell of his own... and our country is being run into the ground by those schiesters who live by the credo of "make money any damn way you can... regardless of whom it hurts, or whom you have to backstab to get it". Another way to state this philosophy is simply "short term profits are more important than long term stability". Neither of these ideas is designed to do anything about making our society or world better. Neither idea is designed to build a sense of real community spirit in our nation. These philosohpies are simply selfish, "me-first", "I-don't-give-a-damn about anyone but me" sorts of philosophies that are going to drive our society into the ground and make us economic (if not worse) slaves to the rich and to other nations that enslave their own people with standards of living where a person earns a dollar or two a week (such as China, India, or Mexico).

When will enough of the people in the US wake up and demand we enact social, political, and economic policies that STRENGTHEN the fabric of our nation? I sure as hell wish I knew.

For those of you who might enjoy hearing or reading about some of our current national ills, I would like to suggest clicking upon the site by Jim Hightower. He is a very wise fellow with a true gift for explaining much of the b*llsh*t that is happening to our nation. If enough of us with the goal of making our nation a better place... a place that protects its citizens and helps them to acheive a good life of economic stability and creative spirit... if enough of us band together, perhaps we can still turn this mess around.

My vision for a REALISTIC utopia in our nation is simply this.... 1) a person who works a 40 hour work week should at a minimum earn wages equivalent to 125% of the poverty level for a family of four. 2) our nation needs to take health care AWAY from the hands of business and adopt a national health care policy so that all of our citizens receive equal, high quality health care treatment, 3) a tremendous push should occur in our government to encourage and invigorate creative pursuits such as art and science... both in terms of classroom education and in terms of practice (producing of new art by artists and new science research by scientists), 4) there should be a STRONG push to keep existing jobs (and bring back those already lost) in our nation so that all people, regardless of educational level may obtain work if they choose to do so, and 5) that the nation adopt stringent policies to keep in check those sorts of businesses that rape our nation and our people (such as WalMart with its policies that cause an INCREASE in need for welfare when they move into a community).

If those 5 items could be enacted... damn... our nation would become a true, realistic nirvana for its people.

PipeTobacco