Cherry Bomb
Remember cherry bombs? You're on the seesaw with your best friend, laughing, going up and down with a push of your Keds, and BAM! Your sneaky friend jumps off while you're in the air and down you crash to the ground.
I do believe with all my heart that we are responsible for our ability to affect our lives for better or worse. We have free will and volition. If I'm in a bad place, I make moves to get out of it. I work a job each day to support myself and fund future dreams. I want to move up in this world, and I don’t expect anyone to hand me anything I cannot earn myself. So why are my pockets turned inside out?
In our country’s industrial age, we had men who changed how we lived our lives. Innovation, courage and determination made single men…not faceless corporations…wealthy. Today we still have great innovators with faces we recognize. These people are and were heroes and embodied the fiery independent spirit that built this country into what we have today. All the things we take for granted on a daily basis can be traced back to great men of the mind and will.
But today, those men are fading into the vast pool of the corporate. Not single brave men and women, but groups of lawyers, investors, chairmen, CEOs, CFOs, other companies, special interests, I cannot even conceive of all the faceless masses that make up just one of the massive corporations that run through the fabric of our daily lives.
I don’t hate the rich. As long as you earned that money ethically, you deserve everything you can buy. Nothing I admire more than a self-made man or woman.
But who are these corporations? Oil, insurance, medical, power, drug, communications, who drives them? Why do they have so much control over our lives and our politics? Why do I get the increasingly scary feeling that my best interests are not represented, that many fingers are in my pockets while the individuals who pool together to run these companies get richer? Who are these people? How did they get their power? Did they earn it? Did I vote for it? Why do they fund our two-party political system, particularly the GOP?
The tactic used by huge corporations these days is to keep poor folks running the backbone machine that runs our country. If they are rewarded too much for their manual labor…they will rise too high and take part of the pie. Keep them where we can handle them, where we can ride their backs.
The honest self made man is an anomaly. People today grow rich from gangster business and mob mentality. Good old boys. Who knows who. Kickbacks. Handshakes. Lobbyists. Nepotism.
Not everyone can be wealthy. And the poor will always be with us. But why does Bush give tax cuts to the rich? Why are public schools atrocious in poor communities, churning out kids guaranteed to fail in life? What happened to no child left behind?
Wouldn’t in be in our best interest for the entire country to provide tax cuts for middle-class and lower, which would provide incentives to better their lives, buy more products, school more children, and--NOT equalize our society—but raise our entire standard of living? Why can’t we create the means for middle class and poor to become more affluent—rather than just for those who are already affluent? Why can’t troubled schools get greater funding so our future generations aren’t necessarily doomed to repeat their predecessor’s mistakes and failures?
I don’t believe in welfare or hand-outs to those who abuse them. I just get the creepy feeling that people in my income bracket and lower have an invisible vampire at our necks, and I can’t quite point my finger at anyone with certainty. I almost hate to say it, but judging from history past and present, I do believe many with wealth make it on the backs of the middle class and poor, and expect to keep them that way. I almost feel like our country is turning towards the Caste system of India, where the upper castes will be these massive corporations, and in time the lower castes will be reduced to “untouchable” status. The gulf between classes is obvious. The richer get richer, the poorer get poorer.
Bush calls his supporters the Haves and the Have Mores. Can it be any more blatant? As an economically conservative yet socially liberal Libertarian who is sick to death of Leftie Rightie bullshit propaganda, I cannot in good conscience vote for a man who doesn’t give a shit about the Have Littles or Have Nots.
People like me and poorer than I are getting the cherry bomb.
I just found a website that I am going to check out. http://www.faireconomy.org/. I just took a look after I wrote this, and it scares me how many facts they have that back up my vague observations. The vampire is real.
I do believe with all my heart that we are responsible for our ability to affect our lives for better or worse. We have free will and volition. If I'm in a bad place, I make moves to get out of it. I work a job each day to support myself and fund future dreams. I want to move up in this world, and I don’t expect anyone to hand me anything I cannot earn myself. So why are my pockets turned inside out?
In our country’s industrial age, we had men who changed how we lived our lives. Innovation, courage and determination made single men…not faceless corporations…wealthy. Today we still have great innovators with faces we recognize. These people are and were heroes and embodied the fiery independent spirit that built this country into what we have today. All the things we take for granted on a daily basis can be traced back to great men of the mind and will.
But today, those men are fading into the vast pool of the corporate. Not single brave men and women, but groups of lawyers, investors, chairmen, CEOs, CFOs, other companies, special interests, I cannot even conceive of all the faceless masses that make up just one of the massive corporations that run through the fabric of our daily lives.
I don’t hate the rich. As long as you earned that money ethically, you deserve everything you can buy. Nothing I admire more than a self-made man or woman.
But who are these corporations? Oil, insurance, medical, power, drug, communications, who drives them? Why do they have so much control over our lives and our politics? Why do I get the increasingly scary feeling that my best interests are not represented, that many fingers are in my pockets while the individuals who pool together to run these companies get richer? Who are these people? How did they get their power? Did they earn it? Did I vote for it? Why do they fund our two-party political system, particularly the GOP?
The tactic used by huge corporations these days is to keep poor folks running the backbone machine that runs our country. If they are rewarded too much for their manual labor…they will rise too high and take part of the pie. Keep them where we can handle them, where we can ride their backs.
The honest self made man is an anomaly. People today grow rich from gangster business and mob mentality. Good old boys. Who knows who. Kickbacks. Handshakes. Lobbyists. Nepotism.
Not everyone can be wealthy. And the poor will always be with us. But why does Bush give tax cuts to the rich? Why are public schools atrocious in poor communities, churning out kids guaranteed to fail in life? What happened to no child left behind?
Wouldn’t in be in our best interest for the entire country to provide tax cuts for middle-class and lower, which would provide incentives to better their lives, buy more products, school more children, and--NOT equalize our society—but raise our entire standard of living? Why can’t we create the means for middle class and poor to become more affluent—rather than just for those who are already affluent? Why can’t troubled schools get greater funding so our future generations aren’t necessarily doomed to repeat their predecessor’s mistakes and failures?
I don’t believe in welfare or hand-outs to those who abuse them. I just get the creepy feeling that people in my income bracket and lower have an invisible vampire at our necks, and I can’t quite point my finger at anyone with certainty. I almost hate to say it, but judging from history past and present, I do believe many with wealth make it on the backs of the middle class and poor, and expect to keep them that way. I almost feel like our country is turning towards the Caste system of India, where the upper castes will be these massive corporations, and in time the lower castes will be reduced to “untouchable” status. The gulf between classes is obvious. The richer get richer, the poorer get poorer.
Bush calls his supporters the Haves and the Have Mores. Can it be any more blatant? As an economically conservative yet socially liberal Libertarian who is sick to death of Leftie Rightie bullshit propaganda, I cannot in good conscience vote for a man who doesn’t give a shit about the Have Littles or Have Nots.
People like me and poorer than I are getting the cherry bomb.
I just found a website that I am going to check out. http://www.faireconomy.org/. I just took a look after I wrote this, and it scares me how many facts they have that back up my vague observations. The vampire is real.
posted by Bostonbootgirl at 11:29 AM
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