Perusing the web last night I came upon someone with a few choice words of wisdom. Not the usual mommy blog or regurgitation of the latest talking points and yes no overwhelming academic discourse was to be found there. Just a simple discourse on the state of man/woman/child was to be found. It was is if someone took off the blinders and took a good look at ourselves without jaded eye. How refreshing that was. It got me to thinking just who the hell we are and how did we get here.
I give you one Sam Spruce of Toxic Drums
Don't know where he resides so I put him in the bestest blogs from around the world on the right hand side.
A couple of motivating ideas spilled from his pages that got me really thinking about our own image, what we believe and why.
A quarter of this planet goes to bed hungry each night but junior proudly proclaims holding his clean empty plate that he ate the whole thing. Remember there are starving children in third world countries so you need to make a pig out of yourself to show (just who?) that you didn't waste any food. Any logic to be found there? And shining the light of a microscope on our educational system that was set up at the beginning of the industrial revolution we find that its' entire purpose was to make for good little cogs in the wheels of industry. Must fit the square peg in the square hole lest the entire production line come to a screeching halt. The boys in the carpeted offices wouldn't like that. It might just put a dent in their annual bonuses. Yet once we pass through the ivy halls and into the cold cruel world we're told to "think outside the box". Gad I hate that phrase. It's as if someone doing the hiring actually expected you to think. Here we have this creative person who just might have a solution only to be saddled one more time with company policies and procedures that will of course put him back in the box. Not that all are bad mind you. There are safety issues but most have little to do with that.
Those at the top of the power heap have stuck to their game plan. Keep the masses uneducated barefoot and pregnant is the order of the day. Entertain them with themselves because after all who wouldn't want to make a few scraps competing in a great race or survival contest? Makes for great show and don't forget to text your pick for winner at a dollar a call. There seems to be a reality show for nearly every profession take your pick. The food challenges are the best or should I say the worst. Let's see if Bubba here can consume half his body weight in deep fried brussel sprouts. Then there are the cooking competitions where one lucky winner will be head chef at some five star Cordon Blue bistro. Starting with a couple dozen contestants we watch the back stabbing and name calling (expletives deleted) until the gaggle is pared down to two lucky finalists. But watching the tearful goodbyes the thought comes to mind that hey, Denny's needs late night cooks too because you'll never make it in the big leagues baby. So like the thought of winning the grand humongous lottery they keep us glued (or should I say suckered?) into coming back for more of this drivel. And like dry rot for the mind they've created a habit worse than any vice I can think of to date.
So what exactly do we have here? The powers that be have created in a little more than one generation a society of overweight undereducated self centered over consuming slackers. But how did that happen you might ask? Simple in an attempt to have what our parents had that took thirty or forty years to accumulate we were told we could have it all with just a little money down and easy monthly payments. Mom and Dad are too busy trying to pay off the mortgage, the car and the credit cards to be full time parents. Junior needs dinner, here's twenty bucks go eat at the mall. And the ruling elite have made a life's profession keeping the game just as it is and will continue to do so. Keep them dumb and working against their own best interests. It increases the bottom line.
8 comments:
I will check out Toxic Drums in a minute. The entire strategy boils down to Panem et Circensus. Mostly cheap gas and cheap food but throw in a few phony gladiatorial TV shows for good measure.
And old guys might remember the Kingston Trio "A Dollar Down and a Dollar a Week". Plus ca change...
Now finish your vodka. Drain your glass. Think of all those poor teetotalers and recovering alcoholics going through the DTs.
That burger is a stoner's dream! I have to tell you, I grew up with the starving kids in Biafra thrown in my face daily and to this day I drive my wife crazy because this skinny guy can't throw away a crumb.
I also watch strictly news until I sit down at night to have a stiff drink and watch only old westerns till I pass out.
Heavy coporate donations to Tea Party causes is considered an investment with long term returns.
I bookmarked the Toxic Drum site and looked at it some but can't say that I'm into it.
It got me to thinking just who the hell we are and how did we get here.
We're simply one of natures experiments that has gone haywire.
But why are we an undereducated country when we have so many in colleges? It's simple, colleges are teaching a bunch of stupid shit to students that will never use what they learned there simply because it was stupid shit.
A lot of these young monkeys go to college just because the government will help them through it and they can't find jobs so it's a no brainer to go to college for two to four years on the governments dime.
I see a future with millions of college educated idiots and no jobs because they didn't learn any real skills there.
Nature dosen't do "haywire"
That is a monkees concept.
"The powers that be have created in a little more than one generation a society of overweight undereducated self centered over consuming slackers."
Wait a minute, where are the people themselves in all this? Are they mindless drones with no free will and no ability to understand the reality of their situation and likely consequences of their choices?
There's plenty wrong with lots of individuals, with families and society as a whole. That's nothing new.
You talk about one generation. Go back several, to the 1930's and 1940's. Do you know how common it was back then for "the old man" to come home from work night after night by way of a tavern where he would get anywhere from kind of stupid to mean-and-nasty drunk, then lay into the kids and/or wife at the first thing that annoyed him? Back then, 50- and 60-hour work weeks were common. So was child labor. So was violence against those who tried to get a union or ate lunch with a black or people of certain ethnic groups. So were amputees, from WWI, from agricultural and industrial accidents and because of diseases.
Look at the death notices and obituaries from those days. You'll be amazed at the number of babies and children dying.
In some places, not just New York and Chicago, organized crime was rampant, and lots of innocent people got hurt or killed as a result. More than a few died from drinking wood alcohol passed off as booze.
Yes, corporate powers that be are too often selfish, greedy bastards who have way too much political clout and too much to do with how we live. But people make their own choices too. Many a couple could have one spouse at home raising the kids, if they were willing to get by in an apartment instead of a separate home, have one vehicle instead of two, have one TV instead of one in every room, and so on.
SW, you make very good points.
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