Liberty

“Those that would give up their liberty for security, deserve neither liberty or security.” Benjamin Franklin

I am going to Disney World in October to see a close family member get married. It should be a joyous event and I should be looking forward to enjoying a wonderful vacation with my family in the “happiest place on earth.” Instead , every time I think about the trip, I get knots in my stomach when I remember that I will have to fly.

The first time I flew to Disney, land, at the time, I was 4 years old. There was a malfunction with the landing gear, and we ended up having to crash land . We sat in the airport for 6 hours before getting a new plane to take us. When we landed in LAX, the power was out.

I have flown a number of times since and the heights never bothered me. The fear of crashing never bothered me. I flew for the first time, by myself, when I was 15 and it never bothered me. I loved flying. I flew once since 9/11, in 2004, and while the removal of the shoes was annoying, and the sitting in the airport twiddling my thumbs for the required 2 hours before my flight was annoying, I still managed to enjoy myself.  Now, I dread it.

I dread that the only way I can get on a plane, to enjoy a trip to Disney World, is if I either subject myself and my family to radiation or molestation.

People were outraged about this when it was first implemented and those of you reading this are probably thinking I am a day late and a dollar short with this commentary, but that’s kind of the whole point. People WERE outraged, and now, somehow, they aren’t. Maybe the public outcry has been silenced because of the concerns over the economy or maybe the whittling away of entitlements or income disparity or health care access or the GOP Primary battles or maybe even Anthony Weiner’s penis. Maybe it’s because “we the people” are scared of the terrorists.

Who are these terrorists? What do they do? Well, from my understanding, they hate us and they want us dead. So what? We won’t be able to end the “War on Terror” until we eradicate all the hatred from the world? Seriously?  What do these terrorists do, exactly? They kill people and they sodomize people and they take away freedoms. Radiation kills people too. Inappropriate touching is the same thing we warn our children about when they are young, and now we are supposed to tell them it’s okay as long as government officials do it? I thought the legal system in this country was based upon the premise that a citizen is innocent until proven guilty. Why is it then, that every single person that passes through an airport security check is being treated as though they could be a criminal? How is that freedom?

How is it that we live in a civilized country, in the year 2011, and the only way to travel, to expand our minds, to embrace different cultures, is to either get exposed to radiation or allow someone to degrade us to the point of allowing a stranger to literally probe our bodies? How is it that those are the only two options? How DO I explain to my children that it’s okay for a stranger to touch them? How do I explain to them when they are older, that I allowed them to be exposed to radiation? Isn’t it my job as a parent to protect my children from harm? I grow my own food to avoid harmful chemicals. I slop ‘em up with sunscreen to prevent skin cancer. How do I stand by and watch my children get violated or poisoned and smile to make them think it’s okay?

How do frequent travelers do it? Honestly, I would love to know how people can go through their daily lives NOT being outraged, every single day, about these atrocities. There’s that old analogy that if you put a frog in boiling water, it will jump out, but if you put it in cold water and slowly bring it to a boil, the frog will die. Are people really just accepting that this is how things are now? Because of some abstract terrorist threat?  We’ve seen freedoms removed from people throughout history. We saw Mubarak shut Egyptian internet service down during the “peaceful protests”  and we were outraged. We see the oppression, the removal of freedoms in Libya, and we are on the verge of going into their country to fight against the oppressive regime. And why? Because we are outraged. Yet, we continue to lose rights and freedoms in this country every single day, and instead of questioning our government and its practices, we blindly accept them, for the sake of freedom.

Accountability?

I have two preschoolers. We generally try to stay away from electronic media, as a family, whenever possible.  Well, that’s not totally accurate. The kids enjoy the online educational games made available for free and our Friday nights are generally reserved for a kid-friendly movie. We never use it as a babysitter, any programming viewed by our children is also viewed along with at least one adult. We discuss the movies, we learn from their messages and we compare and contrast to the real, nonfiction world.

Most of the movies we select teach messages of sharing and caring and true love and fighting for what is right. There’s a clear good character and a clear evil character or force. They are stories of overcoming the odds  and of good triumphing over evil.

I must say, the socio-political addict that I tend to be has found quite a favorite in the Disney-Pixar imaginings in Wall-E. [Eventual spoiler alert!]

Wall-E is about an adorable little robot whose job it is to package garbage into little cubes. The humans have produced so much garbage that the planet is no longer sustainable for human life. The only company left on the whole planet, Buy ‘N Large, decides it makes more sense to allow their “customers” (the human population) to go on a space luxury cruise until the planet is again clean enough for human habitation.

The movie is fraught with symbolism and almost hauntingly appropriate for our current times.

There is the obvious environmental message that overproduction and over consumption will ruin our environment.

There’s the economic message that we are, as a society, so consumed by the almighty dollar that as long as something is advertised the right way, we will listen and we will buy.

There’s the political message that, one day, there will be a corporation so big that it will engulf all others and dictate everything we do as a society, and we might just be lazy enough to listen. On the space cruise, 700 years later, everyone rides in a hover round. Robots attend to every need, including the education of the children, the morning shave, the climate control, even the brushing of teeth. Humans don’t even eat solid food anymore, all meals are served in cups. It has gotten to the point, where the bone mass has decreased so much that people cannot pick themselves up when they fall. 

Along comes Wall-E’s eventual gal, Eva, who finds, despite the dictatorial message being preached to the masses, that life finally is, once again, sustainable on Earth. The establishment, fights come hell or high water to make sure that no one finds out, but the robots fight back. In this fight, the humans learn they are capable of so much more than simply what Buy ’N Large has been telling them. They, quite literally, learn to stand on their own feet again.

As is typical with preschoolers, we have viewed this movie about 50 times since we discovered it and every time the messages within the story blow my mind. First of all, cause it’s a Disney flick, which as I said earlier, typically talks about princess and contains a nice, radio friendly song and has an obvious good character and an obvious evil character. This movie has a LOT more grey area. As a grown up, I would consider the easy enemy to be Buy ’N Large, the corporation that tells the humans that they should just give up doing everything for themselves and let Buy ‘N Large take care of them. What’s so bad about that, you ask? They sat back and became completely dependent on their governing force, which was indeed, the Big Corporation because it was EASY. It was EASY to let Buy ‘N Large provide everything for them. It was EASY to let them dictate the clothes they should wear, the food they should, ahem, drink, the time of day it was, whether or not they could splash in the pool.

It would have been harder for the humans to fight the good fight for their independence by not buying products exclusively from Buy ‘N Large when there were still alternatives. It would have been harder for the humans to re-purpose their garbage and choose products that were not disposable and weren’t composed of toxic chemicals. It would have been harder for the humans to tell Buy ‘N Large, “No, we will stay here, in our home and help clean it!” It would have been harder for the humans to do the research on their own and think for themselves. Pretty big message for a for a cute little kids’ movie.

The Day the Music Died?

Yesterday, a friend of a friend had an “encounter” with the TSA. This innocent traveler eventually arrived at the appropriate destination, which was meant for relaxation and fun, humiliated and disgusted.  Throughout the discussion afterwards about what had happened, my friend and I realized that it had been ages since we had actually heard of an encounter with the TSA that was worthy of the outrage that I had felt upon hearing about the incident yesterday.  Did they just stop happening or did the media just stop reporting it? I understand coverage of jabs between liberals and conservatives and Democrats and the GOP and Trump’s hair and Obama’s birth certificate is surely entertaining, in the way that a one season reality show might be, but what else is going on in the world that actually could shape history?  What have we already forgotten and why?

Then, while thinking about the annoyance of the mainstream media deciding what information we actually DO need to hear and be reminded of, I got to thinking about more substantial forms of expression- ones that have more staying power than simply a headline that sells a newspaper or a lead in that prompts us to “tune in at 6.” I would surely be hard-pressed to find a person out there that doesn’t have an all time favorite movie- one that effected an epiphany and a number of favorite musical artists, that helped shape viewpoints.

There is so much turmoil in the world right now: protests erupting throughout countries once thought to be stable, the economy crumbling, rights being legislated away and essential services being obliterated with the check of a ballot. We’ve seen our share of turmoil in the US over the years, but typically, as well as televised and printed news accounts, we also had songs that rallied and upset and got people to think and develop real opinions about what was happening. During World War II, we had songs like "Remember Pearl Harbor" - Sammy Kaye (1942) and ”Kiss The Boys Goodbye” - Composer: Frank Loesser and Victor Schertzinger - From: Movie "Kiss The Boys Goodbye" (1941). In the 1950’s http://www.fiftiesweb.com/tune5055.htm there was “Sixteen Tons” by  “Tennessee” Ernie Ford, and not much else that would be considered thought provoking, but then again, in the ‘50’s, everyone was pretty much happy. The 1960’s however, made up for that, with the United States’ involvement in Vietnam and the sexual revolution and the loss of our nation‘s innocence. I couldn’t begin to list even a percentage of the songs that were of the times, but shall instead direct you to, of course, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Janis Joplin and countless others who managed to tell their stories and their views in a way that immortalized the strife of the era. The ‘70’s gave us John Lennon's Imagine, which was a breath of fresh air to a war weary world.

The 1980’s gave us groups like Megadeth, with albums like Peace Sells...but Who's Buying? And in the 1990's we had bands like U2 and Rage Against the Machine to bring us socio-political commentary. After the September 11 catastrophe in 2001, a number of songs were released by artists like Toby Keith to commemorate and speak out about the harrowing event and its repercussions.

In the decade following 2000, we continue to have socio-political turmoil. There are military conflicts, poor people, unemployed, environmental concerns, inequality amongst immigrants and  sexual orientation. There’s strife between the classes, distrust of our leaders, conspiracy theories, nuclear crises, ad infinitum- and, no one seems to be singing about any of it. Great music transcends time. When I was growing up in the 1980’s and 1990’s, dusty records found in the attic prompted my own research into the stories the songs from the ‘60’s and ‘70’s told. Even in my young teens, I was developing opinions about the world around me. Before I could drive, I was politically active and by the time I could vote, I was well informed enough to make intelligent choices when I finally got to pull that lever for the first time.

So where have these influential songs gone?  Is it that they won’t sell, or is it that someone doesn’t want them sold? I am not sure if I fall into the “lazy generation” of which so many of my respected elders speak (I DO think I am slightly older,) but when the young folks have Reality TV and Justin Bieber being rammed down their throats, and billionaire business folk buying up educational software companies, and schools failing them, and parents working 2 jobs each, and multi national media moguls deciding what info really should be given to the public, it’s no wonder society has produced a generation that really just doesn’t give a shit. It’s certainly obvious that the representatives that are supposed to protect their interests sure don’t.

The End

So, apparently there’s a little rumor going around that Saturday, May 21, 2011 is the day of Rapture- the end of the world.

People have been proclaiming the end of the world has been/ will be coming for as long as they have been able to paint the ominous black letters on sandwich boards and stand on a street corner.  In more typical circumstances, these sign holders are old and tired and dirty. We roll our eyes and giggle or maybe take a moment to pause and reflect on the sad state of their lives.

With the most recent hullabaloo about the end of the world, fuzzy math and very specific interpretations of the Bible have prompted a number of people to quit their jobs and calculate their life savings to last them no further than May 21, 2011. They have worked to bring themselves to terms with the end and fervently tried to warn others of the fateful day that is to come.

This is when the nervous giggling starts, because while the rational of us know that we will still all wake up Sunday morning to our newspapers and our coffee and maybe some laundry, there is that LITTLE part of us that knows we really don’t know for sure, nor can we ever.

Saturday, May 21, 2011 will be the end of the world. It will be the end of the world for the tree that gets bulldozed in a forest. It will be the end of the world for a fish that can’t escape the black goo that gets spilled into water. It will be the end of the world for a family who can’t find work and now has their home entering into a state of foreclosure. It will be the end of the world for an illegal immigrant who gets discovered and deported. It will be the end of the world for a young child whose education is delayed because of budget cuts and for another child who gets bullied, yet again, because there are children who are as intolerant of difference as their parents are. It will be the end of the world for an elder who is forced to choose food over necessary medication.  It will be the end of the world for an innocent, in a small village, who gets caught up in fighting between two political powers who think they are both right.

It will be the end of the world for those out there that have just run out of the resources to fight and to survive- the ones who have no more options and the ones who have been beaten down to the point where they simply can’t stand again. This is happening in our world every day. Only the strong survive? What happened to honor? What happened to the perseverance and hope for a better tomorrow? What happened to the basic security of knowing that those of us with a good work ethic and a conscience can have a happy ending?

Maybe Saturday, May 21, 2011, will be the end of the world- as we know it (to quote REM.) Maybe a new world will begin- a world where we are respectful of the resources the Earth has provided, a world where we can once again work hard and achieve the “American Dream,” a world where we are able to properly invest in the future for our children and adequately honor those who have been here before we were. Maybe, just maybe, it will be filled with compromise and a world without wars.

Maybe when we all wake up Sunday morning we can do more to perpetuate a world without end. Plant a tree, walk instead of driving, invest more in local businesses to keep American money in America. Embrace another culture. Volunteer to mentor a child or check in on an elderly neighbor. Will any of these actions stop an Armageddon? Well, as the old saying goes, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and it certainly did not fall in a day, either. Even though you can’t change the whole big world, you do have what it takes to change your own little corner of it.


The Beatles: The End

Disposable Nation

The United States of America is currently 234 years old. That’s like a teenager in “nation years.” In our short time of existence, we have racked up trillions of dollars in debt and use, according to Answers.com , 280,000 hectares, or 6,918.95 acres, of our soil, the soil once rich with the blood of the revolutionaries that fought against the tyrannies of years gone by, is covered by landfills. The average lot size for a single family home in the US is 0.298438 of an acre, which means that it would take 23,183+ average homes to equate to the amount of space used for landfills. Where the heck am I going with this? I shall tell you.

None of that crap was here before we were and someone, somewhere, spent money on every single item in those trash heaps. What if we occupied those 6,918.95 acres, counting the heights to which each mound of steamy gooey garbage reaches, with nice, crisp dollar bills instead? Would it add up to a trillion dollars? Or, really, let’s be honest, there’s lots more than just dollar store items sitting there, all of which will never be reused and most of which,, will take a long time spewing toxins into our air, soil and water to decompose, not to mention the tax dollars and private dollars spent on processing and such.

It wasn’t always this way. There was a time before the neo-green movement inspired us to not just recycle, but re-purpose, when everyone did JUST that and managed a green existence without looking for the “green” labels. There was a time when Mayonnaise, for instance, came in glass jars. And when the mayo was all used up, the glasses got washed and used for drinking. They only got thrown away when they broke.  No one depended on petroleum products for their mayonnaise storage and no one registered for hundreds of dollars in glassware on bridal registries. There was a time everyone wore hand me downs, and when they finally died, they became cleaning rags, or ties for tomato plants, or even portions of quilts, not electric blankets, for cold winters’ nights. We didn’t throw it away!

But things got hectic, small businesses grew into/ got absorbed by big businesses. People worked for these big businesses, then the women got jobs too and all of a sudden, there was no time to sew a quilt or darn a sock or wash a jar. So the things that could have been mended became disposable and then even they became too inefficient, and they were replaced, with cheaper products of lesser quality that didn’t last. Automobiles made in 1950s still run today. Do the cars from the 1990’s do that?

What was wrong with the stuff that actually lasted in the first place? Don’t we all want to get our money’s worth from products that not only last, but can be re-purposed? Do we have to spend money we don’t have on “green labeled” products from big corporations when, any home remedy book will tell you that whatever good ol’ fashioned vinegar can’t clean, baking soda can?  And what, pray tell, was wrong with the workers that produced the products that made the Made in the USA label synonymous with quality? They wanted to get paid?

We, in the United States, actually did just  fine without, I would estimate, 90% of the things that all these too-big-to-fail-corporations produce for us. Now, they aren’t providing the jobs, and we still feel like we have to purchase their products. They think our workers became too inefficient and needed to be replaced? Do they really want us to think that we are as disposable as the products they produce?  Well, I say, if we are replaceable, SO ARE THEY!

I am obsessed with this list at Petroleum.com. Take a couple of minutes, review it and challenge yourself to see how many of those things, have been or could be substituted with something that’s not petroleum based. It’s easier than ya think. Then, broaden your thinking the products from all big corporations. When’s the last time you have made ANY purchase and expected it to last? Be honest with yourself. When’s the last time you have applied for a job and expected it to last? Be honest. See a pattern here?

We are Americans. Our freedom was hard fought. I wonder how many of those revolutionaries are rolling over in their graves as Corporate America disposes of us, the working class, one by one. Cutting education so we don’t learn to think for ourselves, creating unaffordable health care so we are too sick and feeble to stand up for ourselves?  Cutting our jobs, so we are too preoccupied with getting food on the table to pay attention to what “they” are doing. Creating mindless bickering amongst political parties…what happened to United We Stand, Divided We Fall? Well, we certainly are divided, because we are broke and because we are broken, but surely we aren't disposable- we can be mended and we can be re-purposed. For what you might ask? Maybe it's time we decided.

Starting Over

America: The World's First Post-Industrial State? by Dustin Ensinger on October 22, 2010

I just came across this article a couple of weeks ago, but it’s been bugging me ever since. The article is very informative with plenty of statistics supporting the claim that America very well will be, probably already is, by this point, considered a post-industrial state.  Really? Our number one export is, literally, garbage? That’s just wrong on so many levels.

The article bugged me, specifically, because while the statistics are incredibly important, it offered no actual solutions to such a crisis. Knowledge only becomes powerful when we actually use it to create a better tomorrow.

So, industry has moved out of America. Now what? Do we just give up? There was no “industry” in America when it first became America either, but our predecessors found needs and niches and simply made stuff and offered services in response to the needs of  the consumers. None of these pre-industrialists made millions of dollars, necessarily, but they rolled up their sleeves and worked hard and earned themselves food on the table and a roof over their heads and clothes on their backs. Not starting a whole other debate here, but they did this without any government entitlements, before there was Social Security, Medicare, welfare and unemployment insurance. There were no unions and no bailouts. There were no retirement funds and pensions. This country started out with a whole bunch of sole proprietors. That’s it. There were farmers and blacksmiths and  bakers and seamstresses. Everyone contributed, for the sole purpose of eeking out a living, and as a result, everyone benefited from the products and services that were provided.

As sole proprietorships grew into small businesses and then, of course, into big businesses, people in America became increasingly accustomed to working FOR someone and depending on someone else for paychecks and services. When you think of it that way, it’s almost like the big bosses of big business were handing out an allowance to their employees.  Then, people began to expect the government to provide allowances for them as well. I am not saying any of this is necessarily BAD, there are certainly social services, such as public education, for example, that are tremendous assets to our society. With this dependence on big business to provide products and services, as well as jobs, we, the working class, found ourselves in a position of being the beggar  and Corporate America has realized it.

This happened before, when we were colonists dependent on Mother England. When we decided we had had enough of having no control over where our tax dollars, sent to England, were being spent, we simply did something about it. We took the initiative and went out on our own and took control of our own circumstances (so to speak.)

We can certainly do it again. If, as the article states, America does virtually nothing other than create trash and consume things, then we certainly know there is a buyer’s market right here. It is possible turn the tables and cut Corporate America out of OUR equation, especially since they already cut the American workers out of theirs. We don’t need a huge industrial complex to provide jobs and services. The fruits and veggies from your local farmers have no preservatives, require no transport (saving on fuel costs) and, to my knowledge, have NEVER gotten recalled. Your local butcher shop does their own quality control on the meat products they sell. A friend of mine uses a local tax preparer during income tax time, because the preparer makes house calls. I don’t think H&R Block does that. 

We, as a nation of consumers, have become complacent. We no longer expect the quality and excellence in services and products that was once synonymous Made in the USA because, alas, we think there isn’t much left that’s Made in the USA. So many of us are forgetting that we have the power to change that, we have arms and legs and muscles and minds and skills from years of working for others. Maybe it’s time we use them. The slate’s already been wiped clean by Corporate America. Maybe it’s time to take that leap and invest in ourselves again. Maybe it’s time for starting over.

Can Superman Make a Super World?

Superman Renounces U.S. Citizenship in 'Action Comics' #900

Wow! I, admittedly, have never even read any comics that haven’t appeared in my daily newspaper, but I still knew enough about Superman and this one kinda blind sided me.

A lot of different thoughts started spinning around in my head when I read the explanation in the linked article above from Comics Alliance.com. Basically, as Superman realizes that by being known, worldwide, as an advocate for “truth, justice and the American way” has also saddled himself with the responsibility that comes with such popularity. Interestingly, for the longest time, the United States has been advocating for truth, justice and the American way and has used it’s label as a world superhero (ahem, power) as well. I see symbolism here! Is the United States at the same crossroads? It seems that when the United States does interact with other nations around the world, even the utmost diplomacy often puts us in a situation where someone misconstrues something we say or do and gets pissed and then, we end up in, yet another, conflict. Maybe we just can’t please everybody?  If we do too much to help someone else, we are meddling, if we don’t do enough, we are negligent. And all along the way, of trying to provide the porridge that is “just right” we, our own citizens, are the ones that are going hungry.

When I first read the headline, I thought that Superman was giving up on the United States. For the longest time, I looked at the history books, saw a glorious time of economic prosperity when the United States went through its Isolationist Period. There are a number of Americans who think that this might be the best direction to take. The last time we did, we did well for ourselves and fixed up our own “home” pretty nicely. Lord only knows we have plenty of housekeeping of our own, the economic turmoil, political infighting, environmental catastrophes, crime, ad infinitum. It would make perfect sense that the United States takes a step back from fixing everyone else’s problems and work on our own. It’s really no surprise that people outside the United States are often so resistant to the concept of us trying to help them be more like us. It’s almost laughable, except that, as far as many are concerned, we are so busy busying ourselves with the affairs of others so that we can avoid cleaning our own messes. Fair enough.  I don’t think that Superman IS giving up on the United States though. It’s not that our mess isn’t worth cleaning, I think it might be that Superman noticed that we could make our whole global “neighborhood” nicer  by working alongside other nations to make the whole neighborhood pretty,  instead of hunkering ourselves down in our own little messy home.

There’s the argument for Globalism.It’s kind of funny, because, using the first definition, putting the world’s needs above the needs of a specific nation, takes the whole concept of the “United States melting pot” global. Thinking of the people as a whole, while retaining certain individual liberties. There’s the argument that we are all part of a global community that lives in a global home, which is the Earth. The internet has provided to us limitless opportunity to make personal connections with anyone and everyone across the globe. People, in previous generations, never knew the horrors of war, for instance, until the morning paper and the evening news was able to bring actual pictures and footage to us while we ate our family meals. It was then that we began to understand the implications of our actions and the actions of others far beyond any explanation that the government had provided to us previously. Information in it’s truest form is never biased, but that footage, grotesque and scary, certainly created bias . Yes, everyone should be free, but at what cost? And if we tell them they should be free, and if we push for their freedom, are they really free? Now, the internet takes it to another level, allowing the oppressed in Egypt to organize protests, on their own, freely and achieve their own agendas, without the need or want of help from the superpower that is (?) the United States. The colonists that formed the United States were certainly not world superpowers and they achieved the success that was, is and hopefully always will be the United Sates. So then, if other people in other nations don’t need us to fight their battles for them, maybe we can embrace Globalism from a new perspective that could allow the United States and the rest of the world to attain peace and prosperity.

A little hokey? Perhaps. Naïve? Possibly? I personally have about a hundred other silly clichés that I could use here, but the thing is, the reason clichés are clichés is because they are perennially applicable. We ALWAYS have the opportunity to make choices that point us in the direction of peace and prosperity. Maybe this is the time where we actually could take the road less traveled.  We could take a step back, realize that while the way we have been doing things for this long isn’t the worst way to get things done, there’s always room for improvement.

So, to you Superman, I say good luck. Maybe this time, you can save the world for us. Or maybe, we can save it for ourselves!

Growing Pains

So, I started this page on Facebook for my blog a couple of weeks ago, basically because while my thoughts on politics and on society are far from extreme, it seemed, to my dismay, that most in my circle of friends, for whatever reasons, just didn’t want their minds to go where my thoughts might take them. We all have our lives to lead, we all have responsibilities that often exhaust us to the point where we just don’t have the time or the energy to be the Fool on the Hill that gets to sit and watch the world spinning round (The Beatles, paraphrased quote from the actual song, Fool on the Hill.) The gist of the song, is that there is a guy, that sits on the hill, watching everyone below him living their lives. The question raised by the song, in my estimation, is whether HE is a fool for watching and learning about the happenings of the people below, or are we the fools for not taking the time during the hustle and bustle of our lives, to pay attention? Neither, the fool on the hill, or the people below are actually experiencing life completely. Is there a happy medium?

So, I started the blog, suggested it to a couple of friends and started commenting on my favorite Facebook pages, probing, I suppose, to see if there was anyone else out there who might want to share in a discussion, who might see even a bit of what I see, the way I see it. And people DID like it! So, now, I feel compelled to write for them, instead of for me, which was the whole antithesis of the reason behind the blog. So, Friday, when I usually try to post on my blog, was filled with the necessity to write something, and since it was Earth Day, I thought I should write about that. I tried, I had an idea, which I am sure I will later revisit, but my research was coming up VERY dry. Then I realized, that, being that we LIVE on Earth, every day should be Earth day and since it first started in the 1970s, maybe it’s about time we DO make taking care of our home an occurrence that happens everyday. Seriously? Do we only vacuum one day a year? Do we only take garbage out one day a year?  I am sure some of us do, but I will digress.

Earth Day, to me, is as much about the Earth as it is those who inhabit it. Generally, people who are HAPPY in their homes are more likely to take care of their homes. So, why aren’t we so happy?

There are powerful nations on this Earth that have been around for hundreds of years. The United States’ birthday is logged in the history books as July 4, 1776. In comparison to other countries, the US is still in its adolescence. In our youth, we emerged energetic and ready for action. We wanted our independence and we fought hard for it. We declared to our Mamma England, that we can do it (to quote my 3 year old) BY OURSELVES! And we did. We did do it by ourselves. We took our small corner markets and we prospered. Everyone had a craft or a purpose and we all made enough to get by. We opened our doors, borders, to people that could be our friends. And they came in and they worked hard and they prospered as well. Then the Industrial Revolution came about, and we still all knew what it meant to spill blood for a cause, whether it be independence from another country, or whether it meant the independence that comes along with pay day. We had the energy of happy, spirited children that had a goal and just went after it.

We were a savvy bunch. In America, you could go from rags to riches and no one could get in your way. Of course, as Darwin’s “Survival of the Fittest” may suggest, the savvier ones rose farther and higher. It was okay, though, because after the Industrial Revolution, working conditions evened out, thanks to the unification of the workers, and we transitioned into a glorious time just like the Donna Reed Show said it was. All innocence was lost after that, like when we find out the truth about Santa and the Easter Bunny and sex (for the first time!) We were divided over the necessity of American soldiers dying in a crazy place called Vietnam and we didn’t like the ones that came home, because TV footage had, for the first time, brought the inexplicable violence into our living rooms during dinner.

It’s then that we entered our adolescence, as a country. Questioning our leaders for the first time in a long time. Realizing the truth that, just like parents, the representatives that we hire to make decisions for us, really might not know best, because they are human and make mistakes and are susceptible to urges and inclinations that the rest of us are. So, we rebelled in the 1960s and even the 1970s, protesting, experiencing life in other “realms” and such. By the time the 1980s hit, we were freakin tired of all that- like a teenager that forms a little garage band and then can’t do our chores, like monitoring our government of the people.

Technology made it easy to get lazy. Why walk when you can drive? Why buy American when it’s cheaper to buy good made in China? Televisions and VCRs transitioned into where we are now. Who remembers what it felt like in 1776 when the Colonists decided that the freedom they wanted WAS worth fighting for? Who remembers being willing to lay down one’s life for a cause? It’s easy to say that we are a bunch of spoiled teenagers, the Democrats and the Republicans, fighting so much amongst ourselves that we have totally lost sight of the real goal and purpose, fairness, justice and freedom, and then we have the new kid on the block, the Tea Party that comes in and does nothing, but add to the turmoil.

It’s time to grow America up. It’s time that we decide if we want Corporate America to dictate how we live, like my parents that instituted a 2am curfew until a week before I got married. Ya don’t like the way things are going? You don’t like what America has decided you get to do? Then change it. We don’t have to do what Egyptians did, we don’t have to protest in the streets. Besides, what do most protests achieve? Recognition? Yes. Results? Sorry to say, not so much. Nowadays, everyone is screaming at each other and placing blame, but no one is coming up with actual solutions.

Mine? Well, I am not a big political theorist and I don’t have a doctorate in Sociology or anything. I do vote though, and I am a citizen. I am more than happy to admit when someone else has a better idea, but until then, I am gonna keep suggesting mine. It can’t hurt. What’s the easiest way to stop the One Percenters from dictating our lives as Mother England once did? Cut them out of the picture! Do I mean a revolution with guns and forts? No. This nation prospered when small business was king. When we had corner stores and corner bars and corner churches, we walked everywhere, which meant no pollution and very little obesity. We got our food from local farmers, which meant no preservatives and no weird effects. Everyone knew everyone and trusted everyone, which meant no abductions or molestations. We had small, corner schools, there were no Columbine incidents back then.

United We Stand, Divided We Fall. We used to be a melting pot, now, we are like a meal on one of those sectioned plates from the junior high cafeteria. Diversity is fine, but right now, we need to remember that the enemy is not the person next to you that may have a different job or a different color skin or even, dare I say, a different country of origin. We are fighting FOR the middle/ working class. That is what MADE America, through working hard and, actually, it’s what DEFINES us and sets us aside from so many other countries that don’t acknowledge the rights and the plights of the common folk. And we still have the fight and the work ethic in us- it’s in our heritage! This country can settle into adulthood just fine. We just have to step it up a notch, take responsibility and make it work. Stop the bickering, figure out a Plan B and make it happen. We have been up against so much worse and done so much better.

I am kind of silly to think that a blog with a whopping 32 likes is a responsibility or that anyone really cares if I update it regularly, but who knows, with enough dedication and steady work, I could make it into something more. On Friday, I spent most of the day doing a thousand and one other things, mostly legit, I have little kids, and also avoiding having to write, stepping up, and standing behind my ideas, but, at the “witching hour,” I sucked it up, like a grown up, and forced myself to write. Thirty two likes might not seem like a lot to pretty much anyone, but to me it does. It’s hope. It’s 32 people that just might see possibilities. That’s 32 people that know the difference between fighting for a cause and yelling at someone. It’s 32 people that take a little bit of time everyday to be The Fool.

Hope everyone had a great Earth Day! For you Christian folk…I hope your Good Friday was solemn and that your Easter is joyous!

Pocket Change

Yosemite National Park Battling Ticket Scalpers

Is THIS what people are doing since there are no jobs? Golly gee! I know we all need extra cash, especially with energy costs and food costs skyrocketing. It seems like everything is increasing except for our bank accounts, but there ARE plenty of other ways to get a couple extra bucks that actually have a bit more couth than scalping tickets to experience our natural resources.

Hobbies- with the internet available, there are countless ways to make a buck, often doing what you do just to relax. Consumers are reacting to the disposable society we seem to have fallen into and they are looking for value when they dig deep in their pockets for pretty much anything. They want to know their purchase is worth the hours of toiling that the price tag equates. Whether you like to sew, or crochet, or even play with beads, quality craftsmanship is appreciated. You can crochet a beautiful afghan in the time it takes to watch a tv miniseries. Put it online, with sites like Etsy or even eBay and, as long as you make more than the cost of the yarn and the shipping costs, you’ve come out ahead!

Freelancing- with legitimate sites like vWorker and E-lance, there are legitimate, protected ways to be your own boss, pick and choose projects for which you are legitimately skilled, and keep your skills fresh. There are people that make quite a substantial living by freelancing online. The best part? No commute, no business casual and no take out!

Temping- at least until you find yourself a full time job, temping is a great way to supplement your household income and simultaneously,  take much of the aggravation out of the job hunt. Many companies specifically prefer dealing with temp agencies for the purposes of screening and hiring applicants and now you aren’t out pounding the pavement. Added bonus? You have NO office politics in which to get involved, no need to chip in for birthdays and the like, and, very little competence is generally expected of you, so just performing what is asked of you for your full shift turns you into a ROCK STAR! Plus, you can schedule work around your life and not get fired for it!

Consignment- it’s Spring cleaning time! You spend probably 30 minutes, minimum, per wardrobe, packing away winter clothing, evaluating what no longer fits or looks bad and then dropping the items off at goodwill. Well, make that project more worthwhile! Take the unwanted items to a consignment shop and get a couple of bucks towards new purchases. By doing so, you are supporting a local business, and if you end up BUYING something vintage while there, that would be a purchase that’s not going into the pockets of big business, but instead into the local economy. Win-win!

Home businesses- you already pay for lighting, heating and internet access  in your home. Why not write it off on your taxes for business purposes? When corporate America decides it no longer needs your skills, what better time than now to take those skills and make them work for you?  There are a number of fabulous, legitimate small business opportunities available to people with little or no previous self employment skills. Avon, Mary Kay, and Barefoot Books are three fabulous examples of companies that provide limitless support to build a profitable business simply by following their business models. There are no insurmountable hurdles if you put as much effort into these businesses as you do meandering through Facebook in the course of a day.

Writing- Unemployed and broke? Political and pissed? Super at potty training? The internet has created an environment that allows everyone to have a possible audience for their thoughts.  Start a blog, document your thoughts, allow for advertising on your blog and see where it takes you. At the very least, venting your thoughts is therapeutic!

Nothing I have mentioned will necessarily bring you millions, but innovative thinking to save, or make, a couple of bucks still provides you with a couple of bucks in your pocket. Who can argue with that?

The Beginning of the End?

More Americans leaving workforce

Okay folks, brace yourself here, I am feeling an extreme rush of optimism after reading the above article, but shall deliver it with the necessary sarcasm and cynicism to which you have undoubtedly become accustomed.

More Americans Leaving Workforce was the title of the article. I am not illustrating that because I am writing a third grade book report, but because of the slant, whether or not it was intentional , that title jumped right off my laptop screen and smacked me upside the head! Americans are LEAVING the workforce?!?! Are you kidding me? If the word leaving is synonymous with getting one’s ass drop kicked to the curb, then yes, I suppose leaving is an appropriate choice of words.

After having been laid off and spending days, weeks and arduous months looking for a job, I was at first rather offended by the tone of the title. It was as if the Americans were choosing to just not work and who did USA Today think they were? And then, the quintessential light bulb popped itself over my head.

The article itself is mostly regurgitating the employment statistics, aside from the insanely tonal title and maybe a line or two about whose fault it is, but that title kept at me. What if Americans are actually leaving the workforce? What if, they have had all they can take of schlepping themselves off to 60 hour work weeks? What if they are tired of making their employers a necessity when to said employers, those Americans are barely considered even an option? 

This country was made great by the hard work, tenacity, dedication and good ol’ fashioned blood, sweat and tears of the American worker. Workers worked hard for an honest day’s pay, produce a top notch service/ product  about which they could surely be proud. The United States was also made prosperous by the ingenuity, business sense and vision to build the great companies that produced the superior product or service. (Are you hearing “God Bless America,” yet?) What’s my point?

Why SHOULD Americans go back to the work force that doesn't appreciate them? Why would workers toil for a boss that no longer has vision other than that of the board room and the stock tickers?

For the longest time, I have held onto the belief that we, in the United States, are inches away from the revolution that occurred in Eqypt. I am not standing with a sandwich board that says, “The World Is Ending,” I am not saying we should be screaming in the streets, and quite honestly, I am not even sure the protests that have been staged about the Unions and about taxes or illegal immigration are going to help. We need ingenuity. We need to think outside of the box. We need to get back to the thinking, and attitude, and the spirit that once made America great.

So, let’s hit ‘em where it really hurts. Let’s stage a different kind of revolution that removes Corporate America from OUR equation. What have they done for us? Let’s remind them that they need us way more than they think they do. Why wait for someone else to sign your paycheck when you can simply sign it yourself? In the early days of the United States, pretty much everyone made a living working for themselves. They didn’t always make a fortune, but the necessities were achieved. Guess what? Even working for a big corporation now, most people are simply achieving the basics anyway.

The middle class is filled with the workers that know how to do the job, produce the product and provide the service. Small businesses, singular consultants, got swallowed up by corporations in years gone by because they didn’t have the means to go global- now, EVERYONE who has internet access and a shipping company nearby can do it. How many times have you sat in your stuffy cubicle or toiled over an assembly line only to have your boss come over to you,  give you an order  which you realized was the most idiotic thing ever? How many times have you thought to yourself, “My way would be much better?” The truth is, you were probably right. So take that idea, the one that would make the products/ services from which your big corporation bosses are making obscene amounts of money think is wrong and do it right. What’s that old saying? See a need, fill a need?

Maybe this is Atlas Shrugged and maybe the middle class is tired of carrying the burden of the corporations and those one percenters on their shoulders. Maybe it’s time for the ones that really do all the work to drop out of the standard workforce. There was a time when a job with a multi-national conglomerate came with security- sustainable incomes, job security, retirement funds and quality health care access. Those perks are all but gone now, so, honestly….what ARE those jobs doing for us? They don’t need us anymore? Well, maybe, just maybe, we don’t need them either.

Is the world ending? Is the economy plummeting? Maybe, but maybe that means it’s high time for a new beginning- on OUR terms.

The Sky Is Falling! The Sky Is Falling!

I publish a number of blogs, most of which are centered on methods of living life within our means- trying to take a common sense approach  to achieving a life of balance and efficiency, for ourselves and even future generations. There are lots of tried and true tips out there, ideas that worked in the past, ideas that have been tweaked to work for decades henceforth. Knowing that I could chip away at the trials and tribulations of navigating such a dynamic world with such measly means, makes me happy enough and gives me hope.

Then, I sit down to my computer (earlier this week by the time this gets published,) and see:

The Working Class Has Sacrificed Enough! It’s Time The Wealthy Pay Up

Gong Show Government and the End of the World

It's the Inequality, Stupid

All of a sudden, my calm, coupon cutting acceptance of the fact that, while I may never wipe my ass with silk toilet paper, I can be contented with a roof over my head and full bellies around the dinner table, turns into chicken little-esque screaming, in the virtual streets of my Facebook news feed, sensationalist, panicked lyrics from Les Miserables!

At this moment, all I feel is fear! Fear that the economy will indeed recover, but never for me. I get conspiracy theorist seeing articles like:

Plutocracy Reborn

Ex-State Department spokesman: WikiLeaks, New York Times did the same thing

Budget Deal Needed To Avoid Spending Train Wreck, Government Shutdown

But the truth is that while they aren’t conspiracy theorist, I certainly wish they were. I am certain, at this point in my disintegration, that the world ending 2012 is not literal, the Earth will not implode or explode, but that the world as we once knew it will indeed be gone. I am convinced that none of us can probably even remember the last time we voted for someone to represent us based on the fact that we knew in our heart that they had integrity. I decide that maybe it’s really not worth busting my ass to try to break even, cause it’s not going to matter in the end. I want to take my family, drop off the grid, go to some deserted island or some obscure side of a mountain and live off the land. I don’t want my children to live in such inequity. I don’t want them to know want or have needs that aren’t addressed. I am mother lion at this point. I don’t have the heart to tell my happy with today husband about the world falling apart when he’s not looking. I don’t want to break the news to my parents, who have spent decades working hard and saving their modest income, that it was all for nothing. “I will not go quietly in the night and I will not vanish without a fight!” (Haha, that was a tweaked quote from Independence Day, I substituted my “I”s for the “We”s.) I am ready, there is no longer time for patient acquiescence- I will rally my working class friends and we will prepare our barricade!!!

But, then I stop. Is that what “they” want us to do? Do “they,” with their ridiculous mounds of money from a life spent in public office or building giant corporations that don’t pay taxes, want us to rise up, only so that they can stomp us out for good? Then, I resign myself, maybe there is no point? IS there a way out?

I revisit the world of the rational for a moment. The only thing I can logically think of that MIGHT help set things straight would be term limits. We would have to somehow get it as a national referendum- is that even possible? With term limits, WE the People can stomp out career politicians that make choices in the best interests of everyone, but the working class folks. We can vote for a candidate, with both the candidate and ourselves knowing full well, that by the time the term of office is over, the candidate will absolutely be returning to the ranks of the rest of us schmucks- working for a living. With no term limits, there would be no pensions to be paid, no need for focusing on re-election. Serving the public would become a temp job. It would be a way to serve the country by trying to make it better. The offices would be served with the knowledge that the compensation would be equal to the median salary of the constituency. So, if the average Joe in So and So’s district makes $30K a year, without gas mileage comps or healthcare benefits, then so would So and So. How about that for ensuring empathy?  How about we level the playing field, create a real life round table around which Knights and (what? Dames?)  can sit and make choices that will benefit We the People. A round table where no one, save the President, maybe, has seniority that bullies any freshmen representatives, cause they are all fresh (wo)MEN that are eager to make good choices (like I prompt my preschoolers) and know how to hit the ground running.  

And maybe, just maybe, our representatives will actually take their duties seriously , in accordance with the principles set forth by the revolutionaries that helped shape this nation of United States. Maybe the poor and the working class will, once again have a fighting chance at actually pursuing and achieving life, liberty and happiness.

As I write this, I truly feel I have a better chance of winning the coveted big lottery jackpot. My thoughts drift to that time a couple of months ago when all the animals were inexplicably dying at the exact time that Wikileaks was releasing earth shattering documents. Coincidence? I am weary. I can’t remember the last time I have felt confident in any truth that has been offered to me. I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t pissed off when I voted for the lesser of however many evils.

At this point, my five year old little boy comes into the room and gives me a big hug with an even bigger smile. It’s not his fault he was born into this horrific mess, but it is my job to protect him from it. We are in an age of entitlement, and we have been for far too long. Isn’t that how things were right before Rome began its descent? The great thing about the economic disparity is that, because there are so few at the top, the rest of us bottom feeders have the numbers on our side. I don’t advocate violence, by any means, but there are a lot of ways to fight back, and I think it’s time that we Americans remember what it means to fight for something that we hold dear to our hearts.  Egypt did it, and something tells me we can, too.

But until then? Back to clipping coupons.

Trade Ya for a Better Economy?

According to Dictionary.com, the first listed definition of value is, “relative worth, merit, or importance,” in other words the worthiness, merit or importance of an abstract or concrete entity in relation to another abstract or concrete entity.  I would conjecture that the list of our most valuables would indeed be a matter of character and maybe even morality. What do you most value? Generally, that’s a question one might hear in a philosophy class or maybe even resonating throughout a religious assembly from clergy standing at a pulpit. It might seem that what is valuable is, or should be, as far removed from the world of finance as the unemployed are from finding a lifestyle sustaining job in the United States.

What do I value most? What in my life is worth the ultimate sacrifice?

Well, that would be my children and my husband- my family. Abstract entities that are valuable to me? Time, love, security and space. Next on my list of valuables would be the slightly more practical necessities: food, water, shelter, warmth, clothing (especially after two cesareans, this gal doesn’t wanna do the nudist thing!)

It would be at this rung on the Ladder of What Matters where I would probably insert some kind of landing area because anything else I could add is just fluff. What is kinda neat about the top tier of this fool’s values is that all of those valuables CAN indeed be gotten without any money exchanging hands. Am I going all Ted Nugent on your ass here? Maybe, maybe not. It is true that not every one of us is in a position to build our own log cabin or hunt our own meat. Some of us don’t even have room to grow our own vegetable gardens and quite frankly, I can’t remember learning how to sheer sheep and spin it into wool to make clothing in my high school home economics class. Honestly though, doesn’t this mean we can’t? Or does it mean there are other things we would prefer to do with our time and resources.

Early on, maybe even before the emergence of homo sapiens, we realized that some of us have a certain affinity for producing a specific good or service and that maybe it made more sense to let them be brilliant at THEIR craft so that we could hone the necessary skills for brilliance within OUR craft. “You cook, I’ll do the dishes?”  That folks, is called bartering. Exchanging a good or service for another good or service. Both parties involved in the self legislated transaction, where each party walks away with a valuable commodity. There’s no speculation, there’s no regulation, there’s no taxation. There’s no unions or management. There’s no outsourcing or globalization or pensions or social security. There’s no entitlements and no lobbyists. There’s no stock holders and there are no off shore accounts. There’s no inflation or deflation and there are certainly no stimuli or bailouts. It’s pure, unadulterated commerce. What sounds like a fantastic utopia has actually been right here, hiding, under layers and layers of ideas perpetuated by people trying to “fix somethin’ that just ain’t broken.”

In 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt nullified the “gold standard” in the United States, which meant that the dollar bill was to be no longer backed by a portion of gold sitting in Fort Knox. Instead, the United States government would decide how much the dollar was worth. My personal assumption would be that, at the time, this decision was integral to FDR’s plan for the US’s recovery from the Great Depression; however, this action always takes my mind to the board game Monopoly. At the moment FDR enacted this policy, he pretty much equated  the dollar bill with its Monopoly counterpart. Is it really okay for the government to decide what something is worth to us (or the US, for that matter?) Because, by removing gold as a physical backing for the currency, we might as well use it buy one of those little plastic hotels for Boardwalk.

Obviously, I am oversimplifying a undoubtedly complex system, one that many have spent a whole time manipulating and mastering. Golly gee, maybe I just ain’t quite sophisticated enough to decide what is valuable to me. Maybe I need the government to determine the worth and the value for my life.

Or maybe, just maybe, we really can determine value for ourselves. According to U.S. Small Business Association’s Web site, , as of 2008 SBA.gov, there were 29.6 million businesses in the United States and , as of 2007, 21.7 million of them had no employees. So, that means that approximately 21.7 million people in the US have figured out that they want to determine their own values as well. They want to be able to determine their own worth, and the worth of the services/ products that they produce and, surprise, surprise, if they were considered businesses, it means they had customers/ clients. What if we were to take that concept one step further, and just eliminate the paper/ electronic currency from the transaction entirely? Hmmm, I wonder if that would be considered tax evasion?

What if, I produced a product and charged $5.00 for purchase of said product, but on that price tag, along with the $5.00, there was a picture of 2 chickens? What if you could have my product for the price of two chickens, that could be placed in my freezer and used to feed my family, or simply pay the five dollars? What if my store was on a country road, and if you decided to erect a windmill to produce electricity on your neighboring property and what if I gave you X amount of doohickeys that I produce, so that I could have some of the electricity that your windmill produces to power the lights in my store?

Something to think about?

Well, you and I aren’t the only ones thinking now. As per a quick google search of “bartering movements,” I found:

Bring Back Old-time Bartering by Roland McShane 2008

The Barter Project #2 By Sharon Knight

The Barter News Web Site

Bartering in Place of Currency in Today’s Economy

Barter, Trade, and Share – Save Money and Strengthen Our Community by By Sono-Ma Holly | Published: June 2, 2010

Apparently, what I thought was an innovative, cutting edge idea, has been re-surging for quite a few years. Strength in numbers, I suppose? Maybe, just maybe, our economy is really so broken that we have to scrap it and start over. I don’t know, but, can the current system really get much worse? <shuddering>

Chinese Professor

Chinese Professor Commercial

So, in the age of digital video recording, it has, apparently, taken me over a month  to see the Chinese Professor commercial put out by a group called Citizens Against Government Waste. I was aghast when I first saw the spot, which permeated my senses during a bit of time where the television was just on for background noise. I paused said commercial, called the husband in for his take (as one might do for a good play during a football game) and then I just had to consult the other half of my two-person never ending salon,. I felt like I had to tell everyone about this Orwellian prognostication that was so bold that it  felt like fire and brimstone was certain to be raining down upon my future, 50 year old self.

My political best buddy and I have enjoyed years’ worth of political/ socioeconomic discussions and while we have rarely agreed on the causes of our nations’ abundant problems, or even the possible solutions, we have always agreed on the necessary outcomes. That’s why our conversations have always given me such hope for our nation, because while he and I often find ourselves at the opposite ends of the political spectrums, we agree that a financially solvent, socially and environmentally responsible nation should be the number one focus of our legislators.

When I first asked my friend for his thoughts on the commercial, he exclaimed that it was, “so right wing!” My head thoughtfully tipped to the side after that comment, as I hadn’t even noticed whether the commercial had a bias. The commercial, in my estimation, was basically emphasizing a very basic principle in managing a budget. If you don’t have enough money to pay your bills, it’s generally not responsible to spend more money or, you are gonna get yourself in trouble. Pure and simple.

So, as a nation, we have gotten ourselves in trouble, financially, well, except for the uber wealthy, that is. The whole three class infrastructure is in trouble, soon there will be only the rich and the poor and then the rich can just pick up and move somewhere, like China, and exploit more hard working people, squeeze them dry and soak every last bit of sweat out of them. Maybe a sequel to the China commercial will be in 2130, when the working class Chinese decide they want to work for sustainable wages and healthcare benefits, and safe working conditions, and maybe a retirement fund. But, just cause you are a wealthy person, or a wealthy corporation, does not mean you are necessarily exploitative. There’s nothing wrong with reaping rewards from ingenuity, hard work and sound business decisions.

We need a balance in this country. Corporations need to make money, the working class needs to make money and the poor need to make money. As we operate today, the Chinese Professor commercial is 100% inevitable. If all we do all day is point fingers at one another, saying you are wrong cause you are a democrat, or you are wrong because you are right wing, all we are going to have accomplished at the end of the day is an overworked pointer finger. NOTHING ELSE!  

It is our duty, as responsible citizens in this union of states, to hold our governmental representatives, the individuals that we HIRED to make decisions on our collective behalf, accountable for their choices in spending our money. It doesn’t mean we need to cut preschool education programs or the programs designed to aid the elderly and disabled, it just means they need to make responsible, pragmatic decisions with our money. It means the legislators do have to answer to us and they need to start earning their own astronomical paychecks with their astronomical benefits. Would we pay a cleaning person extra if they came into our homes and made a mess? Would we pay a realtor that sold our homes behind our backs or a financial advisor that took our money and just gave it away  or even a gardener that ripped up all our pretty flowers and dumped oil in the soil?

There’s nothing right wing, or left wing, or democratic or republican about remembering that our legislators work for US (pun intended there.) There’s nothing partisan about expecting accountability and responsibility from our government. We have been divided amongst ourselves for entirely too long. These problems WILL not be solved by finger pointing, they will not be solved by people forming special exclusive clubs (political parties) with multi-million dollar membership dues or any other playground stupidity. If we continue to remain divided, we will indeed be conquered, if not by the Chinese, then assuredly someone else. It is time, instead, to unite and stand up for the principles upon which this country did once achieve greatness- hard work, integrity and perseverance. We are way past the point of the  time wasting blame game. All the pennant waving and button wearing does not balance our budget or cut into our deficit and it’s certainly not in the job description of any governmental representative. So maybe all of our representatives, left and right, need come front and center , put down their toys, stop their pouting and do what their electors hired them to do, or pretty soon, the next time someone cries while reading the Declaration of Independence, it will be in Chinese history books!

If You Want to Be in OUR Club…

Political Spectrum Quiz

Be honest- ya know ya wanna take it! In a world where we are often too busy to even form a complete thought, burning five minutes on a self analyzing quiz gives us time to breathe, time to talk about ourselves and provide answers (most, albeit for entertainment purposes only) to many of life’s unanswerable questions.

This quiz, however, requires no “Facebook credits” or no “completion of this quiz” for answers and does more than predict when you are going to die or who you are going to marry. It reminds us of  a completely overlooked complexity of United States politics.

Officially, the United States in a representative (republican) democracy. The democracy part means that every citizen has equal representation and an equal voice in decisions made regarding this country. The representative part means that we acknowledge that it’s all but unfeasible to expect that every citizen in this country could efficiently vote on every issue facing our nation, and still have time for a normal life. So we democratically elect representatives to do the decision making on our behalf. Back in the old days, part of this was because information moved so slowly that decision making for every individual citizen meant doing so with limited information. NOW, there is such an information overload, that the average citizen has simply no time to analyze it all and make an educated decision. We have lives, and jobs, and families. Basically, it’s not much different than hiring a cleaning lady or a dog walker. We delegate the responsibility of making these decisions to people that we think would make the best decisions on our collective behalf.

When I first registered to vote, to be able to make an individual decision about each and every person that would represent my interests, I registered as a Democrat, because of the region in which I live. I loved being able to vote and the area was so predominantly Democrat that those who registered as Republicans hardly ever had a chance to vote in the Primary elections. Times have changed, there are now more Republican candidates in Northeastern Pennsylvania, but my registration has not for no other reason than the whole concept of political parties reminds me of the sheep in George Orwell’s Animal Farm.


Would I be a bad Democrat if I was to assert myself as pro choice? Would I be a bad Republican if I wanted to help the poor? How many dissenting opinions am I allowed to have before you kick me out of your club?  I like the idea of uniting for a specific cause- that kind of unity is what birthed our country. A bunch of people, upset about taxes and lack of representation, banding together to declare their freedom- that there’s some good stuff! But being part of a club that gives you a checklist of how you are supposed to feel on any number of otherwise unrelated issues (well, aside from the fact that everything really is interconnected) just seems wrong. If I wanted to be told how to make decisions for myself, I would go back to being five years old and asking my mommy.

Is it possible that the exclusive decision making that’s done by today’s political parties is what has disillusioned so many Americans regarding politics? Is it possible that citizens have just gotten sick and tired of being told what to do and how to feel or being made to feel like we are sitting alone at the lunch table cause our we don’t fit in with the people in the club?

My quiz results were surprising to me. As a registered Democrat, I found that I lean to the right regarding economic issues, am considered non-interventionist regarding foreign policy and am socially a libertarian. There were questions on the quiz, that I felt, deserved more than a multiple choice response from me, but alas, online quizzes rarely have an essay portion.  What I liked about this quiz was that it blatantly illustrated (with a cute little graph) that politics is so much more than black or white, Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative and that these labels put us in a position where we are getting lazy, sitting back and letting others tell us how to feel and how to vote. Granted, in this economy, it’s very easy to delegate that thinking to someone else, especially when were are all running around like chickens with the heads cut off just trying to break even at the end of the day, but sadly, these are the times when our decisions matter most and when we must remember that the great decisions in our country’s history came from regular people, not hired bureaucrats. The decisions that formed out country came from the people that thought outside the box in which the establishment told them to blindly stay. They united for a cause, and that cause was freedom- freedom from oppression and freedom to choose for themselves.

Maybe, it’s time we remember that, or maybe not. You decide.

Gas...It's a Fact of Life

So, we HAD to quench the thirst of our [free for a legitimate reason] ‘96 Ford Winstar today. It was painful, it shattered my begrudging hopes that the economy would indeed rebound (at least for us working class folks.) For the first time in my life, I yelled to my husband, “Don’t fill it!” I knew full well, that we had to fill it, cause eventually, we would just be refilling it again and probably at a higher price! It was already $3.43/ gallon!

If it was up to me, I would never drive again! I would be perfectly happy walking kids to school, walking to the grocery store and the pharmacy- it would be GOLDEN! But, alas, we have our own Indy 500 just a block away, which is NOT conducive to a 2 week grocery order and 2 preschoolers in tow. I hate winter, especially, with all of it’s snow and ice and such. I hate driving.  There are rude people on the road- old and young

But, the kids are 3 and 5, and they have little legs. Could they walk two miles to school? Sure. Could they function the rest of the day? Probably not. Really? Is this what the “Greatest Generation” bequest to us? It’s not totally their fault though. Not really their fault at all. They didn’t  make the choices their legislators made.

We are in a bad place. We are dependant on oil from a place that is NOT here. It COULD be from here, but it is not.  Why do we need the oil? Being dependant on someone else for our livelihood isn’t American, but it IS Global.

So, the total  cost at the gas station was about sixty dollars. It doesn’t sound like a lot in the grand scheme of things, especially with the prices of everything else escalating, but sixty dollars DOES matter to me and I can probably think of about sixty reasons WHY we shouldn’t be paying $3.43 for one gallon of gasoline. I am not going to delve into them all here, but I will touch on a few:

Alternative energy vehicles-  There’s an inventor in the Philippines who has come up with an electric car that has solar charging capabilities: Solar Car and there have been a number of other people that have retrofitted their vehicles to run on water and used vegetable oil and such. Also check out List of Alternative Fuels that lists almost 20 different options for fuel that would work in most vehicles currently on the roads today.

More local shops!- There’s a glorious time of yore when there was a market, local beer garden and church literally down the block from every home in the United State. Back then, there was little unemployment, children and adults alike COULD safely walk where they needed to go, so the occurrence of obesity was far lower, there was no hole in the Ozone Layer, because people only really “needed” to drive for special occasions like Sunday drives or  vacations to the shore during the summer. Local shops COULD easily repopulate and create a sustainable living for the owners by tapping into modern technology for some help. Grocers can create little eating areas, like counter top seating and a couple of café tables and invest in wi-fi for their establishments to encourage patrons. They easily create a Web site that would allow for access to an international customer base and send shop specific specialties far and wide.

Think trains not trucks! Much of the country is still covered in at least remnants of the glory that was rail travel and, of course, a number of trains STILL function quite well as a form of transport that’s less dependant on oil and exceptionally cost efficient. Jobs could be created in order to bring the lost tracks back to fruition. Truckers could be retrained to work trains (yes, I am proud of that alliteration there!) We COULD be as bold as to go back to steam engines, but our technology  just isn’t quite there yet with an alternative energy source for vehicle as large and fierce as a train. It’s still a possibility though..

Embrace the cyber world! If we really think about it, a ridiculously absurd amount of office jobs, really anything not specifically requiring manual labor, can be done from the home of anyone with HSD, a computer and access to Skype. For the cost of a computer, a wecam/ speakers/ microphone, internet service and Skype (or any Voice Over IP service like Vonage) we could avoid the costs of commuting, as well as work fashion, as well the need for a brick and mortar office building, aside from, at MOST a customer accessible little hub of a building. Secure networks allow for a virtual office for the handling of any level of sensitive information. Online chatting allows for contact with coworkers and superiors when there’s a need for escalation of an issue and/ or customer interaction. Even old fashioned phone customer service can be done from home with a quiet room and the other aforementioned prerequisites. Imagine a world with no more traffic jams, no road rage, no need for fast food (when ya got your own kitchen a couple of yards away.) I could go on and on about the benefits. And then, guess what? We won’t need petroleum products to keep ourselves functional, well, not to anywhere near the degree of necessity that we currently have.

According to Wikipedia, the first car was produced in 1902. Human beings have lived, survived and prospered for approximately 500,000 years prior to 1902, according to NASA. Something tells me that a world without petroleum products just might still be feasible.

So, maybe we need to respond like the innovative, frugal and resourceful Americans of the past, and change our own corner of the world. Your bank account will surely thank you.

Actually, It DOES Affect Us

A couple of action-packed weeks ago, I sat, enthralled, following every power-to-the- people moment of the protesting that eventually led to the stepping down of now former Egyptian President Mubarak. I would toggle between political commentaries, personal accounts, uninformative White House press releases and Al Jazeera’s live feed and comment aloud to my husband, or whoever else was in the mood for one of my soapbox rants.

I had never really devoted any thought to international politics, really, ever in my life. I just supposed I was a small working class gal living in a small working class town with my small, cozy working class family. Surely, I had my own life about which to worry. Plus, it seemed rather burdensome to keep straight in my head all the names of all the countries and all their respective leaders and geographical locations in the midst of formulating my own grocery lists other such critical factoids that kept my family fed and healthy and happy. Then, the economy tanked and it was like I woke up and discovered that neither my own little world, or the great big global society was ever or will ever be flat. It’s round and we are connected!

For the longest time, I lived in a happy, little isolationist world where as long as I focused on my little problems and ignored the big problems of elsewhere, they could not possibly affect me. Why worry about there when we have so many problems here? And then, like a flash of lighting, the protests in Egypt happened by way of an impressive use of the modern technology of social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. The protests were organized and unceasing, massive and determined. For what were they fighting?

I had grown rather accustomed to religious battles in the Middle East and surrounding regions, which was actually probably the source of my apathy, but this unrest was different. It was the middle class, the middle class that had actually become poor because of the government and their lack of empathy for the plight of the proletariat- for their own constituents. This fight, however, was against an elected “President” that had been in office for thirty odd years. It was against a government that had, for thirty years, made little progress in anything economically, but making the poor poorer and the small percentage of the wealthy, wealthier.

Of course we, in the United States, elect our President every four years.  It’s done through a democratic republic process where we cast a confidential ballot in order to choose the person best qualified for the job. At least, that’s how it is on paper. Can someone working in a blue collar job, making $30K/ year and supporting a family of four run for President? Absolutely. Anyone, barring felonies and the like, can run for office (well, the President has to be at least 35 years old.) The Kevin Kline movie, Dave is categorized as a comedy about a Presidential doppelganger  who finds himself in the most powerful seat in the most powerful office in the United States. He normally runs a temp agency, in other words, he actually finds sustainable employment for those that don’t have jobs. In, arguably, the best part of the movie, he gets together with his regular Joe best friend, a run of the mill accountant, and trims the budget to find a way to save a children’s homeless shelter.  The movie reminds us that regular people built this government and there’s nothing wrong with a regular person running it. We don’t need to belong to a special club with special rules (like the Democrats or Republicans or Tea Partiers.) Those clubs, with their players, have not helped anyone other than themselves.

Has any candidate in the last 30 years balanced the budget? Has any candidate in the last 30 years fixed our environmental woes, increased the effectiveness of our educational system or our healthcare system or product/ drug safety? Has anyone of our “honorable” representatives, the representatives that are supposed to work for us, really done anything aside from pushing papers, dressing in fancy suits and crying while reading the Constitution?  Has anything gotten better?

I am really starting to think that the last United States President that actually cared about the working/ middle class was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And that, folks, puts us WAY past the thirty year mark with which Egypt is dealing. Maybe he only cared to get re-elected, maybe not, but he did CARE and he took actions to acknowledge that fact.

From the time FDR left office, we have been inching towards the very lack of representation in government that caused a revolution for the colonists in the 1700’s. Take a walk down the street. Ask passersby. Or simply reflect on your own. When is the last time you actually felt represented by someone who actually understood your plight in the middle class? When’s the last time we elected someone to represent us that really was from the middle class. When’s the last time we had someone in office that knew what it meant to put off buying  a new pair of jeans so that a utilities bill could be paid?

So then, the real question is,  how do we, the common folk, take back our government? Is there a way to do it without violence? The Egyptians have been tying for peaceful change for 30 years. They have been working hard, trying to make the best of what choices their President had made for them. And where are they now?

A Government for the (Middle Class) People

As I write this, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has finally decided, after thirty years in office, he no longer “wants” to president. This declaration was made after more than a week of protests, riots and all around civil unrest. He is not stepping down just yet, however, because he thinks that, if he does, Eqypt will erupt into chaos.  Dictionary.com’s number one definition of chaos is: a state of utter confusion or disorder; a total lack of organization or order. One would imagine that twelve days, and counting, of thousands of protesters, amassing in the streets, eluding both police and military forces, fighting, starting fires, with an economy at a standstill, would qualify as chaos.

When the founding fathers of the United States’ Constitution established what was basically a list of rules defining this experiment in a democratic republic and the people governing themselves, they did their best to establish a system by which a regular, middle class person had as much representation in government as the richest person in the country and also the poorest person in the country. 

So, Farmer Joe gets elected to represent his district in Congress. While he is gone on his trip to Washington D.C., the rest of his farmer neighbors pitch in to take care of his farm. Farmer (Representative) Joe’s travel expenses are paid for by the people he represents. When he is done with all the meetings and the voting, he comes back home and resumes making his living as a farmer. What’s interesting, is that he doesn’t draw a salary from being a representative and he doesn’t have a healthcare plan. He doesn’t have a special vehicle that is used only for government work, he doesn’t have a second home that’s paid for by the people that voted for him. His constituents- the grocer, the apothecary, the baker, the blacksmith- they would never vote for someone who would cost them a salary plus a home plus a car plus a pension plus a healthcare plan because they know that they, first of all, can’t afford those luxuries for themselves, and secondly, cannot afford to buy them for anyone else. How can anyone adequately empathize with their constituents if they haven’t fought the same fight and overcome similar struggles?

How do our representatives today empathize with our plights when , according to MyBudget360.com, the average median household income in the United States is $46, 326 and the median salary for a United States Congressional representative is $174, 000, according to Payscale.com? In 2008, the amount of Americans without healthcare rose to 47 million, while everyone in Congress that has been chosen to represent these Americans has top notch coverage.

A Congressional representative can expect to be in session roughly 130 days per year (Yahoo) or maybe about three days per week, while the average American who can still afford to live on paychecks from only one job, works five days per week and, according to recent studies, and an average of 50 hours per week.

Congressional representatives must be in office 5 years to receive a pension, yet, in order for the average worker to receive a pension, if there is even one available, means that they must work for 25 years, which is pretty difficult when, in this economy, the average worker is expected to change, not just jobs, but full fledged industries an average of eight times in the course of their lives.

Now, as per the Constitution, with minimal restrictions, any citizen can run for political office. In reality however, since a typical successful bid for a seat in Congress CAN cost as much as $2million dollars, the odds clearly favor an incumbent who has been making at least $174,000 and not the average worker making twenty six percent of that amount. So, if YOU make $174k every year, you will most certainly have adequate representation in Congress that’s gung ho on protecting your interests. If not? Certainly since they promised to make the best choices for you, you should just sit back and believe them.

OR- What IF we leveled the playing field a bit? What if the representation of the people STOPPED being about second vehicles and posh DC apartments nestled in gate communities into which homeless beggars fear to tread and started being about serving the people?

Well, there’s always campaign finance reform. Yes, lets give Congress something else over which to fight. In fact, if we are lucky, maybe they can discuss it so whole-heartedly that they wriggle some over-time pay out of it. Is anyone that’s already spent $2 million (Washington Post) on a campaign to GET their seat going to make it possible for someone else to usurp their power for less than that price tag? Not likely, but they’re sure to put on a good show about it.

A feasible alternative? Term limits and limit the amount of terms to, drum roll….ONE! I am actually “borrowing” this idea from a friend who ran against a long time incumbent in the Congressional Primaries in North Eastern PA. Mr. Brian W. Kelly ran on working class principles and told voters that, IF he was elected, he would remain in office for one, and only one, term. He would work to the best of his ability, for the length of that term and then retire from office.

Had Mr. Kelly actually been elected to represent the people of North Eastern Pennsylvania for one term in the House of Representatives, he most likely would not have caused any HARM to the people, but, as good as his intentions may have been, he would certainly not do much good either. He would have been a “freshman” representative, with little clout and he would have had to play with the big boys and girls or, for all intents and purposes, stand by and watch the action. That does not mean it’s not a good idea.

What if EVERY politician was magically changed into a PUBLIC SERVANT? What if each person that ran for office had ONE term to get their agendas accomplished before returning to the private sector?  As far as private sector jobs go, we could treat it similar to a military deployment in that employers could not replace the newly elected representative while they were in office, so as to not eliminate a legitimate way of earning money. How could we possibly transition from a society of career politicians to a society with a bunch of government newbies? Well, the current ones in office could always agree to it (pausing here for a moment of uproarious laughter, allowing you, the reader, to reclaim the seat off of which you fell,) OR we could unite as a country, ignore all the hype of the political advertisements, and simply vote anti-incumbent enough so that all the incumbents are removed from office. This transition would take slightly less than six years to complete, but in reality, when’s the last time any initiative that is good for the common person has taken LESS than six years to actually enact?

What good can COME from a whole Congress full of freshmen (and woman?) What good has come of the current Congress, honestly? A Congress full of representatives that are quite aware that they only have a limited time with which to exact change is a Congress that is going to be more motivated to actually WORK at resolving conflicts. Do we want representatives in office that only care about their own paycheck, healthcare and managing to achieve that 5 year mark for a government pension? Or, do we want to know that the people that take the Oath of Office do so because they actually WANT a better tomorrow for the people the represent?

Ensuring that every representative in Congress only gets one term would mean that no one would be getting a government pension. Imagine trying to quantify THOSE savings: http://www.fa-ir.org/alabama/corrupt/Congressional%20Retirement%20Benefits.htm. Robert Walker’s $4.2 million could feed over 450 families of four, moderately, for a full year (771.10 multiplied by 12=9,253.30, THEN 4.2 million divided by 9253.30= 453.89) (USDA 2008 Data) to put it all into perspective.

Not only THAT, but certainly, people running for a single term in office are not going to want to spend so much money on getting a temp job like serving the public. Police officers serve the public, you don’t see them advertising their abilities for the position. And since they don’t want to go all hog wild on elaborate campaign schemes, they probably aren’t really going to care about any bribes from big business or power plays by lobbyists.

So in essence, aside from retrieving  a salary that should be commensurate with the median salary of their constituents, these representatives would be representing out of obligation to and pride for their fellow countrymen (and women.)

Wow! What a concept! Sure wish someone came up with THAT idea a loooong time ago!