We’re Mad as Hell Part II

“Brett Slack, one of the owners of Lehigh Valley Paintball…had to lay off 20 of his 35 employees in the past year as rising gas prices slowed business. He and his two partners took pay cuts, too. ‘That’s what CEOs and owners should do,’ he says…’If I have money to invest one day, I’ll just start another business. I won’t invest in the stock market,’ he says.” (from Business Week concerning main street’s rage at the financial crisis)

In yesterday’s column (We’re Mad as Hell), middle-America had a bit of a say in the financial meltdown of Wall Street, and it seems the average Joe is not alone. CNN published a commentary by a Harvard lecturer in economics that also thinks the high-flyers should suffer the consequences of their actions.  And this writer responded to Congressman Jim Marshall’s opinion piece published by CNN.

Today, as the House returns to work to give the Mother of all Bailouts a “second chance,” the ripple affect of Wall Street’s greed is already a topic of main stream media reporting. There is a crackdown on consumer credit lending, Fannie Mae saw four senior executives resign, and if this doesn’t make you “mad as hell,” the upcoming Vice-Presidential Debate moderator is releasing a book praising Barack Obama Hussein! There’s nothing like unbiased moderators.

However, there is a bright side: The Secret Service has “Assassination Insurance.”

Meantime, a commenter sent the following in response to yesterday’s column:

“Let’s get real amigo. America is just another country. A BIG country. Big enough to be beyond the control of government. Legislation and red tape and generalized laws as well as ‘illegal’ peeking into our private lives (whoever has the gold makes the rules) just shows that once someone has enough ‘power’ (read authority and enough people that will obey unquestioningly) they are practically unstoppable.

Can there be a coup? Can there be a real uprising in America where we overthrow the government and take over the country our way? Not likely. The USA is too diverse. The ‘land of the free and the home of the brave’ has too many varied points of view and that’s what we wanted, right?

The other day at the supermarket I saw a guy with a NAZI swastika tattooed on the left side of his neck. This is America. He has the right to wear that. It’s his neck. Freedom of speech, per the government includes freedom of expression and I’m all for that. As long as his apparent ‘hate’ is limited to himself and he doesn’t try to infringe upon the rights of others who have equal standing under the ‘laws’ of our country.

Do I want this guy in charge? Hell no. As Woody Allen’s character in ‘Sleeper’ said, ‘In a few years we’ll be stealing Erno’s nose.’ The underlying idea was that when a group with a set of values and ideas overthrows the government and tries to install its ideas and values, it’s not long before that new government needs to be overthrown by those who won’t be subject to it.

Rome lasted about seven hundred years before collapsing from within. New technology has made it possible for a country to crumble in half that time, and we are about there. Two hundred thirty two years and we’re in worse shape than ever. Greed in high places has brought us to this and they expect, yea, even demand that we bail them out. Why? Because we built on their shoulders and now they think it’s up to us to fix them if we are to survive. We let them get this big. We let them become powerful and become our foundation. Now, when the foundation begins to shake and crumble, it is we who must tremble with them.

I tried to write more but the more I wrote the more I realized that I could write so much more; more than I have time for.

This is a turning point in America. Remember the old idea that trouble always happens to the ‘other guy’? In a world of six billion people, I am the other guy to five billion, nine-hundred ninety-nine million, nine-hundred ninety-nine thousand, nine-hundred ninety-nine people. Not good odds.

We forget that this is a world full of countries that see us as ‘just another country,’ and we are not above problems. They sit in their homes and read their papers or watch their TV/Internet and see America in trouble, shrug their shoulders, and go back to their lives. Oh well, just another over-extended country with poor leadership. Greed got ‘em.

‘God’s’ country, the land of the free, home of the brave, the ‘Christian nation’ (yeah f***in’ ay right buddy) is in deep s***.”

(Note: From a “spiritual perspective,” see “Moral Decay the Western Way.”)