Isn't It Amazing?

We, the richest nation on the face of the earth, have homeless people, including veterans, living in cardboard boxes, or pushing shopping carts filled with their earthly belongings from one place to another. 

We have children who go hungry every day.

We have people who die of curable diseases because they can't afford health care. 

Or go bankrupt trying to pay for what health care they have.

We have aging infrastructure all across the nation.

We have lead and other dangerous chemicals in our air and water 

We have generations of children stuck in substandard schools, understaffed, without the basic essentials that all schools need to function.

We have people who should be in mental institutions roaming our city streets. (To be fair, some are in Congress, too)

We have easy access to guns, including military style hardware, for practically anyone.

We have school shootings on such a regular basis that they hardly attract attention, let alone shock, anymore. 

And we are constantly told that there is not enough money to solve these problems.

But somehow there is always enough money to start another war.

Always. 

Billions, trillions even, spent on killing.

Again and again and again. 

The Important Thing Is That The Market Is Up!

There are children in cages, drinking water from toilets--but the market is up!

The President is a traitorous imbecile--but the market is up!

Our election was hacked, our infrastructure is old and decrepit, the rich keep getting tax breaks that they do not need, white supremacists wander the halls of the White House, cops keep shooting people of color on an almost daily basis, Mitch McConnell is a cancer on democracy--but the market is up!

Things can and will fall apart.

But the important thing is that the market is up!

You probably don't own any stock, or, if you do own stock, not very much of it...most of us don't. Sure, pension funds are heavily invested in the market, but who do you know with a pension these days? And, if you do have a pension, there's a very good chance that either A) it's underfunded to the point of insolvency; or B) somewhere a Republican is plotting to take it away from you.

But, whether or not you own any stock, the important thing is that the market is up!

Oh, I Got Gambling Money

It's amazing!

There's never enough money for education.

Or to feed and house the poor.

Or provide basic healthcare for everyone.

Or for repairing our crumbling infrastructure.

Or to create jobs.

Or to replace fossil fuels with cleaner, renewable energy.

Or to care for our veterans.

But there is always enough money to go to war.

You know the old joke, a guy in Las Vegas asks a stranger for money for an operation for his mother. The stranger replies, "How do I know you won't use any money I give you to gamble with?" And the first guy answers, "Oh, I got gambling money."

Funny, isn't it?

And what is truly amazing is how quickly conservatives become Keynesians when there are war profits to be made!

Worst. Speaker. Ever.

This post started out to be Worst. Super Bowl. Ever.

But I got sidetracked. And, besides, the Super Bowl just boiled down to the simple fact that God must not like Peyton Manning.

After all, I heard several Seahawks thanking the big man upstairs for their victory. If they're correct, that means ipso facto, that God doesn't like Peyton Manning.

Or maybe the Almighty is just sick to death of that Papa John's guy. I know I am. And don't get me started on that horse's ass John Elway...

Anyway, "ultimate" games come and go, and after you've swept up all the corn chip detritus, mopped away the spilt beer, and settled up with your bookie, life goes on.

Which brings us to John Boehner. The Worst Speaker Ever.

In the coming years, entire libraries will be written about the inadequacies of our little orange friend.

And all those words will boil down to one thing:

Boehner is a sad, weak, little man. He can't control his party. He is afraid to offend the lobbyists that keep him in office. He is afraid to offend the Tea Party. He is afraid to offend Rush Limbaugh. He is afraid to do anything. The only legislation he can get passed through the House is the monthly repeal Obamacare measure. And we saw how that worked out for him.

So there will be no immigration reform, no re-build our infrastructure jobs' bill, no nothing. Naturally, all of this isn't his fault. No. It is President Obama's fault.

According to Johnny Boy, the President can't be trusted to enforce our laws. So why even try to come up with any new ones? And that's that.

Tonight, instead of doing anything positive for the country, weepy John Boehner sits somewhere with his bourbon, and his bronzer, and his big, flaccid gavel, and whines about that man in the White House.

A Seaside Meditation

Sitting with a mug of something warm and tasty, watching the Pacific, half listening to the squads of Marines as they run along the sand shouting the cadences of whatever the current version of "this is my rifle, this is my gun" is, and wondering where they'll all be in a year's time. It's anyone's guess, because the possibilities are almost endless...

The US has over 1000 overseas military bases in more than 40 countries. (I'd be willing to bet that many of our fellow citizens can't name 40 countries, but that will have to be a topic for a future post.) And those are just the bases the Defense Department officially acknowledges. Who knows how many "off the books" operations there are?

More than 50 years after Eisenhower warned us of the dangers of the Military-Industrial Complex here we are, playing at being the Roman Empire, going broke while trying to enforce a Pax Americana on the world. (By the way, wasn't it nice of Ike to alert us as he was leaving office, after spending 8 years aiding and abetting the creation of the complex? Kind of like Cheney saying "Oh, by the way, it's probably not a good idea to let the oil companies dictate your energy policy. Bye bye now!")

So we can't possibly afford universal health care, or to rebuild our infrastructure, or provide good schools for every child and affordable colleges for those who desire them, or to change over to sustainable energy, or to keep our air, water and food clean and safe, or any of a thousand other valuable things, but we can afford to continue to arm ourselves to the teeth and deploy wherever and whenever. Right?

Do the American people really face such constant and pervasive threats, or is there something else going on?

Here's a quote from many years ago. It came from a highly decorated Marine general. Sadly, it still rings true today:

"I spent 33 years and 4 months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class thug for Big Business, Wall Street, and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico...safe for American oil interests. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the...bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of...Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies. In China I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."