Does anyone but me wonder what happened to US? As in U.S.? As in United states?
As an aging Flower Child, I can’t help but wonder about US. Bank bailouts? A health care INSURANCE crisis? (We need to remember that it’s NOT THE PROVIDERS of care; it’s the INSURANCE COMPANIES.) Credit card companies whose LEGAL practices surpass the mob? (At least the mob call it what it is: a shakedown.) A legal system in a featherbed WITH the insurance companies?
Late capitalism has turned US into hypnotized zombies. Not only is there a chicken in virtually every pot and a car in virtually every garage, there is a cellphone in every pocket, a computer in every Suzie’s and Junior’s bedroom, and a t.v. in every living room (and bedroom and bathroom and kitchen…).
(Please, for the sake of brevity, don’t get me started on the “disenfranchised.” I’ll apologize to them now: I’m sorry things are worse than ever for you, and I don’t know why we aren’t rioting in the streets over what’s happening to you, too.)
Look around. For the great majority of Americans, cellphones, computers and t.v.s are a given. Most of US who don’t have at least two of those things do so by choice. We have a choice. We’re lucky. We’re fat, happy and sassy.
Karl Marx had it wrong. It’s not religion that’s turned out to be the opiate of the masses: it’s having stuff. A glut of stuff keeps us peaceful and docile. Marx today would have said, “Give them enough electronics and food, and they’ll never raise a pinkie in protest.”
We don’t want to fight for the things we don’t have–like health insurance, like trustworthy banks and corporations. We’re simply too full to get up out of our recliners… even to reach for a pen to write to our congresspeople.
With comfort comes the inability to care about complete strangers and the loss of urgency to raise our voices and, if necessary, our fists. Heck, we’re ARMED in this country! In other places where the urgency is really real, where they DO have to care for one another, they’re throwing ROCKS!
You do realize I’m not advocating violence, right? It’s just a trope to get my point across. We have VOICES. We have VOTES. We have our congressperson’s address and phone number. Heck, we can even blog our frustration…
Okay, you’re right. Those seem kind of wimpy to me, too.
We Americans–US–hate taxes. We hate government. Yet we will sit by passively and wait for regulations and laws to make corporations, insurance companies, and Wall Street behave. We want–no, we EXPECT–these controls to miraculously appear like a kiss on a boo-boo. And with no effort from US.
Sure, we should be thanking our lucky stars that our worries mostly come down to money (which has lost its reality to US) rather than tribal warfare, starvation, and rampant disease. But what does that mean we DO with our good fortune?
Eat, drink and be merry. Listen to the FOX-News talking heads squawk: sound and fury signifying nothing. Declare bankruptcy with a yawn so we can start a new cycle of unrepentant consumerism.
And then what? What do we DO? I’ll eat at least three good meals today. I’ll sleep tonight in a soft bed between sheets and plenty of blankies like I have every night of my life unless I chose otherwise. I’m going to watch the ballgame on my big screen t.v. with surround sound. I’ll get fatter. I’ll insulate mind, body and soul in my castle… just like millions of other Americans.
And I’ll have the nerve to write this rant.
And I’m not going to riot in the streets.
RATS! In the end, I have just argued myself to the realization that despite the weight of our bodies and our debts, there’s no reason to riot. Pitiful…
Still, I worry about US. We have so much and are so contented that we don’t see where we’re taking ourselves. We need to be angrier about the widening gap between have and have-not because once it’s gone the only way to get it back WILL be through violence and tearing down The Great Experiment, which I really am NOT promoting in this essay. Maybe that has to be, though. I am never a fan of, “That’s the way it’s always been done.” Despite revolution after revolution proving me wrong.
Can’t we, can US, be smarter this time?
When we’re talking about money, though, one thing it never buys is smarts.
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