Sunday, knowing who the Wolf is...

I feel like if I make it to Sunday, I'll be all right. Boy, have I been having an odd, emotional week. Jon interviewed about 3 weeks ago for a Penn State job. He was 1 of 4. But we found out on Friday, he didn't make it. So, we are sad. The only part of this position that I was not feeling right about was the fact it was involved heavily in weapons/rocket creation. So, morally, I am very relieved about him not getting it. If he had gotten it, I would have been happy (for we need the benefits and it paid well) but I would have been really quite sad too. I believe there is a better job somewhere in the Penn State world for my Jon. :-) It's amazing the odd sense of morality vs need. I wish I could be like one of those figures of morality from days of old but it ain't gonna happen. When you need basics, you need it. Not that I would do anything creepy, but I would work in a video store to help make ends meet, etc.

I get angry at people who blame people who work at places like Wal Mart. It's not like they want to work there. If given the choice most people would work in places that paid well and they could have a decent health plan. But where are these jobs? Gone with the wind. These jobs found it easier to move off shore and hire people below Wal Mart standards. Perhaps, it helps people in those countries, a little. I can assure you they are not getting fair pay or treatment as Americans used to. It's wrong and it's immoral. A lot of people don't realize how immoral it is. It's like when people talk about work it's something totally abstract from them. Why is that? There are many reasons why, as the Phil Ochs song goes, but we need to ask and answer these questions.

I honestly think it's about a wolf in sheep's skin. We've been taken over by people wearing the guise of everyman, the facade of spirituality and good old snake oil salesmanship. It's almost laughable except when you realize how truly devastating it is to your way of life. That's a big concept to think about. Your way of life is being jeopardized by basically the most heinous car sales people out there. I recently read that the US infrastructure is in great need of repair. This is stuff like bridges, roads, etc. It's going to cost a trillion dollars. I also read there isn't enough in the budget to support our firemen, police, and feed the poor. What is wrong with this picture? Kindergartens in California are closing down. Children left behind and forgotten. Schools are closing down because of budget cuts.

You know what? These are all manufactured cuts. There is a freeze on taxing wealthy people because "Tax" is a dirty word to some. I don't think it's a dirty word. In fact, it's a word that makes us all see how responsible and how patriotic we are. Were is this money going? It's going to our policemen, fire departments (hey, remember 9/11?), to aid the
  • poor, to build our schools and roads.

    Some people think we are independent. We are free to make fortunes. But you know what? People wouldn't be able to make a penny if they lived in, for example, Samolia. You'd have warlords taking everything. In the US, you have a certain amount of freedom to create but with that freedom comes responsibility. It's called taxes. Only the greedy and ignorant will tell you otherwise. A true individualist wouldn't even live in a city. They'd be in the woods or roughing it on Survivor or some silly thing like that. If you are a US civilian, you are dependent on the US. Can you imagine if there were no roads and highways? It would be so hard to move around, let alone your shock absorbers would be totally worn out. Man, I'm glad for roads and bridges.

    Can you imagine what it would be like if we didn't have public education? I didn't go to a private school. I went to public schools all my life! I would not even know how to write or drive or create a poem or read War and Peace or the bible or any book. Scary. Yes, we need these basics.

    Can you imagine what it would be like if we didn't have immunization? There are a few rebels out there who don't vaccinate their kids for fear of getting infected immunization. But only a few years ago people were coming down with polio and whole areas were dying from simple fevers. Crazy. And it still happens, but not in the US. These things are a bit of what makes/made the US strong. And you know how you live for the weekends? Guess what. At one time people worked all week long, kids worked in factories...I'm not talking about teens, I'm talking about children under 10. People would die from black lung (that's what killed my great-grandfather who worked in the coal mines) and people would get killed in factory fires because there were no safety laws. Crazy. Of course, some would argue there aren't very many factory fires now a days because there are little to no factory jobs. Sad but true.

    The point is we need to have a system. That system is taxing and seeing how it really does make your life easier. There are companies that left the US because they get tax breaks. In other words, they don't have to pay the taxes they would have paid in the US. Is this right? No. Made in China is different, far different than made in the USA.

    Anyone who says we don't need to support or be supported by the US, is hiding something. They're hiding the truth and all the history of the US. They are saying don't look at all the money pouring out to Iraq. Don't look at how much we are SPENDING on a lie (no WMDS) and on killing people who have nothing to do with terrorism. They are saying hey, don't look at the money were stealing out of Social Security because it is one of the strongest programs in government because of countless generations of people putting money into it. Don't look at the unfair, imbalance of tax breaks to companies and the ultra rich.

    Will we wear our blinders until we only have rags? Will we fight and say no and vote with our hearts and minds? This is a question we need to keep in the foremost of our minds.

    We need to realize our enemies are not the working people in Wal Mart or the Baptist Church down the street. The enemy is ignorance. We need to talk to people and let them know and see it doesn't have to be this way.

    I saw this film many years ago called
  • Matewan It's about a town that is bought,sold and destroyed by a mining company. There is a great line from this film (actually, there are quite a few lines that are good),"They got you fightin' white against colored, native against foreign...when you know there ain't but two sides in the world - them that work and them that don't. That's all you got to know about the enemy."

    Another interesting aspect about this film is how involved the church is. The church knew who was being hurt and who was in the right. They knew who the wolf was. There is a deception with a lot of churches in America today. A lot of church's are blinded and quite the opposite of moral. There is a whole world of falsehoods, oil sleekness in this area and political manipulation. At the same time, there are grassroots church's that are quite in the know and need to be supported and worked with. It's funny for me to even broach this subject as I'm not a big believer of any religion. I'm a fickle Unitarian, if anything! But I do believe these are the areas that could be effected with positive change. People who go to church's are the same people who should be voting with their future and children's future in mind instead of having wool pulled over their eyes or the teeth of wolves in their sides.

    It's going to be a rough 4 years and we are going to have to learn to fight (through volunteering, writing to our Congress rep., voting and so much more). I'm an optimistic. I believe we can do it if we try. Hell, we thought of space travel and have seen the moon, we create complex computers, use lasers to operate on people, etc. Of course, we can make a difference. Of course, we can change.

    There was a time when Los Angeles had the worse smog. Now, with a few changes it's going down and slowly getting better. We can do the same in other areas of the US. I'll leave on a positive note. There are people fighting right now for the poor and for aid to programs that help their
  • cities. These are signs and actions that we are not giving up and we can make a difference.
  • Comments

    Anonymous said…
    Or, perhaps, America invaded Iraq because there had been a mass genocide of 200,000 Kurds, Saddam killed hundreds of babies and piled them on UN Sanction lines, and then bribed the six permanent UN members with his food-for-oil program to raise sanction lines when the murder of children didn't seem to work. Because, it seems to me that if America were in a war over oil, the troops wouldn't have burned the biggest oil fields upon arrival (which, need I remind you, was to cut off Saddam's power-supply). Of course, it's easy to see how giving the people of Iraq the power to control their own government (as over 90% of them wanted to) is very wolfish indeed...
    Emily said…
    The main reason we went to war (which congress never approved, so technically we are not at "war") was for WMD's. All the other humanitarian reasons came afterwards to validate these wrong actions.

    At one point Bush said he was surprised so many oil lines had survived from enemy attacks. So, the idea that American troops tried to stop Saddam from having oil supplies, is far fetched. There was an embargo already placed on Iraq where they could not receive or export goods.

    If we really were there to "protect" the Iraqi people why didn't we do it through something that was working, like the UN? Instead, we went in there to take out a leader the US put in.

    And you know what else? If it's not for oil then why did Bush just get all the votes he needed to invade the Alaskan Animal refuge? Oh, that's right, it's for a little bit of oil that will most likely be sold to the Chinese and Japanese for American oil companies.

    What good thing has come to the Iraq people since we invaded? Can you tell me 1 good thing? Bombs going off daily, children and families killed because they drove too fast and could be potential suicide bombers, no water or food or electrical power and the constant fear of living in an occupied country. Does this sound like freedom? Does this sound like Democracy?

    I don't know if what Saddam did was true or not. Perhaps it was. But we certainly did NOT invade this country on humanitarian reasons. If so, why aren't we in any of the other countries that are crying for aid and need? Places like Sudan, Somalia, etc?

    Humanitarian reasons are fine and good, but again look at what's hidden behind that sheepskin.
    Emily said…
    This is just my opinion, obviously. As for this administration, Bush retroactively redefined the intelligence to fit his program.

    China has 1000 times worse crimes on their own people. Why don't we go and invade this country?

    Bring it on, is a Bush phrase. I think this and oil and other reasons were why his groupies decided to go to war. I don't think we'll ever know 100% why Bush went and did this.

    A lot of countries, Canada, Germany, France, democratic countries did not want to do this. Britain was the only one that did, and under false information as we now have learned.

    To roughly quote one of my favorite writers,Molly Ivens,Liberals always knew that Saddam was a tyrant way back when Reagan was selling him weapons.

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