"Life's a bitch, and then you die. You don't know when, and you don't know why. You live a little and then you say goodbye. Fate comes in a flips the switch. Life's a bitch!" Words from an old Michael Johnson song, always liked it . . . the song, that is. Don't like the message, though, but maybe that's because it's pretty much true for most people. If you take a look at the hard facts about life in America, which is supposed to be better than it it elsewhere around the world, we're pretty much in the crapper when it comes to living the good life. Most Americans miss out on that because . . . well, because we live under a badly flawed governmental system. Yup, let's blame it on government, and let's do that because they damn well deserve it. When it gets right down to most of the things wrong with this country, you can drop that right at the feet of government.
If you think this blog is going to be a diatribe against all the evils of government, you're wrong. Government in America isn't a villain, isn't the devil or a monster that hides in the closet to torment us at night with thoughts of what it did to us that day. If you want a metaphoric snapshot of government, picture it as an old man sitting in a park feeding pigeons. Around him might be all sorts of things that would better benefit from the handout, but the pigeons are bigger and more aggressive, and so they get the treats.
Today as the country wakes up and goes about the business of being the world's most productive nation, 47 million people (or thereabouts) will depend on food stamps to feed the family. An overwhelming percent of workers will go off to jobs they don't like in order to make just enough money to survive. Most of them won't make over about ten bucks an hour and will spend half that amount on shelter, a place to flop at night. The percentage of Americans who work at good professional jobs is small, and those who go home at night to mansions amounts to just a tiny percentage of the population . . . yet they control most of the nation's wealth. The stats get worse with each passing year, but I'm not one of those people who think the oppressed class will ever get enough and rise up in rebellion against a system that keeps them down and struggling. Marx was wrong about that. There's no end, it seems, to how much people will take from crappy government.
Life in America is indeed a bitch for most people, and then they die, like all living species. They die in droves each year due to a rotten health care system, to the diseases that attack the bottom feeders. I'm not talking about bad food but rather bad living - drugs, bad work conditions, crime, violence, and yes, lack of adequate health care. For most folks, living in the U.S. isn't a deal, a promise of good life, a comfortable existence . . . but there is still life, what there is of it, and I'm always amazed at what people are able to take from it.
I live in a small town that is home to two worlds - my world, which is a fairly comfortable life in a good part of town . . . and the world of the have-nots across town where my old man's playhouse is located. It's a crappy little house I bought for fifteen grand about ten years ago and restored as a place to keep my "stuff." It's paid for, the only piece of property I've owned outright. It's not in the slums 'cause we don't have them around here, but it's in the "poor" section of town where my neighbors don't have much. Even the animals over there are poor, and that's how I got into the abandoned animal care business. I didn't intend to, but they sought me out, and now I've got about 15 cats and several dogs, including a new batch of chihuahua puppies, to feed. And if I don't feed them, they'll die or drift off into the streets and end up victims of the dogcatcher's net or whatever. In that regard, I know how the government feels when it comes to taking care of the needy. I do what I can, but about all I can do is patch cracks in the dam. I can't hold back the flood waters.
The animals are symbolic of the people who live over there on north side. They too are rejects in many ways, down on their luck, or working bad jobs that won't allow them to live anywhere else. But the live, and they try to make something of life. On Sundays, they go to the park, or congregate to share a meal, and there's music floating up and down the streets from time to time. By my standards, they have nothing, but I'm well aware that by the standards of the lucky, the vested, the wealthy, my standards are likewise meager. And I live too, doing the best I can with what I've got . . . so excuse me, please, if I detest the government I live under. They try, but they're overwhelmed and can't (or won't) do what needs to be done. Forgive me for hating an economic structure that keeps most people locked in a meager existence mode. But then again, if you like the system like it is, don't forgive me. But you'd damn sure better keep an eye on me. I'm old and almost out of the game now, but I'm symbolic of the few who'd like to ignite the flame of revolution. I'm the spark that could set it all off . . . and the sooner the better. I'm the guy you might find in a park somewhere feeding the hawks.
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