Oh Big Brother

I’m so over all this government is evil crap.

So I’m all over it.

Government is evil because we are losers.

Passing the buck and blaming the government has become an American institution. Reagan started this bullshit in earnest..  We the people are the problem.  We get lulled into complacency by the next big and shiny anything. From Pong to the latest  iphone.  Ridiculous gun racks and ludicrous sub-woofers.  Or goddamn religion. Meantime, the middle class is getting really hammered while the poor are nothing but screwed.  We know this to be true because even republicans are beginning to acknowledge it.  The high fructose generation is just mad for the cult of political personality and identity politics. Substance is always boring unless it bites you on the ass.  So we keep walking, blind eye on all the racial injustice and economic inequity. We reelect these greasy pricks over and over despite the overwhelming disgust and shame we feel.

These days the morning after sucks for everyone regardless of political affiliation.

It’s national cop out.  We keep failing at responsibility and accountability for just how fucked we are.

We are a nation of self loathers.

We have exactly the government we deserve.

We know this to be true because if everyone voted, we’d be much better off.  The percentage of voters who actually vote in this country is embarrassing.

Whoever those bastards are on TV, they aren’t us.  So instead of doing something about it, we throw a tantrum.  We don’t vote.  We disengage or get all self righteous and wallow in indignation.  The smarter ones say fuck it  and rob banks or run for office and join a bank.  Most of us who bother are just punching ourselves in the face by voting for whatever carnival barker is most successful at convincing us this new shit sandwich is really gonna be mouthwatering.

Or, they run around beseeching that voting is futile.  Despite the corporate sponsored concert of effort to disenfranchise every voter who has a legitimate axe to grind.

We are loathsome.

If I didn’t know better, I’d get me a tin foil hat and obsess over chemtrails.

Tell me what’s wrong with NASA. Going to the moon and all the attendant technology.  All that climate science and understanding of our world.  The EPA, other than being rendered so anemic and addled it can barely cross the road to file the legal equivalent of a fuck you against the Koch brothers.  The EPA used to be a contender. There’s no good reason government isn’t building and repairing bridges and roads.  The postal service is fine and costs us nothing but postage.  Social security is awesome and whatever is wrong with it is an easy fix.  

Tell me, just how the ACA is failing.  

We need Medicare and Medicaid.  

The biggest lie America believes is that we can’t afford these things.

We are the richest goddamn country in written history.

It’s stupid.

How do we govern without government?

Tell me. 

Frankly, the truth is we could put any one of these goofecock deadbeats on the republican bench in office and make them do anything we want.  We the people ended a war.  We did.  We the people rose and demanded the vote for women and blacks and all kinds of other things like reversing an amendment so we could get drunk in public again of all things.  This all happened long before we lapsed into lazy and disaffected and gave up.

You can’t just vote for a president and complain once he is elected or pout and hold your breath when she isn’t.

The price of this democratic republic is our attention and participation.

Voting is a right but it doesn’t end there.  In all reality, it’s where individual responsibility begins.

Ever notice the people who blame the government for everything are the ones counting on God to fix it all?

Drinks for my friends.

 

14 Responses to “Oh Big Brother”

  • Victim blaming is even stupider. The government is part of the oligarchy that controls our impoverished nation. Look who Obama is appointing to high offices. This isn’t our fault.

    • Michael Douglass:

      If it’s not our fault, whos is it? If we’re the ONLY ones that can change it, whos fault is it? If we live in any kind of a democracy, as opposed to a dictatorship, who’s fault is it? This IS NOT victim blaming. Try harder.

  • Benedict@Large:

    The problems with elections are quite fixable, and have nothing to do with blaming people who don’t vote. The fact is that the powerful do not like democracy, and so they make it for more difficult to vote than it has to be. They go on to make it close to impossible for anyone with whom they disagree to run for office. A if that isn’t enough, they obscure the counting process sufficiently to make no one trust th results, and even then, they still openly rig some elections, and refuse to follow the laws regarding challenging them. Top that all off with campaigns on non-issues that spit hate and misinformation, and then when someone says it’s not worth the trouble, we blame them?

  • Please, please, please … run for office … 🙂

  • Cherie McGinn:

    Oh, such truth in what you say. I taught government for decades — in the DC area. Most of those years I was able to pull examples out of current events about how the two parties disagree, and then compromise. During some of that time I had to struggle to explain presidents like Reagan and Bush 2 and their policies that directly harmed so many in our nation. But I continued to tell my students that if they got involved, kept themselves informed, and VOTED in every election, things would eventually work out to the betterment of most of the population.

    I retired early specifically because I could no longer enforce No Child Left Behind policies on the 34 teachers I supervised. I felt as if I was presiding over the death of quality education in our nation. What has happened since 2006 (the year I retired) has only been worse — much worse than I ever anticipated. I taught a lot of foreign students, immigrants and embassy types, and every one of them talked of coming here to better their lives. I wonder what they are thinking right now?

    I truly hope that we are in the early stages of a rational revolution. I truly hope that the Millennials, who are shown to have much more liberal and rational ideas than many of the elders in our nation, do organize, do vote, and do lead this revolution. We need it — or we’ll continue to circle the drain of any vestige of our former “democratic” selves.

  • Ginny M:

    It’s a sad truth that the more educated one becomes, the more culpable they become.

    • reiya:

      SO TRUE MICHAEL AND GINNY. IN CA OUR EDUCATORS ARE A POLITICAL FORCE AT THE STATE AND UNIVERSITY LEVEL. THEY DEMAND MORE AND MORE PERKS AND MONEY. NOT TO MENTION THE HORDES AND HORDES OF USELESS LAWYERS THEY CHURN OUT. THE FACT IS WE SPEAK WITH OUR MONEY AND PURCHASES: AVOID OVER PRICED ELECTRONIC DEVISES, VINO…ETC. THESE IDIOT OVERLY MARKETED PRODUCTS, ARE RUINING A SUSTAINABLE ECONOMY HERE IN CALIFORNIA. “STEAL THIS BOOK”, BY ABBY HOFFMAN SHOULD BE THE CONTEMPORARY MOTTO AND HEAD SET FOR REBELLION!

      THE WINE INDUSTRY DRASTICALLY DRIVES UP THE VALUE OF THE LAND, AND IT HAS PUSHED MOST OF OUR FOOD AGRICULTURE OUT OF CALIFORNIA. I REALIZE WINE IS IN GREAT DEMAND, BUT AS THEY CONTINUE TO CARVE AWAY AT OUR BEAUTIFUL STATE THE LEAST THEY COULD DO IS FIANCE AN SUBSIDIES, MORE LIVING SPACES FOR OUR POPULATION OF DYING HOMELESS PEOPLE. IN S.F., MORE AND MORE PEOPLE BECOME HOMELESS, BECAUSE MAYOR LEE GAVE TWITTER CORP A HUGE INCENTIVE TO SET UP SHOP IN THE CITY. I’M NOT SURE WHAT EXACTLY TWITTER DOES; I SUSPECT WE AS A PEOPLE WOULD BE FINE WITHOUT IT. TWITTER PROBABLY COMPETES WITH F. BOOK WHICH IS GOOD, GOD KNOWS F. BOOK “F”ING TOO POWERFUL! PEOPLE CAN’T STAY OFF F.BOOK; I DON’T GET THAT?
      AND JERRY BROWN OUR GOVERNOR IS GERIATRIC, TO SAY THE LEAST! HE SHALL GO DOWN AS CATERING TO MUNICIPALITY LABOR UNIONS IN CALIFORNIA, AND PUSHING AN ANTIQUATED HIGH SPEED RAIL IN, AT THE WRONG LOCATION. THIS MAY BE A POLITICALLY INCORRECT RANT, BUT IT’S A TOUGH LIFE!

  • Kelli N:

    Well spoken once again. I absolutely agree with you. No winners in this game.

  • Peggy Frigard:

    You’re on point. We can’t take the easy way out by passing the buck. We are perpetuating non-action by expecting others/government to totally take charge. We are victimizing ourselves.

  • Very real…I enjoyed. Thank you.

  • Kenny Williams:

    Right on the money brother!

  • Epiphany Dh:

    Unfortunately we now live in a dumbed down, lowest common denominator, Idiocracy. Only 40% of voters did so in the last election. And somehow being intelligent and informed is looked upon as “elitist” now. We are headed in the wrong direction. We need govt to govern and yes there needs to be many improvements. But we the people get the govt we deserve when we don’t get involved.

  • It is our fault. Anemic voter turnout gave us the government we have. If “we the people” would actually stumble into a voting booth every two years, I doubt we would have the two corporate party system we have today. Voting should be a requirement, since we have ignored our privilege.

  • Jeffrey Casey:

    I blame Douglass.

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