Greetings good people.
Well, we made it through the kabuki theater of the "debt crisis" which wasn't much of a crisis at all. The whole thing was just more smoke and mirrors. Some articles have gone as far as saying that there never was much of a crisis at all. Gobomber could have, according to some writers, have envied the 14th ammendment and defused the whole mess and let the "tea party" and other wing nuts just stew in their own hatred and bull crap.
Now, of course that would have taken something like guts and we all now know without any doubt that Gobomber has none. The most innocent new born kitten has more courage than Gobomber has ever shown any of us. I can say this with a fair amount of certainty as I have had cats and new born kittens in my care many for years over my life time. I do believe that a new born kitten IS braver than Gobomber, at least as far as doing anything for the common people goes. At least that kitten gives you a nice feeling and is so soft to hold in your hand. Gives you a nice warm feeling just to pet one. Gobomber does not give any of us any sort of even luke warm feeling. All we seem to get from him and our other politicians is the cold shaft, the dirty end of the stick, and the "joy" of paying for the obscene bailouts for the Wall Street gangsters and the greedy banksters.
Give me the kitten any day, at least I know then I will get a smile of three every day. All we get from Gobomber and that crew is more hot air and here in central Louisiana the last thing we need is more hot, humid air. Our air temps have been in the 100's for the past week and the heat index has topped 114 more days than I care to count. Global warming? Could be. All I know is that it has been very hot and uncomfortable.
Even though the congress critters have reached their agreement on the debt ceiling, Standard and Poor's have still downgraded the credit rating of the US of A. Yep, we went from AAA to AA or AA+ according to one report I saw recently. This ratings outfit didn't like the bickering that took place to get this "crisis" resolved. Aww, poor babies. Hey, this is just typical politics guys. Our congress critters have to go through this crap all the time. They seem to think(??) that by doing so they appear to be actually working. Yeah, they may fool some folks, but I doubt any of you who read this blog buy into that line. The very thought of our congress critters doing any useful work is something most of us cannot believe. In particular, if they are doing any real work for the average American. Of course they do work for the folks who really matter to them, the richest 1%, who now control something like 40% of the total wealth of the country.
Things are getting very bad for the working class people in America. One good example of how it is affecting the working class is the latest post at Tomdispatch.www.tomdispatch.com/post/175428/tomgram%3A_barbara_ehrenreich%2C_on_americans_%28not%29_getting_by_%28again%29/#more
This is a "must read" that shows how bad things are getting here at home.
I keep remembering an old saying, no matter how bad things are, they can always get worse. The way this economy, or what now passes itself off as our economy gets worse, we need to remember that it CAN get worse. Some of the economic blogs that I try to follow say that we may be headed to another major down turn. We are set to either enter another severe recession or even a major depression.According to some of them, we will get a "double dip" recession. Personally, I am not so certain that we ever came out of the last major recession.
It also calls up another old comment. A recession is when your neighbor is out of work, a depression is when you are out of work.
No matter which of the economic blogs one reads, for the working class and the poor, things look very bad. I do not see anything coming that will help us at all. The new deal that was made by our congress critters and Gobomber will not help any of us. Unless one is among the top wealthiest in this country, there is nothing in this deal to help you. The rich get away, again, with no tax increases. The war industries, of course, see no major cuts, not many minor ones either. Hey, we have six wars going on, don't you know? Six? Yep, six. Count them; Iraq (still a war), Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya. Six that we know of and that make news no and then. According to an article by Nick Turse, also at TomDispatch, we have "special" ops types in over 60 countries. Yes, that is 60, as in sixty, countries around the world. Hey, keeping this empire going is hard work.
As the economy gets ever worse for the working class we could see our society start to break at the seams. There is already little to no common courtesy out in the country. As things get worse, there may be even less. With this in mind I want to ask all of you to try something. I have asked this before, but I think it is time to do so again. Try, just try, every day, with all the people you come in contact with, just try to treat them all as you want to be treated. Just try and be a bit cheerful to those you meet in your daily routine. You just could be the only person that somebody you meet who is actually polite. You could just be the one person who makes their day. It isn't really all that hard to do. Yes,it is very hot and humid in this part of the country and has been for weeks now, still, just try and be polite to the cashier at the gas station. He or she does not set the price at the pump, that gets dictated to them by the company they get the fuel from. Same goes for any retail setting, the person who collects your money does not set the prices.
All I am trying to do is to maintain a bit of civility in our country. The economy stinks, the rich get ever richer and the rest of us are left with the crumbs. That doesn't mean that we should just forget all of our civility, our common courtesy and common sense. In fact, in my opinion, as things get worse, the more we need to be polite to each other. If we all go off angry, we will just add to the already high level of misery that is out there.
It isn't hard. It doesn't mean that you subscribe to any particular religion, it just lets others know that some of us have retained our basic humanity. While you may call it the "golden rule" I just see it as being polite. Call it what you will, I just know that we need more of it as the economy goes ever downward. I lived in southern California during the Watts riots. I also was living there after the Rodney King trial. There have been other major riots in various cities in the past, I just do not want to see us devolve into that sort of thing again. We need to try our best to retain as much human dignity as possible or things will get very bad for us all. Hell, they had Blackwater goons patrolling the streets of New Orleans after hurricane Katrina. Do we want that sort of crap in all of our cities? If we fail to act as civilized adults, I have no doubt that we will get that and worse. It is up to us, we need to set the example. Yes, we may not change the world, but I believe that we need to at least try. If we don't, then what is the point of going on?
Just something to think about and consider. Thank you for your time reading this post.
semper fi
