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From a distant vantage point on a blog far, far away, an epic traveler through cyberspace who likes to mock and ridicule “purists” posted a story about a land where cynicism and hypocrisy are completely unknown, a land where for some bizarre reason, idealism is honored and respected . . .
Every year in Happy Gumdrop Fairy-Tale Land all of the sprites and elves and woodland creatures gather together to pick the Rainbow Sunshine Queen. Everyone is there: the Lollipop Guild, the Star-Twinkle Toddlers, the Sparkly Unicorns, the Cookie Baking Apple-cheeked Grandmothers, the Fluffy Bunny Bund, the Rumbly-Tumbly Pupperoos, the Snowflake Princesses, the Baby Duckies All-In-A-Row, the Laughing Babies, and the Dykes on Bikes. They have a big picnic with cupcakes and gumdrops and pudding pops, stopping only to cast their votes by throwing Magic Wishing Rocks into the Well of Laughter, Comity, and Good Intentions. Afterward they spend the rest of the night dancing and singing and waving glow sticks until dawn when they tumble sleepy-eyed into beds made of the purest and whitest goose down where they dream of angels and clouds of spun sugar.
With immense satisfaction, that blogger informed “purists” that they don’t live in Happy Gumdrop Fairy-Tale Land, he told them they need to grow the fuck up.
I have news for Tbogg. We grew up long ago. We know where we live.
This is where we live . . .
In 2009, one out of five U.S. households didn’t have enough money to buy food. In households with children, this number rose to 24 percent, as the hunger rate among U.S. citizens has now reached an all-time high. Over 50 million people need to use food stamps to eat, and a stunning 50 percent of U.S. children will use food stamps to eat at some point in their childhoods. Approximately 20,000 people are added to this total every day.
1.4 million Americans filed for bankruptcy in 2009, a 32 percent increase from 2008. Americans have lost $5 trillion from their pensions and savings since the economic crisis began and $13 trillion in the value of their homes. Personal debt has risen from 65 percent of income in 1980 to 125 percent today. Over five million U.S. families have already lost their homes, in total 13 million U.S. families are expected to lose their home by 2014.
And what are these Americans being told? Keep drinking that Two-Party-System Kool Aid, that’s what they’re being told. By the politicians. By the corporate media. By the “progressive” leaders of the Netroots. That’s their solution. Keep drinking that Two-Party-System Kool Aid.
Bush and the Republicans used to be in charge of the People’s Temple of America, and now Obama and the Democrats are. The Kool Aid used to be red, now it’s blue. Different color, same poison. Same political policy poison, same economic policy poison, same corruption, same deceit . . .
The government unemployment rate is deceptive on several levels. It doesn’t count people who are “involuntary part-time workers,” meaning workers who are working part-time but want to find full-time work. It also doesn’t count “discouraged workers,” meaning long-term unemployed people who have lost hope and don’t consistently look for work. In January, 1.1 million workers were eliminated from the unemployment total because they were “officially” labeled discouraged workers. So instead of the number rising, we will hear deceptive reports about unemployment leveling off.
On top of this, the Bureau of Labor Statistics recently discovered that 824,000 job losses were never accounted for due to a “modeling error” in their data. Even in their initial January data there appears to be a huge understating, with the newest report saying the economy lost 20,000 jobs. TrimTabs employment analysis, which has consistently provided more accurate data, “estimated that the U.S. economy shed 104,000 jobs in January.”
The politicians still have their jobs though. So do all the CEO’s, big bankers, and corporate media hacks, who report what they’re told to report and sanitize what they’re told to sanitize . . .
The mainstream news media will numb us to this horrifying reality by endlessly talking about the latest numbers, but they never piece them together to show you the whole devastating picture, and they rarely show you all the immense individual suffering behind them.
This is how they “normalize the unthinkable” and make us become passive in the face of such a high casualty count.
I don’t know how high the casualty count will have to get before Netroots “leaders” finally figure out that drinking that Two-Party-System Kool Aid will not make this horrifying reality go away. It won’t make it go away, it’s what got us here, it’s what’s killing us all in this nationwide Jonestown.
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I shop occasionally on Sundays was sparsely attended last week. Since I hadn’t been for awhile – I was surprised. People are making do with what’s in their cuboards, or shopping at the cheaper produce stores in the area.
Look around: In a nearby once thriving suburb, 4 long-time restaurants closed in a year.
Sign on a deserted small business window in that burb with copies of their real estate bill – circled in red. Astronomical $14,000 plus for a small printing shop.
The above are reflected in city/county taxes; thus, we get hit with bigger than ever real estate taxes even though our houses are stripped of worth. The taxing authorities live in that aforesaid gummy drop land apparently.
The nearby Church asking us to step up our donations to the food pantry – as they are being swamped.
Is it time to move out of the country?
“Pragmatically” – where would a third party candidate get money to run? The teabaggers are funded by conservatives – don’t tell me they’re not. All we need is an angry right movement electing high officials.
Seriously, is it time to move?
are sounding like they get their talking points strait from Rahm. They are catapulting the propaganda from the so called left. They seem to have made a deal with WaPo to have the sell out villager Esra Klien be the token netroot progressive voice of political pragmatism, is in essence saying that the problem lies with messaging not with the policy, agenda or the Democratic crooks themselves.
Poisoning the root is a good way to kill the tree. The party loyalists/Obamaites are so crazy that they believe reality is static and therefore ‘good’ and unchangeable as in this is all we can get. They are more delusional then the upside down, pig ignorant, teabaggers who at least know that were screwed. The loyalists don’t dare look at reality as it has no connection to their prime command ‘Exterminate’ they are programmed to exterminate any opposition to their leader and the party Machine. All doubters are their targets.
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Another good wake-up essay, Thank you.
Advocating against a protected group!
http://www.infowars.com/google…
Yep, the “numbing and dumbing down of America.”
The situation is far more grim than most people realize, because the media is NOT going to report to you how many homeless, hungry, indigent Americans there are, whole families, right here in the good ole’ U.S. of A.
You know how it is — if you don’t mention these things — they will “go away.” Just like Haiti, if you DON’T mention their true plight and what’s really going on — it will go away!
As in “Katrina,” “Haiti, too, was one of major media hype and tragedy “porn” and then, “dropped” — our pattern.
But, what about average Americans? What happens to people who have lost their homes, their jobs, their little savings or 401-k’s, their healthcare? Does anyone ever think about these people? Where are they? What is happening to them? Do we ever hear about them?
Unemployment “census?????” Another media joke! Unemployment, in most cases, was only good for six months, during which time, an average American worker was to have found a job, problem is they didn’t and if they did, it was a job at minimum wages, which, obviously, could not keep pace with that which they had already established!!! Point is, these people fell off the “unemployment” radar, simply because their benefits had run out, but it doesn’t mean they had a job. And, pray tell, what jobs are there to be had? Fallacy number one in the media BS. Fallacy number two has to do with the fact that most Americans, who do find jobs are taking jobs far less superior to their qualifications and abilities, and still can’t make it, but they are NOT on the unemployment statistics!
WE really don’t know the REAL truth, except as some of which you have laborated on.
Thanks, Rusty, HOW can we get people to awake to the reality, or do we just have to wait until there is a much greater crowd in “tent cities” across America!
And all I have to drink is either this Red Drink or this Blue Juice– I don’t know– What shall I do?