It is hard to imagine than when we look around ourselves and try to apportion blame for what has happened to our government, we need look no further than ourselves.
What could be harder than admitting for what's happened to have happened, we the people must have been absent without leave. Sure, we hear all the excuses.
"It's not us, it's the government!" "Politicians are all crooks..." "I don't have the time to get involved." When you talk to most people, there seems to be a disconnect between what they perceive as government operating in a vacuum. they either don't see the connection or don't want to see one.
Ignorance is bliss. And I can't think of any case that more illustrates that aphorism than our government today. Some must feel that if we ignore it long enough, it will go away. But that is the furthest thing from the truth. The truth is that if we ignore it long enough, it will get worse. The vermin, the creatures from the muck, will surface and find no predators ready to eat them up so they will propagate and before you know it, there will be more of them than us! And that is what we must guard against. Somewhere along the line nobody has told the people that they bear a responsibility for what ultimately happens. If we the people choose to jetison all responsibility for what happens to us ultimately, then the burden lies with us, not our stars. And this is the matter in a nutshell.
We have been so fussed over, so babied that to think that we might have to grow up and shoulder responsibility for those who unable to do so is seemingly more than we can bear. We would like mother to do it. Or somebody else!
Why should we? WE are too self-absorbed; too engaged in the details of our over complicated lives beset with name brands, keeping up with the Joneses or just over-stimulating our senses with non-stop video games, the opiate of the people the screen that dominates our lives, or the immersion into other forms of escapism. We've even discovered our own various forms of Soma so we only have to be conscious when it is necessary to operate in that state.
In the end, our abdication from things bearing responsibility have resulted in the worst form of corrupt government since the word democracy came on the scene.
What would the Athenians have done? They certainly would not have allowed the current bottom dwellers to take charge and stay in charge.... They would have let us know that a democracy imposes limits, restrictions and obligations that could not be passed onto somebody else. Everybody in a democracy plays a role; everyone must throw his stone into the bucket, white or black.
Vonnegut, in his latest book, has simply given up on people;' they are not worth the effort and he is probably right!
But there are still a few of us foolish optimists left who see a shred of hope; who feel that maybe we can find our core in time. But with each passing day when the rest of us shrug our shoulders, our hope becomes thinner, less a stew than a thin broth... What are we do?
Can we beat the rest of the population into seeing what is staring at us.
Clearly, as Vonnegut points out, the body politic cares nothing for the grandchildren of tomorow and I would add to that, that we care nothing for ourselves either.
I wish I could say that this is some temporary aberration; that Americans have courage and character. But in all honesty, I have to admit that it is clear that we have none of those attributes. Nor have we found the kind of leaders who can get us to reexamine our purpose, our identity.
No, the fact remains that the richest country in the world, is poor in most things of the soul. Ask anybody what happened in the past year, and you'll discover that most people don't know that there are hundreds of thousands who are missing from the Tsunami; ask about Afghanistan, and how many people will know that there are more than a million homeless as a result of the earthquake that struck there several weeks ago!....
How many people will deliver an old pair of gloves to the homeless or a sandwich to the old lady who walks the streets and sits on a heated grate to stay warm!
How many of us take a present or two from the usual pile of presents that our children get and bring them to the church with some canned goods and maybe a turkey for those less fortunate. No, that simply doesn't happen or it happens so infrequently as to be invisible to the rest of us.
It is sad that in this day and age, we can't seem to care about anyone but ourselves and our own needs...
So how could we even begin to care about a world that we cannot embrace long enough to realize that it touches every single phase of our lives.
Of course, our ability to avoid the unpleasant truths, is music to the ears of those who would steal our government blind, make legislation for their own ends, export all of our jobs for their own profits and generally give to the rich and rob from the poor. It's not fair perhaps to call this the new age of Republicanism, it's more like a divine monarchy that says in every way, "let them eat cake!" while the rest fall through the cracks of a support system that no longer works....a system that can't seem to even pretend to educate the young, tend to the poor, care for the ill...
In many ways what we are privvy to is a window to the end game. It is happening now before our eyes and we can't seem to take it all in. Maybe our mind refuses to accept the notion that a government can be so mean-spirited, so Evil in its abuse of all that is moral despite its phony religious cast. Maybe we can't accept the idea that any people would deliberately go round befouling its own nest.
But by the time we wake up to these realities, it may be too late to reverse the outcomes. So we watch, fascinated, as we are shown the circumstances of our own demise and can barely muster the ridiculous void-filling reply of "isn't that nice."
For those who have subscribed to such an outcome, either deliberately or through avoidance, there is a special Hell awaiting.... And for the rest of us who have tried to raise the clarion call to wake up before it's too late, the suffering is especially
painful.
For us curmudgeons, we continue gesticulate and remonstrate and curse at the moon; for the rest, it's simply more of the same....
I am inclined to think at this time what the whales said when they vacated this place...."Good-bye and thanks for all the fish!
VISIT WITH THE GREAT LIBRARIANS....
see this intriguing view of the End Game Chronicles that begins below..."
