Often, probably too often, commentaries like this tend to wander into the briar patch of being overly wordy. And wordy usually begats a lack of understanding and a lack of understanding begats boredom and, as a result, to put it simply, a lot of people ain't gettin' all that much outta what's bein' said here.
I admit I'm guilty of that. Now and then. Once it a while. On occasion when I've already made the point but, for some reason, feel the need to go on and on making and re-making the point that I've already made only to end up sounding repetitive and redundant and......
...you know.....wordy.
So, this time around, I'm going to try and resist the temptation to go all Thesaurus on you and pare it down to some basics.
Your average Joe and Jane don't really know very much about politics or government.
Your average Joe and Jane don't really know very much about how politics and government work.
And your average Joe and Jane don't really care that they don't know. Or, at the very least, they're not all that interested in learning.
The first, most obvious reason is that all of us tend to want to know about things for only two reasons.
We're either interested in it in the first place.
Or, for some reason, we have a need to be interested in it.
I know a lot about the Kennedy assassinations. The subject has always interested me and, so, I've read, seen and heard just about everything there is to read, see or hear on the subject.
I know very little about how my flat-screen delivers that really amazing hi-def picture. I'm not particularly interested. I had no interest in electronics, as a kid. I didn't join the A/V Club, I didn't have a ham radio, I just really didn't care all that much.
My interest in how flat-screens work is pretty much limited to how to find the right person to get it working properly again when it goes on the fritz.
The need dictates the level of interest. Or, at least, involvement.
Politics...and government...are just like the Kennedy assassinations.
And flat-screens.
People who are interested express their interest by taking an interest.
And those who have no interest....
...take no interest.
But here's an interesting thing.
Turns out that a lot of average Joes and Janes are, apparently, interested in one...and only one...thing.
Money.
Suddenly reminded of a wonderful anecdote.
Two politicians are feverishly debating. One finally loses his cool and rages at his opponent, "oh, for the love of God, man, you're LYING!"
To which his opponent responds, "yes, I am...but...hear me out..."
You may or may not agree with what I have to share with you, you might even be convinced that I'm lying.
But..hear me out.
By the way. I'm not lying.
Let me tell you how I know that money is the one thing in which you are interested.
You've been trying to get me on board with the concept for almost two years now.
You tell me....
...stock market is flourishing.
...unemployment is way down.
...consumer confidence is high (for those not hip to the jargon, "consumer confidence" is a five dollar term for the half dollar definition: people more likely to spend money on stuff than they were when "consumer confidence" was low.)
There are a number of other "you tell me"s I could list here but, let's just stipulate that they're all just one variation or another on the three I mentioned.
Okay.
Your telling me these three things (and/or any one of the number of other variations of these things) tells me four things.
One, two and three, of course, are that it is your opinion that the stock market is flourishing, unemployment is way down and consumer confidence is high.
All of which, by the way, are not only currently, but have also historically always been, prone to sizable fluctuation at any given moment, not to mention that these "facts" are based on statistics and percentages and trends and movements and all kinds of unseen things, clearly open to interpretation (which means one person's beautiful, drenching rain is another person's torrential downpour spawning a flash flood and washing away the new Corolla).
And the fourth thing your telling me the three things tells me?
That money is the one thing in which you are interested.
Now, keep in mind, if you're with me to this point, you've obviously earlier made, at least, a mild commitment to hear me out.
So, hear me out.
Let's say, for the sake of argument and/or in the spirit of fair play, that money is, in fact, not the only thing in which you are interested.
Let me, then, explain to you why I operate under that assumption.
Because, frankly, that's the impression you're making.
Because you seem to be very satisfied, impressed, even happy and vocal about...
1) the stock market flourishing.
2) unemployment being way down.
3) consumer confidence being high.
But you don't seem to be particularly concerned, let alone see as any kind of problem, that...
1) Your healthcare program has not only not improved, it has probably gotten worse and is very likely going to cost you more in the immediate future (and, I gotta tell ya, given your interest in money, I'm more than a little surprised at ya on this one)
2) Your (or your Meemaw's or your Paw Paw's) Social Security, Medicaid and/or Medicare is in serious danger of being cut way back or even eliminated all together (again...money...hello).
3) The massive, disaster movie proportion wave of murdering, looting, raping and pillaging aliens pouring over our borders hour after hour are not being held back by the wall that we were all promised over two years ago.
4) Pretty much most of the bedrock American institutions that every one of us, from the moment we were old enough to read, were taught were institutions that we needed to honor and respect.. they're being attacked, ridiculed, mocked, humiliated. FBI, CIA, National Security Council, hell, pretty much the whole Justice Department/American Intelligence Community tamayta.
5) The free press....right there big as life in the First Amendment....not the Second....the very First...important enough that our beloved Founding Fathers put it First..which comes before Second...so that must mean the freedom of the press is even more important than....wait for it....the right to own every damn gun ever made, as many as you want, however and whenever you want? That free press is being attacked, too. Enemy of the people, I hear tell. Now that's some serious hammer smashing shit, wouldn't you say?
Hmm..not interested, huh?
Yeah.
How about the Russians, at the very least, putin'...sorry, puttin' their nose where it don't belong? And speakin' of Russia, how about pretty much every damn country in this world that has been even close to being a friend of America for the past hundred years, anyway, pretty much writin' us off as a waste of time and energy?
Yeah, world affairs and all that dusty stuff. Who has time for all that? We gotta go get ice for the tailgate party.
Wait, here you go.
Bunch of laws that were passed a long, long time ago to keep the water clean and air breathable so your kids and grand-kids and their kids and their grand-kids could, you, know, drink and breathe... without dying...Gone. Rescinded. Revoked.
Still no interest?
Hmm.
Any thing with this it's okay for Nazis and White Supremacists to march in American streets and then be told by the head of USA, Inc that some of them are very fine people?
Any interest? Concern?
How about just plain ol' meanness. Nastiness. People we look to for leadership and inspiration. People we hope will call us to rise up, to be more, to give more, to contribute more, to lift the bar of humanity so high that even on a super cloudy day, you wouldn't be able to see it, even if......
Yeah....
All that lofty, mushy, Hallmark Card crap...what's that expression people usin' now...oh...yeah...snoflake.
Please.
Go coat somebody's else's driveway, why don't ya, you buzzkillin' libtard.
We got celebratin' to do.
...stock market is flourishing.
...unemployment is way down.
...consumer confidence is high
See, it's hard, seeing what I see and hearing what I hear from you, to make me think that you really have any, much less an active, interest in anything besides money.
Because we both know that every single one of those three things that you are satisfied, impressed, even happy and vocal about...along with all those other things I mentioned, originated, are the result of, and currently come from... the same individual.
And we both know who that is.
And since all of those things that I mentioned can, pretty sure, be described as,well, let's just say, not cool and you aren't all that interested or concerned, you leave me with no other option but to believe that Randy Newman is your cheerleader.
It's money that matters.
Classic film.
Citizen Kane.
A fictional movie loosely based on the life of William Randolph Hearst who was one of America's very first, very, very rich.
You might say he was one of the first one percenters.
Kane dies in the beginning. Oh. Sorry. Spoiler alert. Kane dies in the beginning. And then the whole movie is basically his life story, told in flashbacks, as a reporter tries to uncover Kane's life story.
Along the way, the reporter interviews a Mr. Bernstein, one of Kane's underlings who puts all of what I've shared with you thus far into perspective.
"He made an awful lot of money", the interviewing reporter says.
Mr. Bernstein, with his reply, hits nothin' but net.
"Well...it's no trick to make a lot of money....if what you want to do is make a lot of money."
I'd only tweak that wisdom just a touch in terms of what we're experiencing in America right now.
There's no trick to make a lot of money...
...when...all...you want to do is make a lot of money.
Inferior and unaffordable healthcare, gutting or loss of programs to give comfort and ease the fears of Mee Maw and Paw Paw in their final years, panic in the streets over hoards of aliens in our streets, disgracing foundational American institutions, threatening to block the free flow of information, amateurish and/or incompetent relations with foreign countries, be they friend or enemy, giving Nazis and other haters of minorities a semi-shout out or just plain not giving a shit that your kids and the grand-kids and the future kids might just go thirsty or asphyxiate.
Clearly, a whole lot of average Joes and Janes just aren't all that interested.
And, hey, who wants to be the one to pee on the parade when there's such happy news in this battered but never broken ol' Republic.
...stock market is flourishing.
...unemployment is way down.
...consumer confidence is high.
God Bless America.
And God bless...
...these interesting times.
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