Prop 8 Unconstitutional!

Duh!

Almost right ...or is that left

This morning as I was making coffee I thought,  "What the hell am I gonna talk about on the blog today?"

Lo and behold THIS was the first thing on my facebook page.  Several people, one of whom I know, commented on it,  and though I agree with their points I agree with George too.

What we aren't realizing yet is that this country no longer exists.  The country we're sold every day, the one with the American Dream in it and the one with the limitless possibilities and  the one where we CAN actually have it all... gone.

The mistake I think George is making in his thesis is that he seems to think it's organized.  That there is some giant conspiracy keeping America from existing.  I don't believe there is.  And I think that lack of organization is the problem and the savior as well.

He says, "...They don't give a fuck about you..at all, at all, AT ALL!"  True that, but they also don't give a fuck about each other.  They're not willing nor able really, to band together to get organized because if they did then the George Carlin's really couldn't exist and then the jig would really be up, we'd easily figure out that the game is rigged and that we're not gonna get ANYTHING.

Surely it's not escaped notice that a lot of parents are buying kids houses while they go to college or financing the down payment on the kid's first home, or housing the kid when they can't find a job.  Why is that you ask?  Is it possible that the previous generation had it better than we do? That they benefited from all those things the current "owners," to borrow a phrase,  don't want us to have, and are the last of those who can help. They're a dying breed! Why?  They're largely people who made their own money, not those who droned for corporations.

Look at my adoptive father.  Married in November 1941. Two weeks later, Pearl Harbor.  Talk about bad timing, in the Army before he was married 6 months. Got his GED after he returned. What did he get as a wedding present? Go ahead I dare you to guess?

A house.

Well, not actually a house, but a house with a mother-in-law bungalow in the back!  So, two houses actually. What did his benefactor do for a living?  He owned his own business, actually two of them.

Daddy  Dearest sold the wedding present ten years later to relocate here where my adoptive mothers family lived.  Gave up the offer of a partnership in what turned out to be an extremely successful marine business, and came here only to stumble into a well paying job with a good future at a company that got so successful they got eaten up by another company and as a result he was out of a job.

Then he really stepped in it, he got a job in the auto industry.  And for the next 28 years he went there almost every day. And this GED recipient was making in 1972, what was considered really good money in 1985. See what I mean?

Oh and not only was his health care free, so was his wife's and his kids and there was no such thing as a deductible and prescriptions no matter what they were for were $3.00.  In 1989 he had bypass surgery and massive life-threatening complications (his dr still introduces him as the sickest man he ever treated that lived) and was in hosptal for two months.

Never received ONE bill.

A couple of bits of bad luck though.  First his wife forced him to adopt me, NOT what he wanted to do, which he's made clear these many years.  And then just when he was less than three short years from being free of me forever, she dropped dead on him.

So here he is, 48, free and clear, the house is long since paid for, and the last kid has one foot out the door and he's left single.

So within 16 months he marries again, and what's the first thing they do?

They buy a house.  Not just any house, they buy a brand new one in THE neighborhood.  They paid cash.

So 12 years later he retires.  What does he get?  Well, she buys him a car (which was their thing, they bought each other cars) and then to this day he gets a check from that company, the one that DIDN'T participate in the bailout and therefore has thrived as a result.  And he gets social security.

I should mention that his father was a drunken reprobate who insisted that everything in California, the grandparents house in the Palisades, the weekend house in Palm Springs, and all the money, (there was a bunch) is his when they die.  And he spends it all.  His fifth wife got all the property. 

No worries, Daddy Dearest and his second wife amassed a pile of cash of their own through investments, and good fortune. (btw it was muni's the big bad government made them rich lol) And then she dies on him 30 years later.

Where is he now? This high school grad?

He's reaping the benefits of the ONLY generation to have been able to get over on the corporations in yet another IT neighborhood.

He sold the house he bought with wife #2 for four times he paid for it, and bought his own condo...cash.

Let it be said he is NOT a saver.  He never saved a dime of his own money and his wives ran the household finances.

He reaps, daily, the benefits of a generation, the success of which we'll never see again...every single day. BTW I was in charge of the household finances when wife #2 died for a while until he could take it over after recovering from his grief, and it took me two months to figure out why the checking account was 11k off from the statement.  He doesn't record the deposit of his social security checks so that way he saves $1400 a month cause he pretends it's not there. (arrgh!)


None of his children will ever have that no matter what they do.  We can't afford what it would now cost us to accomplish any of that., because we drone for corporations, perhaps if we droned for ourselves we'd see the promised land?

I, of the four degrees, taught full time last semester for a month.  How much did I make, you ask?

400 dollars less than I would have made as a cashier at the grocery.  Which, as I lament daily is not enough to pay the bills.  It actually cost me money to have that job for a month.

Am I owed a good job or a decent living, or a house because I'm educated, no.  Is there possibility in this country for an educated person, no.

Why?

Because as George says, "they" don't want an educated populace. That's why and how corporate America and the GOP have captured the hearts and minds of honest hard working Americans because they spread the word that we're not one of them.  We're "smarter" and we're better educated, so we're the liberal elite enemy.  "God knows what they'll think up next time."

I particularly love the liberal elite press argument.  The corporations OWN the press!  And they can get people to listen to whatever they want to tell them if they only make them believe that what they're hearing from the other guy is a bunch of lies. And that appeals to us all, trust me. It's Madison Avenue at it's zenith I tell you. They convince everyone that they're regular BA degree earning folks like "you and me" and they don't want the educated snobs running their show.  THAT'S why I can't find anyone who has a clue as to how to utilize my education. They don't want to. 

"Stay stupid and we'll take care of you."

George is NOT making the argument that there is no possibility of making things better, and he's not saying that one cannot succeed, he's saying that the game is rigged. That if one expects to get a job and work every day and reap benefits from that work as they age, they're wrong because it costs those that provide it money, and not spending money on YOU is what it's all about.  I think George is a living/ok, well, dead example that we CAN make it on our own, but it's those who expect help from "the man" that are asleep. 

So is it organized?  Hell no. Is the message the same so we can believe it because of it's consistency?  Yes!  Is that intentional, well yes and no.  I don't believe it's a conspiracy because I believe it's actually what a lot of people do believe to be true.  And as we all know, if you tell a lie often enough it becomes the truth.  

Is entrepreneurship the answer?  Is "If you can't beat 'em then join 'em." the answer?

Maybe.

And so it goes.