“There is just enough bullshit to hold things together in this country.
Bullshit is the glue, that binds us as a nation.
Where would we be without our safe, familiar, American bullshit?
Land of the free, home of the brave, the American dream, all men are
equal, justice is blind, the press is free, your vote counts, business
is honest, the good guys win, the police are on your side, god is watching you,
your standard of living will never decline… and everything is going to
be just fine…
The official national bullshit story.
I call it the American “okie dokie”.
Every one, every one of those items is probably untrue at one level or
another, but we believe them – because they’re pounded into our heads
from the time we’re children.
That’s what they do with that kind of thing—pound it into the heads of
kids, ‘cause they know the children are much too young to be able to
muster an intellectual defense against a sophisticated idea like that,
and they know that up to a certain age children believe everything
their parents tell them.
And as a result, they never learn to question things.
Nobody questions things in this country anymore.
Nobody questions it—everybody is too fat and happy.
Everybody’s got a cell phone that’ll make pancakes and rub their balls
now— Way too fucking prosperous for our own good.
Way too fucking prosperous, Americans have been bought off and
silenced by toys and gizmos.
And no one learns to question things.”
~George Carlin
To begin with I would apologize for the language in the above quote, but it is a quote and not my place to edit or revise-that being said I agree with Carlin, but also believe this is a hallmark of industrialized countries-even China is getting caught up in the toys and gizmos and has the identical glaring disparities between those who have and those who don’t.
This is yet another characteristic of industrialized nations, this system of separation of true wealth or financial security and the extending of credit in lieu of wage increases to create the illusion of well being.
Wages over the past few decades have not kept pace with the cost of living-they have increased enough only to insure that people rely more heavily on credit and have been able to make their payments.
The proof of this is the number of home foreclosures, personal bankruptcies,homelessness, and reliance on social programs. Inevitable that it would lead to impacting small business owners and local community banks-inevitable too that people would spend themselves into a state of indebtedness they could not maintain.
Add the malfeasance and manipulations of Wall Street, banks, politicians, and multinational corporations and it has proven to be a recipe for disaster.
There are various anti trust laws designed to disallow monopolies or the acquisition of enough power and influence to operate as one-when the “collapse” occurred rather than the government throwing money into the coffers of these corporate entities they should have stepped in and broken them up into smaller companies and enforced regulations with a vengeance.
But since all politicians are corporate minions doing the bidding of lobbyists they adopted the opposite approach, and instead not only effectively rewarded them for the chaos they initiated, but allowed them to profit even more and strengthened the strangle hold they have.
Now as the election cycle is ramping up it is as Carlin would say, more bullshit. Each side claiming to be free of complicity and offering the only true solution-the airways filled with rhetoric, charges and counter charges, and the media talking heads rabidly promoting not only their personal party centric take on things but as devotees the ideology of change which all parties shamelessly and meaninglessly offer.
News is no longer about truth and integrity, if it ever was-it is about the personalities of those who deliver it, and the measure of credibility attached to it is in direct relationship to the acceptance of the mainstream media celebrity who sits in front of the camera-how well they cast themselves as defenders of the faith - Davids against Goliath -how many writers they have who compose their nightly report, and how clever those writers are.
These talking heads, and they are little more than that, are alternately breathless, saddened, enraged, or messianic in their approach-they become adoptees of the extended family and welcomed nightly into the home to sit and visit a while, to not only instruct us as to the days events, but the significance of and how to interpret them.
They are ultimately the front line propagandists, who while sipping their pumpkin spiced lattes as their personal makeup artists powder and tweak, practice the cadence of their delivery and expressions knowing full well the security of their financial well being that elevates them above so called Main Street hinges entirely on performance and ratings.
America has become a nation of experts and titles, would be Pied Pipers seeking a following. Experts are everywhere, from the place of work, to forums, the halls of government, the media, ad infinitum.
Each convinced they are smarter, better informed, visionary, and authors of the only viable solutions-relentless in their advocacy of not only themselves but their insights-it is yet another chink in the armor, no give and take, a divisive my way or the highway, a bully’s competition-an arrogant assumption that any who fail to recognize their value, their wisdom, their solution, can only be mentally challenged or of lesser value, an affliction to suffer, a burden to bear.
This is the mentality that authors genocide and eugenics,whether they manifest themselves in the physical or philosophical realm of attitudes and racism-a necessary “cleansing” for the betterment of society as determined by “experts”.
Their version of the laughable FEMA death camps conspiracies they railed about and ridiculed so loudly -both of which they conveniently overlook would have to be government mandated-no they would have you believe it is a farsighted, compassionate, and ultimately altruistic position. It is beneficial in nature.
Common sense is the equivalent of the back of the bus, there can be no simple direct solutions-if that were so what need is there of experts? What soapbox could they erect to promote their agenda?
No, common sense is anathema, America needs rhetoric, profound musings, and above all complexity. America needs the inane dance and the incessant drone of words-the need to make right sound like wrong and wrong sound like right-and this society is a master at that-but above all else as individuals America needs to hear the sound of their voice and to be heard-they need attention and to be the focal point-they need to shine, or at least convince ourselves that they do.
And yet experts sit and wonder why no one listens to them, bemoaning the fact that they are unrecognized prophets, and never once considering that mere talk without a matching physical effort amounts to little more than a release of noxious gas-of which there is an over abundance already.
Something tangible, tactile ,is needed to grasp, something real-a thing to touch and measure it’s weight, an example that can only be provided through actual participation-experts never understand this-their understanding is limited and self centered, the words they utter a contrivance meant to pass as personal substance, weight, and value wrapped in layers of rhetoric. It is tangible to them, a thing felt, and they expect it to be so for all others.
Their particular sociopathy, their egotism, is that when it isn’t they become dismissive
and critical.They are misunderstood-too smart, too perceptive for the mere masses to appreciate.
Besides the obvious, the greater tragedy in all this is that some indigenous people, some of our own, are adopting these very attitudes-they seek the media and personal notoriety, they boast of being members of “think tanks” of all things, they have ghost and speech writers, they pursue a lifestyle in glaring contrast to those around them, they practice that political go to of plausible deniability and silence, despite the fact that the deniability is anything but plausible and the silence is an indictment in itself.
They promote themselves as experts, and like Johnny Rocco of Key Largo fame they want more. More of everything-more fame, more attention, more toys and gizmos- but most importantly of all, more money and power.
An abducted, raped and murdered woman such as Annie Mae Pictou Aquash is dismissed as acceptable collateral damage, as is Ray Robinson, WK2, and an endless list of other atrocities known and unknown.
I say bullshit to that, and believe Carlin would have done likewise……. as we all should.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWa6vsXOKAU