Category: counting blessings

There are so many things seemingly going wrong at this point in history, it’s nearly impossible to keep up with it all.  We are bombarded daily with the latest scandal, the latest crime, the latest business failure, the latest forecast of bleakness in any number of areas…and yet NOTHING ever seems to change for the better.  

So that got me to thinking, maybe that is WHY we’re being bombarded.  To keep us distracted like a shifty 3-card Monty scammer working a rube.

For example, when was the last time you heard anything about Sam Bankman-Fried?  Major, massive scandal.  Lost (stole) BILLIONS of dollars – much of which went to political donations.  Corruption and deceit the likes of which we might see once in a generation.   Wall to Wall news and punditry coverage at first, until the political and academic connections came to light and then…crickets.

How about the Twitter Files?  Even if all the information that was released WAS “cherry picked”, it still exposed our government as highly unethical and deceiving, if not outright criminal and operating clearly outside their bounds.  At taxpayer expense, no less.  A couple congressional hearings later and again, crickets.

Just off the top of my head in the last year we’ve got the border situation, the whole (extremely gross and pathetic) Biden family saga (son’s laptop, daughter’s diary, brother’s shady “business”, and ol’ puddin’ head Joe ON CAMERA AND BRAGGING about using his influence as VP to call off the dogs that were investigating his son’s “employer” amongst other things). We’ve got citizens still locked up TWO YEARS LATER without trial over a protest of the the shadiest election ever held in our country, and the ONE GUY seen repeatedly and often encouraging and enticing other protesters to break laws is walking around free and they are trying really hard to make him out to be a victim. 

We’ve seen the beginning dominoes fall in what is sure to be another banking meltdown.  All followed by calls of “All is Well!”, while our  “leaders” are caught red-handed selling off stocks – just in time, I might add – to avoid personal losses.  Then to add insult to injury,  the mega banks buy up the good stuff for pennies on the dollar and leave the toxic stuff for the taxpayers to swallow.  And then the Fed bumps up interest rates again.

We’ve got near daily reports of racially motivated violence, enough homeless people to fill a mid-sized city, massive amounts of drugged out zombies wandering the cities causing filth and danger to skyrocket.  Store after store after store are closing up shop due to unfettered theft and violence toward their staff.

Then of course there is history’s biggest money laundering scheme happening over in Ukraine, where US taxpayers watch their money evaporate into the ether while the Ukrainian elite run around in Bentleys and live an insanely lavish life, while everything around them goes to hell. Not to mention pulling us ever closer to World War III.

Then we have the ever increasing culture wars brewing here at home.  Americans by and large (obviously not all, duh) are respectful and tolerant of others, UNTIL you start making demands of them.  That’s where we are now,  the fringe elements are demanding EVERYBODY bend to their will and support their ways, while simultaneously espousing hate and intolerance for anyone that doesn’t. Quite ironic in my humble opinion.

All this yammering about the “climate crisis” (I’m not sure if that is the correct term this week, it’s changed so many times since the 1980s I’ve lost count) and yet we’re allowing MILLIONS of people to come here with no way to house, feed or employ them all as they help further deplete what natural resources we have.  Pushing all electric EVERYTHING when we don’t have nearly the electric grid capacity for anywhere near the growth of use they are demanding.

I could go on and on and on, I’m afraid.  All these have just been stream-of-consciousness, off the top of my head.  My point being,  OF COURSE we can’t solve all this right now.  It’s simply too much and too divergent.  

To solve problems, you have to have FOCUS.  You need time to think.  Even when you have a “solution”, those take time, energy,  resources to implement.   And you have to have the WILL to stick to the program and see things through.  You have to be willing to change things up when a plan isn’t working the way you thought it would.  You have to work around unseen obstacles and deal with unintended consequences. You must commit to solving the problem.

Even IF we had honest, commited local, state and federal governments (which we absolutely do NOT!), even IF they got together and prioritized all this mess, and decided “OK. We’re going to start with this ONE thing, and everything else can wait” there are so many interwoven issues, it would take a lifetime to unravel it all.

And so NOTHING happens, except more and more crap heaped upon We the People.

The Progressives hate the Moderates, the MAGAs hate the neocons, the liberals hate the conservatives… And vice-versa. But overall the battle between the extremes on BOTH sides are driving lots of people into “Independent” because they don’t want anything to do with either side of these whackadoos.  But when most of the government’s “work” is directed towards the two extreme ends of the divide, the important stuff that MOST of us actually care about gets put on the back burner, tossed aside for later or just completely ignored.  Which in turn makes people angrier, more distressed, LESS compassionate, and more unwilling to compromise.   Wash, rinse and repeat.

The way I see it, either our “leaders” are so inept and worthless, that they are simply incapable of fixing things OR they are so corrupt and self centered, that they are driving the populace to madness in order to tear up the rule book and turn us into something other than what our country was founded to be.  Either way, we peons lose.

Identity politics are for a people that have nothing else to worry about.  That ain’t us.  There are mounting problems – major, life changing problems – that will effect ALL OF US.  Whether you are a gung-ho warhawk that thinks the USA should be overthrowing regimes, a bearded lady, a kale-munching, whale hugging neo-hippie, a staunch constitutional adherent, an An-Cap, a trad wife or a professional leftist agitator… we ALL gotta eat.  We’d all like to have a roof over our heads.  We don’t want to feel like our lives are in danger when we step foot into a city, or a church or a movie theater.  We’d like to feel like our representatives actually represent US rather than corporations and special interests…  But instead of focusing on the basics, we’re fighting over pronouns and “hate” speech and a bunch of other crap that means nothing in the big scheme of things. 

Our country, and many others honestly,  are in for a world of hurt.  It’s beyond past time to out aside these idiotic, petty differences and focus on the basics.  Real, honest food.  Clean, potable water.  A robust infrastructure,  free from crumbling bridges and pothole ridden streets.  Reasonable, basic education- reading, writing, arithmetic  AND civics.  Public safety.  A medical system that cares for patients more than pharmaceutical companies. Everything else is gravy.  And it can wait.

We have people making laws and passing regulations on things that they have NO working knowledge of.  And a complicit media machine cheering them on.

For instance, my idiotic state passed regulations on fluorescent bulbs, essentially outlawing them as of next year.  Did the jackasses making this regulation take into account just how many fluorescent light fixtures there are in California?  They couldn’t possibly know.  In my facility, which is only about a millions square feet, we have over 4,000 fluorescent fixtures still, after doing multiple LED conversion projects over the last 5 years.  That is ONE facility, in one city.  Basically, they set up a regulation that CANNOT be met in their time-line.  Even if it could be done logistically, think of the MILLIONS of dollars required to implement it – many small businesses and smaller landlords simply can’t afford it – imagine the sheer amount of waste product generated by doing this, some of it toxic.  So we’ll have tens of millions of new light fixtures required, the vast majority of which will come from China AND thousands of tons of waste going into the landfill sites, all on the name of being “sustainable”.  Will all those fluorescent replacements then allow the capacity for charging tens of thousands of new electric cars, now that gasoline powered vehicles will also be banned from sale in a couple short years?  Not bloody likely,  especially considering how much high density housing the state is forcing every municipality to shove into every nook and cranny.  The whole thing is a slow motion disaster unfolding before our very eyes, and there doesn’t seem to be a damn thing we can do about it.  The blind leading the stupid in the race to the bottom.

I may be old fashioned, in that I still believe in American ideals.  I’m not naive enough to believe that America hasn’t done some bad, really bad things in the past, but I don’t believe that defines us as a nation either. A nation is defined by it’s people,  not it’s government.  We are far from perfect, no question, but our FOUNDATION allows us to be the greatest,  most freedom oriented nation the world has ever seen.  We’ve sadly lost sight of that.  Our “leaders” sold all that promise out from under us and we let it happen.

As I’ve mentioned before, at my core I’m an optimist. I don’t believe we’ve come to the end of the American experiment. But I DO believe we are fast approaching sink or swim time. Do we want our grandchildren to inherit a bastion of freedom and opportunity or another failed state like South Africa or Venezuela?

We need to come together as countrymen, put aside the petty squabbles and hold the feet of our “leaders” to the fire. We the People are THEIR employers, and it’s high time we start reminding them of this fact.

The time for going along to get along has passed. That’s how we got into this mess in the first place. Right is right and wrong is wrong and we need to stop pretending otherwise. Likewise, your bad decisions are not everyone’s problem. If you screw up, own it, change it and move on with your life in a more positive way. We MUST stop relying on the government goons to take care of us. They clearly are not up to the task anyhow.

We’re Americans, we have a proud and fierce History. Our ancestors changed the world against all odds. It is time to remember their faces and pick up where they left off.

My apologies for the rant. This wasn’t what I had in mind when I started writing, it just kinda took on a life of its own. I’ve been in a horrible funk for the last couple months and I guess it just came to a head. Nonetheless, I stand by it. Nobody is “coming to save us”, and it could be argued that they are actively trying to take us down. It is up to us – you, me, everyone that considers themselves an American, to turn the tide and return to civility, order and common sense.

Thanks for stopping by!