Are You Comfortable?

As my dad got older he settled into his day to day routine and seemed to have go to phrases he enjoyed using.  For example if asked if he was comfortable he'd quip, "I make a living."
He was (is) my dad and therefore I smiled or sometimes even laughed at the statement I'd heard him say 100 times.
Back in his day he did make a living, at least for the years after World War II.
In his youth he struggled as so many of his generation did.
He lost his parents while he was in his teens and had to go out and earn money to help support his brother and sister.  He even took two jobs in order to make ends meet and be somewhat comfortable.
During the depression, the one back in the 1930s many people had to hold two jobs or possible more to keep one step ahead of wolf.
Those of us in my generation look back at those intrepid survivors and marvel at their selfless stamina and will to survive.

Sailor Sol being honored
for his service before
America decided to forget
about him and others of his
generation in favor of the
wealthy business owners
and their bribe money

He served honorably and courageously in the South Pacific during the second World War and returned to his growing family.
Then came Levittown and the fifties and the start of an extended period of  good times for the so-called middle class as the returning war heroes and their families realized there was an American Dream to aspire toward.
As the middle class grew and their lives became relatively easy compared with their childhood they grew a tiny bit complacent.  They figured America would always have their backs and the country would keep improving conditions for the backbone of society.
They were wrong!
Greed is a terrible thing.
It's a cancer on the soul.
But it's a strange type of cancer, one that eats at the fabric of  society and ruins the lives not of the host but of those around them!
Little by little the wealthier among us realized that they could have a larger piece of the apple if they could control the orchard.  If they could offer lawmakers a sort of commission (bribe in common terms) to keep things in line they could forge ahead of others and grab the brass ring without even working up a sweat!
No more did the wealthiest among us have to worry about two jobs or in many cases even one!  They could own a business and let it run comfortable in the notion that no stifling regulations would be placed in their path even if their products were harmful to humans.
Suddenly every business owner and CEO realized that the key to success lay not only in having a good product but also in owning cheap disorganized, non-unionized labor as well as the occasional Congressman!
Slaves or serfs were the way to go.
If they could keep the worker down, keep their friends in power by blocking the votes of those who figured out their evil plan, and tilt the playing field in their favor the game would most assuredly be theirs to win.  It was a blueprint on 'How to Truly Succeed without Even Trying!
And suddenly almost as though some evil telepathic agreement on price and wage fixing spread throughout the land and every business owner was in cahoots in the collusion.
Some smaller communities or closed sets of owners have their own unspoken rules to keep lowly workers down.  For example if an employee tries to better himself by moving to a different company for a penny more in salary he cannot do so if the new company is owned by a member of the same faith as his current one! Don't believe me? Ask me in private and I'll give you intimate details of how this evil scheme works and who perpetrates it every freaking day of the year!
Businesses have sent so many jobs overseas there is really no way for things to get back to the way they were in our lifetime until Americans allow these evil creatures to dismantle the minimum wage law.
But there is a way for our government, if they would start acting like OUR government to at least level the playing field a touch.
If they would start taxing these large corporations and even the smaller ones in a fair and American like equitable way then at least we could make these giants pay for their anti-social acts.
Stop subsidizing big oil; stop allowing tax breaks for companies who send jobs out of America; Scale back gerrymandered districts designed to screw the average human; stop allowing partisan State and Local lawmakers from blocking citizens from voting; and start being real!
DO YOUR JOBS!
Hard working veterans such as my dad would be spinning in their graves if they knew how poorly our current legislators are treating their children and grandchildren.
If big business, hell any business cannot pay their workers a fair wage then they have no right to be in business!
And any CEO or just plain owner who pulls so high a salary out of the company at the expense of the backbone, the workers of that company, who were a major reason he was able to make that money in order to buy his next BMW or corporate jet while his employees are applying for food stamps deserves to be placed in a jail cell.
It's about time to make my dads statement a reality for the average American worker so that when he or she is asked how are you doing, they can finally and proudly say, "I make a living!"

Dreams, But Why Bother!

We seem to always have a political treatise or memoir hitting the book stands.  Most of them are self-serving and annoying.  But the number one job of a politician is to keep his job and basically not give a damn about yours!

A while ago a man who currently resides in the White House wrote a personal book that was not meant to garner him political gains, at least not yet.  The book was a big seller made even bigger with his eventual rise in World prominence.

This post merely uses his title to play off and it is with some small apologies to Mr. Obama that I do so.

But frankly it fits with the current atmosphere of America so...

In America we are all given a fair chance to succeed.  This is what we have commonly called the American Dream.

And we want that America Dream for ourselves and even more so for our children.

But just what is The Dream?

Back in 1928 it was simply a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage as then candidate Herbert Hoover pronounced.

Sadly after winning by a landslide over Alfred Smith he and his Republican Party could not deliver on his great claims. Funny that from them not much has changed in that department in the 4 score and 6 years since.

In fact the only thing great about his Presidency turned out to be the Great Stock Market crash and subsequent Great Depression.

The American Dream then became a next meal and a roof over one’s head.

Millions were out of work and looking to Washington for help.

Mr. Hoover did get some small accomplishments during his tenure such as increasing our Nation’s National Park footprint but basically far too little to help those who found themselves on the ground, literally!

It was the Great Depression that outlasted him and catapulted Franklin Delano Roosevelt into the White House.

And after several social programs were put in place by Mr. Roosevelt the nation appeared to be headed back in the right direction.

But we still needed something more.

And we got that nudge when Germany and Japan decided to take over the world.

World War II turned our economy around and it only took the lives of some 60 million people worldwide to do so.

Naturally there were many in politics upon whom that fact was not lost.  I mean the first part, the part about the economy, although the collateral damage probably slipped into their equation at some point.

These, for lack of a better term, war mongers realized the monetary benefit of war.  Of course only if they did not have to fight it themselves.

Former General Eisenhower famously warned about these hawk archetypes in his Presidential farewell speech when he coined the phrase, the vast industrial military complex.

And today that vast industrial military complex sucks the air out of America in many ways.

When the right wing continues to kow tow to their owners in the 1% by lowering their taxes while keeping the middle class down there is only one thing the country can do and that’s cut services!

Now of course you may say that we are all affected by service cuts but be real!  The uber wealthy do not need publicly funded services when they can literally buy an island with the petty cash in their pockets.

So service cuts hurt, harm and eventually kill the poor and middle class.

And let’s face it, when you’re dead the American dream is the least of your worries!

So we may still dream but between the Republican Party trying to gerrymander Democrats out of existence and the wealthy pulling the strings behind them there isn’t really any chance of a Disney ending for most Americans.

We will go into the big sleep with only our dreams perchance to keep our hopes alive.

Rudyard Kipling wrote “If you can dream—and not make dreams your master…“

Well we can dream but unless and until the American voter wakes up from their stupor and realizes what a terrible blight the Republican Party has become we shall only have dreams without any hope of achieving them.

And until then I must admit, Dreams? Why bother!