Modern Man

Last week an old employee of the gallery came back to work full time. He recently graduated from college.Being twice his age, I have been unable to stop my self in drawing comparisons. Not so much between he and I, but more along the lines of where my life was when I was that age.The one huge difference is that this young man, and his friends, always seem to be in a hurry, about everything. I was very seldom in a hurry after I graduated from college. I had little idea of where I even wanted to go, let alone being in a rush to get there. There was much to see and explore. I didn’t want to miss anything by rushing past.The flood of technologies adds to the furor of or fast past lives today. Our lives are lived at cyber speed. Personally I find that a bit scary. Many times in life, I have found that taking a few minutes to think about a note your writing, or what you’re about to say or do, makes all the difference.With things like email, blogs, twitter, and Facebook, we can get things out to the universe in nano seconds. No time for thought. No taking it back after you hit send.I would love to see a five minute delay between the time I hit enter and the time things get published or sent. Just in case.I told you that story to tell you this story.When I’m on my way, almost anywhere, I have become a bit of a doddler. (One who doddles) I like to take a bit more time, slow down and smell a few roses or pretty girls. Laguna is full of pretty people and sites.  If you rush past, you miss them.The young man that just started was telling me he drives as fast as he can through Laguna, to get out of the congestion and  get where he’s going. Even when he’s not going anywhere.He seems way to young to be in such a hurry that he’s missing all of the roses and pretty girls. To each, his own.Anywho…next time you’re driving through Laguna and you get behind some guy going slow and admiring the scenery, try to cut them some slack. It’ could be me, breathing deeply.

How many of you know much about world history? Or even US history?

I ask because, I’m trying to figure out just when and where the people of the United States decided to just sit back and accept being raped, plundered and pillaged.

No matter where you get your news, and you can get it almost every where now, I keep seeing the same things over and over. Some greedy bastard has raped the public for millions, if not billions, for their own personal gain.

The government steps in and gives them a slap on the wrist. Then they make some kind of superficial change to the law or rules of business. Usually not making any significant change to help anyone other than the rapists. And we all sit back and take it.

This morning for example, I read about all of the new ways that JP Morgan Chase, ie. Chase Bank, are screwing over their customers. Good customers. Most have done nothing wrong. They pay on time, don’t go over their limits, pay extra every month. But that wasn’t enough for Chase, so they tripled the interest, doubled or tripled the monthly payments…

And when asked why, the customers were told that they really didn’t care if this was making life hard or forcing people into bankruptcy. They had planned for this.Chase was one of the companies that were, “Too big to fail”. They just got billions of dollars in government bail outs.

Why did they need bailed out you ask?

Because they were poorly managed, made bad decisions and were greedy beyond imagination.

The reward for their poor choices was that the government then took our hard earned tax dollars, dollars that should have gone to things like education and infrastructure, and gave it to Chase instead.

One way or another Chase gets our money and we get screwed.AIG, another company that got a huge government bailout after running their company into the toilet with huge management salaries, bonuses and lavish, mind blowing parties that would make a Greek God blush, is once again trying to figure out how to hand out more bonuses.

Exsqueeze me? What the hell? Isn’t that a big part of what ran them into the toilet to begin with? What exactly have any of them done to deserve more bonuses?

With all of the problems that are plaguing this county right now, and there are a load of them, we do nothing but blame and point fingers.

One group blames the Republicans. Another group blames the Democrats. Some blame current or past Presidents, religions, the war, the greed, the fat, the ignorant, you name it and someone else is responsible.

We would rather ruin the future of our country and our children, and put off a real fix, instead of admitting that we ALL have been responsible. Life is pretty simple when you’re blameless.Instead of taking responsibility and banding together to fix things, we sit back and point fingers. It’s not my fault, it’s your fault. So why should I have to do anything to fix things?

Well, in my opinion, we should all be marching up the steps of Capital Hill with torches and pitch forks.

It wasn’t the Republicans that did it. It wasn’t the Democrats that did it. It was all of them. All of us. Together. Neither party is ever going to fix things. Religion or the lack there of is going to fix things. No one has all of the answers and they all do nothing but try and distract us by playing the blame game.

I would rather see them all go. No more them and us. No more parties of right and left. I want to see the AMERICAN PARTY. A group that is dedicated to saving this country by addressing our real problems.

A party that wants to take care of its citizens rather than rape them for everything they can.

My ass is sore and I have had enough. The era of greed, big business, religious righteousness, war, and politics as usual need to come to an end.

It’s time for an era of community, education, peace, culture, and tolerance to begin.