I came across Michael Moore’s video “Sicko” tonight.  I sit here, wiping tears off my face, and wondering why the “greatest country in the world” cannot do an eighth as much for our citizens as a tiny little resource-poor country like Cuba. 

I wonder why we have not, as a nation, risen up and demaned free healthcare.  Why we are complacent in our own destruction.  In our own oppression.  Does this make sense to anyone? 

If you have not seen this video, you should.  Be prepared to sit for a while by grabbing a cold drink, something to munch (if needed) and a fistful of tissues.  You’re gonna need it.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6646340600856118396&q=sicko&ei=hhpvSPOZGoXw4QK09e2mDw&hl=en

Is it truly only the average person of the US that sees how incredibly STUPID this is?  Those of us bottom class citizens (since there really isn’t much of a “middle class” anymore) are increasingly irritated at the billions and trillions of dollars sent overseas.  I have a message for our government:

THOSE PEOPLE HATE US!  The don’t want us in their piss ant countries.  They don’t want our people there, military or not.  They’d rather kill most of us than have any kind of “Americanism” besmirch their ‘pure’ societies, and yet we send billions of our hard earned cash to aid them whenever they get a sniffle. 

Now before you get all riled up and start bashing me, let me say that I’m not talking about ALL other countries.  i’m talking about the terrorists.  I’m talking about the bombers.  I’m talking about the religious fanatics who think they have to convert the world…or kill them, in their eyes, either would do fine.  I’m talking about the crazy, maniacal, debolical, PSYCHO people that raise their children to believe that killing yourself gets you into heaven (or whatever they call it) as long as you take a few Americans with you.  THESE are the countries I am talking about.

And we’re sending them money.  And food.  And our soldiers to train their sons.  Funny, but the last time I looked there was a homeless person on just about every street corner in urban America.   Food banks can’t keep up with the demand.  AND our own military is having a hard time finding soldiers.

Due to the crazy inflated prices of everything from gas to groceries, two-wage earner families are now not able to put food on the table for thier children, instead being forced to swallow their pride and go to local food banks.  Could we maybe drop a few million pounds of emergency food on the cities of our OWN country??!!  At least if we handed out food to our own hungry, the men passing out the meager packages wouldn’t have to be handing it out in flak vests and aiming AK-47’s at the crowd, waiting for the first of their squad to be picked off by a rebel sniper.

Here’s another crazy, far out thought.  How about we give those billions and trillions of dollars back to the people that EARNED IT.  Like me.  And everyone else I know who’s worked every damn day of their adult life just to give 25 percent of their paycheck to a government that sits on capital hill in their fancy suits, sending their kids to private schools, and doling out our money to other nations like they were playing a child’s game of monopoly (you know, my brother and I used to love being “the bank”…..cuz we could snag an extra couple bills here and there). 

“So Congressman John Doe…. would you like to be the car this year or the hat?  I mean, you really ought to give someone else the opportunity to be the banker.”

“Mmmm, no.  I like being the bank.  And….it’s my game.”

Duh.

And where, you might ask, are all the billions of dollars being spent?  Funny you should ask.  THEY DON’T KNOW!  Billions of dollars in contracts sent overseas, and yet there is nothing to show for it.  No real records kept of what the money was used for.  In fact, in one recent article, several millions of dollars were signed for (signed for, literally, by one man) as “salary for the Army”.  Um, sure, yeah, let me just walk down the streets of Iraq with this billion dollar suitcase and give money to the soldiers.  I’m sure he got about…..five feet.

So, let me just summarize this for those of you who got caught up in the “unjustness” of it all, those of you who are, at this very moment, writing scathing comments to tell me about the poor innocent victims, tragic pawns in the worlds politics, that are desperate and grateful for our help, and have no other way to lift themselves out of the harshness that is their reality.  Here goes:

WHO CARES.  When I don’t have to live paycheck to paycheck wondering how I’m going to feed my own children because every company is downsizing it’s employees and yet passing on higher prices to it’s consumers, and don’t have to balance my checkbook to the penny every time I need to fill up my car to go to that same barely-helping-me-survive job, then maybe I’ll give a rat’s ass about some family overseas who is hiding three terrorists in their basement, two on the roof aiming guns at our soldiers, and yet crying about how we’re not sending them enough food.  As my brother used to say, throw yourselves on the floor and deal with it.  Boo flippin hoo.

Government, keep our money where it belongs.  Right here in the good ol’ U. S. of A. and learn to subscribe to the ‘Parking Lot Theory’.  (If you have to ask, you’ve never talked to a soldier  

We’d all be alot better off.

I found a post regarding Drug Enforcement & Prevention.  Of course, you know me.  I had to add my two cents.  Here it is for those of you who’d like to read my comments on the subject:

I know I tend to be opinionated on some subjects, and this is one.  I have never used drugs in my life.  And no, I have not had a perfect, unblemished life.  I, too, like everyone else, I’m sure, has had hard, hard times I’ve had to deal with.  Yet never in my 35 years have I turned to drugs or alcohol to treat the sometime harsh reality of living.  Personally, I do not feel that I should pay for insurance that covers extended drug rehabilitation or that the government should use my tax money to fund such increasing health coverage .  I believe it is a weakness in the person who uses drugs, and our society’s “it’s all about me” attitude that contributes to our drug problems.  There is a prevailing attitude in our country that the world owes us a perfect life, and well, if we don’t get it, let’s just zone out and get stoned.  Puleeze. 

Prevention, I believe, is much more effective.  Continue the marketing campaign against drugs, make it so “uncool” that even the ‘losers’ won’t want to be caught doing it.  Take away the peer pressure and the drugs might go away.  How to do that?  Now there’s the rub…. 

On the other side of the coin, perhaps if we legalize the stuff, those people who can’t stop using it can just keep using until they wipe themselves right off of our planet.  I say let them drug themselves out all they want, just don’t make me pay for it.  Some of us actually have a brain in our heads and enjoy both the passive and purposeful firing of neurons that we like to call “thinking”.   And as far as prevention, any Mother knows that the more you make a thing “taboo”, the more the kid wants to do it.  Legalize drugs, let them do it if they want to, round them up and put them on an island full of the stuff. 

Natural selection (sort of).  Thinning out the herd.  Populace control.  Whatever you want to call it.  Well, it’s a thought.

Why do we waste millions to find out why a bee’s butt is bigger than it’s head? Or, why do we need to know that a certain kind of flower can make a wasp orgasm? Is this really necessary?

Have you ever wondered where our benevolent government spends all your tax dollars?  Let me give you a few fun and, oh so educational, examples from the news lately:

Male wasps make love to orchids

Inbred male mice can’t get lucky

 These articles are just so stupid, they practically speak for themselves.  I know I was speechless.

When did we, as a society, get so complacent that we will take whatever the large corporations want to dish out, and take it willingly?  And without so much as a kiss or dinner first!  I read a great article today called Less For Your Money, That’s Inflation, Too.

I just bought groceries yesterday and some laundry detergent.  Now I could go on and on about how my $100.00 dollars barely got me four bags (small ones, I might add) of groceries, but what really chapped my behind today was when I opened my laundry soap.

I bought a HUGE box of laundry soap.  With five people in the family, we have a LOT of laundry to do.  So anyway, I open this HUGE box of soap EXPECTING, like I’m sure most of us do, that it will be FULL.  But lo and behold, not only is there a two inch ‘box top’ that is empty space, but there were five inches below the bottom of the box top and the beginning of the actual laundry soap.  Yes, you heard right.  FIVE INCHES of empty space IN ADDITION to the two inches of empty box top space. 

And to top it all off there is this ridiculously large measuring cup in the box.  The cup has markings for not one, not two, but THREE loads of laundry!  Who does three loads of laundry in one cycle???  Nobody.  But who doesn’t read the side of the box or the very transparent markings on the measuring cup?  Most people.  And most people’s kids.

It’s just a fact of nature, I suppose.  You give someone a large cup that comes with a product, and naturally, we all ASSUME that the cup is the right measurement for the needed ingredient, right?  Well, that’s exactly the kind of assumptions these companies are exploiting in J.Q. Public.   You get a huge box for the same money you’ve always paid and you think you’re getting a deal.  But you’re actually getting much less than you used to get, even in the smaller box.  Now you get it home and you use one FULL scoop for every load of laundry.  You just used enough soap to wash a week’s laundry at my house on a couple of shirts and three or four pairs of pants.   When did this become acceptable to us?

I’d love to go to the home of the CEO’s of these corporations and make dinner for thier family.  I can see it all now, John and his wife Betty and their four kids sitting at the table.  I come in and set before each family member a plate the size of a large serving platter with some food spread out over the surface area.

“These aren’t our normal plates!” they cry. 

To which I can reply “This new meal is NEW and IMPROVED!  It’s almost the same amount of food I gave you last time (just missing a few teensy weensy ounces, for gosh sakes!).   And it has twice the amount of calories, so those extra ounces won’t be missed.  It reduced the overall cost and time for me of making and serving your dinner.     I tested this new arrangement with consumer groups before serving you, and they all were satisfied (but uh, those studies are, uh….classified.  Yeah, that’s it.) 

But enough about that, isn’t that a lovely dish?!”