Musings of a Dumb Ass

Musings of a Dumb Ass........ General Motors is headlining right now and is reasonably certain to change the face of America in its metamorphis into whatever it's going to be. About 14 million bloggers and columnists and talking heads will bandy around whatever they think caused the coming collapse of our American giant as we knew it over the next few months. As General Motors and its American based competitors go, so will go the remaining remnants of the American dream for the workingclass. Not only will the nations highest paying production jobs and the accompanying status slide into our memory banks, the ripple effect from it will truly change our country forever. Ronald Reagan was correct in his economic trickle down theory and the next few years will bear this out, only this will be a true life experience, and it will be one of sadness and reinvention. It is true that George Bush senior, then Bill Clinton embraced and welcomed what would become known as ' A new world economy and globalization', the two of them and now the current President, instead of protecting us in any way, gave away everything and asked for nothing in return. Congress and the Presidents (all of them) hand in hand done nothing to level the playing field, instead letting the American worker and the products they produced suffer and die while preaching the dangers of isolationism and promoting the deluge of everything from anywhere except here. Regular down the street and next door Americans are not without fault in this tragedy and in fact as the keeper of the keys in the great historical experiment into capitalism and democracy, we were the engineers in charge of our failures. If in America, next Monday morning, the governments check writing ability to John Q. Public was suddenly rendered inoperable, there would literally be NO legitimate service or retail or any other kind of business open in 30 days because the long arm of the government has intruded into every aspect of life from the cradle to the grave, rooting out everything that was independant on the way to collapse. The Government has been a little like Amway. Those of you who've had a brush with an Amway enthusiast recognizes they make no room for a consumer in that they want everyone to be a dealer/distributor and never seem to be concerned about the art of selling a product to an individual, preferring instead to imagine all within their circle will magically be rich within their wildest dreams by the labors of yet to be identified workers. We Americans are all Amway operators. We accepted the cockamamie idea that we could all retire to a very independant and wealthy old age doing nothing but reaping the benefits of minimal investment while driving those cussed Toyota's and lining the pockets of Walmart and China. Out of 300 million in this country an estimated 130 million actually recieve a check from a government entity. When all those working on government funded projects ie. highway construction, aerospace, defense, military, medical (yes, doctors, nurses, hospital employees must be included because of medicaid/medicare) right on down to local police and educators are considered, not many are left and one must come to the conclusion that even those who vehemently swear independence, such as myself, owe their existence to those riding the government check machine, because my livelihood depends on those people too. It's just a sorry damned state we've came to, and I am incredibly sad about it. Pat Buchannon now says it's all over but the shouting. He must have read something I wrote 10 years ago...............