Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Reality Vs Perception

People protesting in the streets of Turkey demanding that the government do something about ISIS. Ever notice that protestors don’t carry guns and they are all in their 20’s. They really don’t want to fight in a war either, let someone else die for the cause. I guess that’s why we draft people into the military, they don’t want to go voluntarily.

Americans think that people that vote in other countries have Democracy. How does a bottle of purple ink to dip your finger even suggest an aura of Democracy?

Minimum wage, what is it? It is a wage they have to pay per hour for a job that can’t be done in a foreign country. Hamburger flipper comes to mind. How many more do we need? The US could become more like Spain, where laborers are private contractors. As an independent contractor, you would get paid a commission on the number of hamburgers you sold. You would be responsible for Social Security, health care and taxes. There is no minimum wage for contractors. How many hotel rooms can you clean at $10 per room? At $5 per room????

Looking to the wars being fought in the Middle East, where does all the money come from to purchase the explosives, bullets and bombs that are being used? An AK-47 now sells for $2,100, a grenade launcher for $2,000 and grenades for $500; think about it when you fill up your car at a gas station, the money comes from oil. Minimum wage in Syria is probably about 10 cents an hour. So we know who is not buying them; finding an AK-47 would be the equivalent of winning the lottery over there. When you run out of money, you run out of ammunition, and you lose; wars are expensive. When you see many soldiers fire off 20 rounds into the air, you realize the mentality of these warriors—idiots. Bullets are not free.

People all over the world are in to protesting. It is painless and appears to have a semblance of results. What people don’t realize is that organizations like ISIS with a couple of thousand followers can threaten and intimidate millions of people. They could run out of money; logistic concepts are an unknown concept to religious zealots. But don’t fool yourself, these people will kill innocent relatives to impose their will. Your son or daughter is more precious to you than your political beliefs and that is the medium they work within: the fear of loss.

Here in the US, absurdity is being mixed with reality with varying results. With the new diet pills, if you lose too much weight, only take them every other day. After having a hip replacement you can go mountain climbing, more likely, you might want to throw away your aluminum walker. The pill ads for Viagra show a middle age trim couple. Reality is a wife that has put on 40 pounds and thinks he husband should have outgrown sex long ago; don’t get too excited, those 50 pills could take you a half century years to use up— plus the threat of 4 hours of sex might make you appear to be some sort of sex fanatic that needs to be put down. Can you imagine the dialogue at breakfast the next morning? “Honey if you take one more of those pills, we are through.” Of course, your response, “I felt like I was about to have a cerebral hemorrhage”— might make her consider one more encounter.

The reality, we have a bunch of old farts in Congress trying to run our country, times have changed and left them behind, of course, they are the last to realize it.

We need some young leadership that will go into the Middle East and kick some ass. IMHO forget health care, if you can’t pay for it, you don’t need it. This country was not built to provide what you can’t afford to pay for. Spending a million dollars on a premature baby is noble, but that amount of money would pay for a hell of a lot of new infrastructure for water delivery in Los Angeles. Of course the idea that we must choose between a new life and old plumbing is a real tear jerker, but Amerika needs to step up and address the real issues. The premise that we can have it all, is fiction. It's a little like getting married so you can pimp out your wife to your buddies to make the house payment, it works for all the wrong reasons (until the wife catches on). We will pay for this mess, but hey that's a thousand years from now--maybe, maybe not.

5 comments:

Sackerson said...

Hi, Jim. We don't need leaders going into the Middle East, we need leaders who are wise enough to stay out. How much more money would we all have then?

Agree that we are sold fantasy all the time. Maybe there should be an AA for mediaholics.

I thik a lot of the stresses you're seeing are to do with what Jimmy Goldsmith warned about 20 years ago. The enemy doesn't have a brown or yellow face, he lives in a rich man's enclave on Long Island and can't quite understand why he's resented so - he's only investing shrewdly, isn't he?

http://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/ebola-and-liberty.html

dearieme said...

"How does a bottle of purple ink to dip your finger even suggest an aura of Democracy?" It suggests it more strongly than in those countries where people "vote early and vote often". Including parts of the US?

Jim in San Marcos said...

Hi Sack

I don't think we can keep out of the Middle East, unless we want to fight some super foe in the future. Too much oil money buying weapons. Then there is Israel and nuclear weapons with Iran cooking up some trouble.

Investment by people wanting to make a buck, does make the world go around.

Sackerson said...

Jim, if that's the answer, then let's at least invade the right country - the one that has loads of oil money and is sponsoring terrorism. Have you guessed it yet?

Jim in San Marcos said...

Hi Sack

Saudi Arabia seems to come to mind, am I close? Money talks and BS walks.

My only question, when does Israel go nuclear with Iran.