Do They Really Think We're That Stupid?

During the eight years that Dubya was in office the Republicans had free reign and he rubber-stamped everything they sent to him. They cut taxes on businesses and the highest paid tax payers. They cut regulations and controls on businesses.

And what happened? Businesses used the tax breaks to open new plants and offices overseas where they spend their money on workers who will not spend that money in America or pay taxes on the income. So now we don't have the jobs or the tax revenue we had before.

Wall Street and the banks used the lack of regulatory oversight to hand out loans to people who could not afford to pay them back, setting up the largest financial failure since the Great Depression.

The highest paid Americans took the tax breaks and invested it instead of starting new businesses or hiring new workers for the existing businesses, like the Republicans told us they would.

Since the Democrats took office the Republicans have fought EVERY attempt that has been made to improve things. They have "Just Said No" to everything, not even offering alternative ideas in most cases. How much better off might we be if they had entered into discussions instead of just turning their back son the American people?

And now, with an election looming just around the corner the Republicans are once again saying we should reduce regulations, cut taxes on the highest paid Americans. Do they really think we are that stupid? ARE WE?????

Please people, don't fall for this. They are trying to benefit from the problems we are having when they are the ones that created them and they have done nothing to help fix the problems they created.

Wake Up America

Contrary to what some TV evangelists preach, America is not the "chosen land". We are not blessed to have milk and honey flow from the tap whenever we want. We have become a nation of spoiled kids who think that everything we want is owed to us and we whine and cry if it is not given immediately.

My parents were, maybe, the last full generation to know that if you want a house, a car, a vacation, or even a new pair of shoes, you had to work and save and when you had the money you could make the purchase. When I graduated from high school the bank would not set up a checking account for me unless I had a job and a savings account with enough in it to cover bad checks. When my kids graduated from high school they could get a credit card with a $10,000 credit limit with no job and no collateral. Is it any wonder we are a nation with a huge deficit? We are a nation of debtors.

But those days are fast disappearing. And although it's going to be a bitter pill to swallow, I believe it's a good thing. Average salaries are going to get smaller. The housing market will not recover for a long time and more people are going to have to rent or share housing. Credit will be tighter and people will be forced to save for large purchases. Does this mean that our standard of living will go down? Sure. But who ever said we were entitled to a higher standard? A person's standard of living will be tied to their willingness to work to raise it. And they may have to accept work that is not as high paying and prestigious as they would like. So be it. As I said before, who ever said we are entitled to high pay?

Climbing down from my soapbox
David

All The World's a Stage

"All the world's a stage" is the phrase that begins a monologue from William Shakespeare's As You Like It, spoken by the melancholy Jaques. The speech compares the world to a stage and life to a play. But it speaks specifically to the seven stages of a man’s life and my thoughts encompass all men and women.

All of us are born into a play, not of our writing. We are surrounded by actors; mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, family, all playing the roles they have come to accept. We all start life as improvisational players in an ongoing play and spend our life building our character, slowly learning and accepting our role in the great play that is our lives.

We revise our roles as we grow older, as we interact with new players; friends, teachers, bosses, using improvisation to make our part fit the larger stage. But the important thing is that everyone knows their part. If everyone knows how the other players will play their roles then the play is comfortable, the play can go on with little effort. Everyone plays their part. Small changes to the script can cause disruption, but everyone can revise their parts to adapt. Some actors even play different roles for different scenes, keeping each part alive separately from the other.

The problems come when an actor deviates widely from the norm. When one or more actors change their role drastically; they become very sick, or they break laws, drop out of school, divorce their spouse, or even die, the other actors must drastically adjust their roles to adapt. And when the change is unannounced and it surprises the other actors it can lead to the death of the play.

It is up to the individual players to react to changes, to decide how they will change their part to adapt. They can blindly follow the lead of others, including some who consider themselves as directors, or they can play their part the way they themselves see fit. The choice is clear, continue the role you are comfortable with or take on a whole new role.

Sirens . . . a follow up

In October I wrote about Sirens, and how some men can tie themselves to their moral bearings and resist the temptation. Now, a couple of months later I have come to the conclusion that is crap.

At the risk of generalizing, men are not capable of resisting the temptation of something they truly desire. Take Tiger Woods for example. The man is capable of incredible focus and yet he risked everything he holds dear to have sex with beautiful young women. This was not about love or relationship, just one-night stand sex that he desired above all else. He knew the risk, you can tell that by the phone messages he left. But he was unable to resist his desires.

And it doesn't have to be about sex, or the opposite sex. Men can be irresistibly tempted by other diversions that take them away from home and hearth. I know men that will leave their family every weekend to pursue their "sirens" no matter how inconvenient it is to those around them. And it is my experience that their ears are incapable of hearing the voices of those who would dissuade them from their pursuits.

That is the way it has been since the time of Homer, I doubt if we will ever change.

Forget the Past at your Peril

George (actually Jorge) Santayana said "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it". Over the last few weeks my mind has been intensely focused on the past, and I have become more and more aware that I have been repeating my past ad nauseum. I have realized that I have lost a lot of the person I used to be and become someone else. And I have also realized that I miss that old person.

In the interest of not embarrassing myself or others, I will not give specific examples, but what I have learned from all this introspection is that I have made choices, mostly based on keeping my relationships, career, etc. running smoothly with the least possible conflict, that never really accomplished that goal. And yet I continued making the same choices over and over again. To make other choices always seemed to be inviting more conflict, and yet the conflict always seemed to present itself anyway. And it finally struck me what was wrong.

There were always other people making their own choices, people with their own self-interests. And they did not always share my desire to reduce conflict. I had continued to think that I could perform the same action and expect different results. This has been described as the definition of insanity (some say Einstein, some say Ben Franklin, who knows?). I had not learned from my past contacts and associations that being the peacemaker is not always possible. Neither is trying to make your case to people who are never willing to consider your case as valid.

So I have decided I need to slow down, be more considerate of how people have acted and reacted in the past. And as selfish as this sounds, I need to be more insistent that my views and feelings are valid. I intend to find and recapture the person that I used to be, but I expect it to be a journey. As the Chinese say, "A journey of a 1000 miles begins with a trip to the ATM." I may not be quoting that exactly right, but you get the idea.

I will be writing more as the trip progresses, so check back if you're at all interested. If your not, then I'll see you at the end.

My Siren

My soul is alone, adrift on a limitless sea. How many years have I followed the currents, going wherever the tides and wind would push me? Where is my landfall? Where is my home port? It seems like forever since I have had contact with another soul.

Until I hear the call. My once numb emotions are stirred by a tune, a simple melody. What is it? Where is it coming from? I must be getting nearer for it is louder now and more clear. Beautiful words, of a female voice, beautifully put together. What are they saying? The simple words should not stir this type of emotion, but they make me weak. I close my eyes and am awash in her song, consuming and desirable at the same time. I am drawn to seek this singer, in fact I can not resist.

I am captured by her song, a prisoner of her hold on my senses. Questions arise. Should I abandon the safety of my ship to go to this beauty? Can I even resist? And then all questions dissolve and there are no more doubts. I must seek this Siren at all costs. I must surrender my soul to this desire and allow it to become part of me. I am engulfed in her grasp upon my soul, unable to focus, adrift in a state of bliss until I am drained and powerless.

Poor Ulysses, his Odyssey echos the temptations so many men fall sway to. A temptation presents itself, whether it's a woman or anything else, and if he pursues it it could mean the destruction of everything he holds dear. Some men wander through life blind to such things until they jump up, full blown, and take the very breathe from their bodies. Other men believe that they have the strength and wit to survive the peril and follow the song to their downfall. Such men crash upon the rocks and take everything they love down with them.

Some men, like Ulysses, can see the trouble coming. They heed the warnings that others give them, that their own life experience provides. And they tie themselves to their own moral bearings and suffer, straining against the bonds they have put upon themselves, until the temptation subsides. The temptation doesn't pass, only the opportunity to indulge in it. But that will have to suffice.

To Wayback or Not to Wayback

I guess its human nature, at some point in our lives we wish we had a Wayback Machine that could take us back in time to relive some past event and undo the choices we made. We find ourselves wondering “what if I had done this” or “what if I had made this choice instead of that one”.

The past has a way of becoming more attractive with age. Things that seemed unpleasant or even downright terrible at the time the events occurred lose their edge with time. Looking back we tend to remember the good parts and let the bad parts fade from memory. I’m not talking about traumatic events, like rape or death, but about relationships gone bad, family squabbles about inconsequential matters that are never resolved, breakups with high school friends that caused you to lose touch. We tend to remember “the good ole’ days”, even when they weren’t that good the first time around.

And then there are those past events that you look back at and say “What the hell happened?” Why did my life change course so dramatically? Why did I make that decision if I can’t even remember the reason now? What if? Why then? Where would I be now?

But we can’t go back, and if we did we have to consider all of the things that we might, or probably would lose by taking that other course. Other friendships might never have been made, career paths could have been totally different, even children might not exist. So it’s definitely a good thing that time machines only exist in the SciFi world. I don’t believe human beings have the moral and ethical strength to resist the urge to misuse such a device.