We never learned the lessons from 2008

Considering this is a travel blog, and right now, travel has all but disappeared. I am not planning to travel until my son travels to Colorado in July. I am writing about more pressing issues that are on my mind.

I’m glad I didn’t send this post out when I originally wrote it earlier last week. It was profanity-laced tirade that meandered and wasn’t coherent. It was how I felt at the time but didn’t make for very informative or decent writing. So let’s try this again, and please be aware of where this is coming from. It’s coming from a place of caring about my fellow human beings. 

The response by the state is both brutal and swift to squash uprisings

I am extremely concerned if the current economic situation in this country continues on its current path, it will lead to social unrest. In other words, riots, to put it in different terms. Inequality has been a significant focus of Bernie Sanders’ campaign as well as major news outlets. In history around the world, anytime there are huge disparities in income and wealth, you will commonly see social movements but may see riots. In turn, the response by the State is both brutal and swift to squash these uprisings. The levers that have been put in place from the Bush Presidency through to the Obama Presidency allow the State to infringe upon our rights in ways that have never even been thought of before.  

We cannot go back to the time of Lord and Serfs, and that is precisely where we are heading. For us to move forward as a healthy society, we need to involve as many people as we can in the economy. It’s not rocket science if we structure our society the way we currently have it where only a tiny fraction gets to enjoy massive benefits at the expense of the many only that fraction move forward. However, if we structure our society where the majority of the population enjoys the benefits, we can have a healthier, happier society.  

The current symptoms of a sick, diseased society: pornography, gambling, rampant drug use, and suicides. Pornography has almost become mainstream. Gambling has corrupted our way of living. I don’t need to go into the details of the current drug use situation in this country. A subject close to my heart are suicides are going up in this country at an alarming rate:

A healthy society doesn’t need to medicate its way out of feeling

[On average, adjusted for age, the annual U.S. suicide rate increased 24% between 1999 and 2014, from 10.5 to 13.0 suicides per 100,000 people, the highest rate recorded in 28 years]. I lifted this from Wikipedia. But I also researched several other sites, including the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and they all say the same thing, the suicide rate has skyrocketed in the last 20 years. The bottom line is this is a significant problem along with the other things I mentioned. A healthy society does not need to medicate its way out of feeling. It does not need to resort to get-rich-quick schemes like gambling. And finally, we are not even close to a healthy society when one-third of the population is considered pre-diabetic, and the mortality rate has actually increased in our country for the first time in modern recorded history since the industrial revolution.

Switching gears; to the latest bailout of the economy are coming in around $2 Trillion. I know that politically it was imperative to get relief of some kind to the general population very quickly, but the sheer non-oversight of the whole bill is astounding. Republicans, of course, got what they wanted to give almost $500 Billion away via Steve Mnuchin to corporations that will need help. But you have to put strings attached to the corporations to help out the people that desperately need it. You can’t just say here are billions of dollars do what you want. There are restrictions but can be rescinded if deemed appropriate(???) Are you serious? Again, this is massive government interference. Corporate welfare without strings attached is the bottom line. It’s infuriating. And you know who stood up to vote ‘No.’ No one. Not one member of Congress voted ‘no.’ Only one member of Congress has spoken out against it- and he is a fuckin’ Republican. To his credit, Representative Thomas Massie. The Democrats, including the Progressive faction of the Democratic party, didn’t stand up because they bundled the relief package with the corporate bailout.  

It’s not profitable to produce masks, ventilators, tests and beds

We have (are) experienced three crashes of the economy since 2000. The Dot-com crash, the housing/mortgage crash, and now the crash is coming with the Coronavirus. With all these boom and busts. We didn’t learn about the problems of the past. It’s not profitable to produce masks, ventilators, tests, beds, and then stockpile them for the companies that we permit to produce these items. In addition, the Government didn’t offset the lack of preparedness that the modern Capitalist system failed to do to fight a pandemic. ‘They’ are trying everything to get us through this crisis without changing the underlying problem. Which is the modern Capitalist system is incapable of getting us through these crises without throwing the mass of people out of work. It didn’t learn the lessons from the past. 

 The current situation isn’t the first time a virus has disrupted our lives. SARS, MERS, Ebola, and the most catastrophic was called the “Spanish” flu- which most scientists agree it started in Haskell County, Kansas. The only reason it’s called the Spanish flu is that Spain was neutral during WW I and they had a totally free press whereby they had reported much more honest about how the flu was spreading through their country.  

The Corporations and their idiot minions have captured our Government. Our Government is not the problem. The problem is the fact that they are willing to do the bidding of the Corporations at any cost. We have a Congress that is BOUGHT and paid for by Corporations. And nothing is going to change until we change that one simple fact. Democracy takes work and an engaged public. We have to take back our Government at any cost. Because if we don’t, the ramifications will be catastrophic.