Pardon my reality

A late friend's mantra was "things are bad and they're going to get worse" and I laughed when she said it although she appears to be have been prescient because every conversation now crashes in the ditch of "I don't think we can fix the world anymore." And really, what can you say to the rat-a-tat-tat of Orlando, Baghdad, France, Turkey? except, "I've been hit!" Even that crocodile in Disney world ripped our hearts out and that was almost understandable--an animal following its instincts after all. The child was following his instincts too, though--he was bored and exploring. Maybe we ought to give more thought to our creature instincts. Paul has this theory that seems to stand up, that every living organism (or organization for that matter) will keep trying to feed itself, expand, and dominate. It's as true for a growing kid as it is for a croc. It's as true for corporations as it is for labor unions. Unless a third party intervenes, they will just keep keeping on expanding and trying to dominate. That's what government was supposed to do--intervene, referee--but somewhere in the 1990s--dare I say the Clinton era?-- that concept fell out of favor. Greed is good. Get you some! Our elected officials started looking out for themselves, stopped looking out for the common good and that's the same time we stopped looking out for one another. We turned our attention away from policing the corporations that promised to be "job creators" (yes they are, albeit in other countries paying kids chained to sewing machines .45 a day) while they hoarded all the goodies and forgot to trickle down to our working class, all the while pointing the finger at "greedy" poor people and immigrants. Get them! First we kicked single moms off the dole and now we're trying to kick people off the food stamp program and hound the refugees from our wars out of safe haven. And we're cheering. Get those lazy bums off government subsidy! They're taking our stuff! Here's the news: They aren't the enemy, bubba.  The enemy is a lazy populace that doesn't demand that elected officials do their job and intervene and referee and pry open the hands of the "job creators." The enemy is a population that has agreed to play a game of musical chairs at the "job creators" whim, and the rule of that game is that there is always one less chair than players. So we're always one song away from losing our seat. And we're armed. And we're on edge. Are mass shootings really a mystery? I would like someone to explain to me--very slowly--how the TPP and expanded globalization is going to fix that. Because economic inequity is at the heart of all our social ills. How is granting immunity from the law to international corporations going to ease our anxiety over losing jobs and make the world safer from each other, yes, as well as from the corporate overlords when it will pit us against each other like fighting dogs as they dangle jobs in front of the lowest bidder?  It won't. And you can waste your energy joining in the new game that our corporate overlords invited us to play, which is blame the "other"--the other color, the other religion--when the simple truth is that when there is enough we get along just fine. So come on. Let's have it. Give it to us! And that's why I'm voting for Jill Stein.