The American Curse

It is one thing to admire the beginnings of the United States, it is admirable to remember with reverence the struggle it took to keep the US together during and after it's Civil War. Even the guts and grit of getting through the tough times of WWI and WW2, those were stand up and salute moments. It hit me during Vietnam that the war was nothing but a political game played by a few very sick men. And as it turns out, we are back at it! Does anyone read the history books?

I could have sat around groaning about what should be done, led a few protests, but the worse America got, the faster I packed. I did the honorable thing, I left. I was forced to return when a family member became ill and so I returned in the early 90's to watch the good times roll, not seeking out the slight occasional suspicion of carbon monoxide spinning around this new bubble, just enjoying the ride. I had a great job, my husband had a great job, my kids were in school at University and my 401K was starting to show signs of life. My husband was first laid off, then I was laid off in 2009, fortunately my husband got a minimum wage job, a job he had not had to experience, having been hired fresh out of University as an engineer systems administrator, so this was about 6 steps down, but we were thankful he had it. Now Oregon is at 11.5% unemployment, the state government is in complete denial, their budget is somewhere between the sewer and hell and that my friends is the bottom line. Just in the last week I have heard of 13 suicides, 3 in my own neighborhood, most due to financial ruin or loss of job, it's come to this. So once again, we are trying to find a way out.

I don't even see a change in the "American viewpoint". It's the one where peoples lives are run by the media, McDonalds, Disney, and bad water. Entitlement is the American dream and it may be due in part to that old melting pot. Merging into a conglomerate of cultures, losing the family connection. Parents too busy to take responsibility of raising their kids, giving them too much of nothing, just "stuff" to keep them out of the way. Forgetting where we came from and moving away from those beginnings. It's always greener isn't it and we just keep moving up, out and lost.
In the beginning of the great immigration, cultures hung with their own, it was comfortable, familiar, languages were passed on to consecutive generations so that one had two or more languages and traditions were continued and everyone looked out for each other. Somewhere along the line it stopped. But over the last 30 years many have taken advantage of the freedom to bring what they believe in to the promise land only to impose what they believe on others after climbing into a position to facilitate change.

Maybe it wasn't a good idea, the big open door policy. The original Americans have been brushed to the outer banks of the American landscape still fighting for scraps from the large cornucopia on the table. We will not change unless we are brought to the edge, then we say we are going to change, but we all go back to our big screen TV's and Starbucks on Saturday morning.. Take away all the comments from all the pundits, remove the right from the right and left from the left and get back to the basics. If I could write a letter that the Obama administration would read, this is what I'd suggest. Get that wad of money you gave to the banks, give it to the ex-supervisors and all of the laid off laborers of one of the massive plants that have closed in Michigan, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania and tell them to build something the US needs and can ordinarily get in China. That will put people to work. Give money to construction firms to rehabilitate old beautiful buildings back former glory incorporating sustainability and eco-friendly products and materials. Give money to Parks and Rec to build new destinations using natural resources and revitalize deteriorating hotels in the Western states, give a bundle to the Tribes for schools and new houses, new facilities. This isn't rocket science, but the BS that the Feds want us to digest as to the reasons why we can't do it that way, don't fly with me. So we are leaving, we can't feel anything anymore when a flag flies, or someone sends out a support-the-troops thing with music, I don't feel American anymore. So we are done.

A Blurry Flag

Either my eyes are getting worse or my hot rod neighbor just went from 0 to 80 in 5 seconds in his 1987 monster-wheel truck. A better explanation would be that someone in his household has very red underwear. The five foot American flag he so proudly displays on the back of the monster-wheel truck now looks like a bed sheet with red bleeding through giving it a sort of candy-stripped look with a little blue spotted here and there. There are no signs of the stars or delineated lines, so it's blurry. Its a poetic statement on how far we as a country have come from one administration to the next, one whim to the next. I thought I'd seen those stars and stripes clearly last November 2008, now it's just as blurry as it was in 2001. So I've stopped feeling much about it. It's a flag. It doesn't stand for much anymore because I can't find anyone who can honestly tell me what it stands for! Land of the Free? Yeah, free to take my job, free to discriminate against my age, my gender. Home of the Brave? Yeah, brave enough to take homes, bank accounts, liberty, and tax payers dollars to feed the greed machine.
I am amazed at the amount of corruption on both the Federal and State levels as day in and day out someone is exposed for massive misuse of the public money and then they turn around and say, "well, we had no idea that employee was doing that sort of thing" Right, you promote it!! I've worked in it where a top level manager tried daily to move agency money from one project to another because he was horribly over budget on the one and would have to do the same down the road to cover that loss. Money that belonged to another agency committed to their projects that serve the public good. Mercifully, he was caught. So, he goes out, gets another job with the State in another agency and tries to forget all about the last 11 jobs he's been fired from.
Meanwhile the Agency needs to clean up the mess, so they lay off the only financial competent person they have and replace her with a felon, our tax dollars at work. The Feds make all these promises, we slip deeper into a depression, food banks can't keep up, unemployment is at 17.5, real numbers. Gas is up, groceries are up, but hey Bernanke is wealthy beyond imagination along with Goldman Sachs and we're all fighting for refrigerator boxes. My flag days are over. If I thought the market would turn on housing, I'd sell and head for the border. Does anyone know if there is a queue to get into Canada?