The Dusty Dog

Seasons Greetings, with a Dash of Hope

I hate this time of year. I really do. Don't get me wrong, though. I'm not criticizing religion (at least, not now). I'm just sick and tired and totally disgusted at the commercialism that pervades this time of year. I hate it. It's obscene. It's destructive. It's downright evil.

I do realize that so much of the health of our economy is predicated on how well business, companies and stores succeed in pushing their commercial garbage, but I really think that that minor NOT little issue is maybe what is so critically wrong with our society. We've gone nuts. We're tipping off the deep end. Oh wait...... we already tumbled. Yeah, I wonder why...

Maybe, it's because we put material garbage over the health of children. Maybe it's because we think that the more crapolla we buy, the more American we think we are. People dying in our crumbling streets BE DAMNED. They're not real Americans. Crap! They don't even pay taxes, after all. We can't help them. They don't pay taxes. We can't feed them. They don't pay taxes.


Back to the Christmas season. I always wish the best seasons' greeting to my friends and family, and my coworkers, and my neighbors, and the world. My season's greeting are always about hope for peace in a violent world, hope for health and a humane prosperity, a clean environment free of the toxins of our at present excessive consumption, educational opportunities for all who want and/or need such. The list goes on.

But, one thing I can't quite stomach is the need to go out and buy shit to give to other people, be it family or friends, just to satisfy a seasonal ritual that has nothing to do with Christianity or Judaism or any other religion, and has everything to do with our bloated overindulgent consumoid society, that serves nothing but puts citizens into debt and lines the pockets of traitorous CEOs and politicians. I hate this time of year. I really do.

Oh miggod!!! This little missive is touching on so much, and I haven't even written anything. So, a few of my admittedly simplistic thoughts on the American economy.....

As a society, our economic health, which is the apparent pinnacle of our societal health, is based on consumerism. The more we buy, the more crap has to be made to satify our need to buy. The manufacturers hire more people to make more crap to sell. They flood the markets with the crap and then they spend megabucks on advertising to remind us how badly we need all their crap. It's a cyclic exercise in destruction, as the making of the crap uses energy we can ill afford to use, pollutes our precious environment, and fills our landfills with packaging and all of yesterday's crap.

Speaking of yesterday's crap.... About 20 years ago, I worked with a man from India. He made a very insightful observation about the differences between the American and the Indian societies. In America, labor is expensive, but items are cheap. Therefore, we Americans have developed a throw-away society, needing to always manufacture more stuff using cheap materials to replace, rather than fix damaged older stuff. Cars are a prime example of this, as are other appliances, like washing machines, toasters, etc. Appliances and large ticket items have become disposable, and likely include a planned obsolesce so they require the purchasing of new items sooner, rather than later.

In India, however, materials were very expensive, but labor was cheap. Indians couldn't afford to buy new stuff, because the material to make it was crazy expensive. So, they fixed everything. A car, according to my coworker, would last for 300,000 miles before it had to be replaced. This was the same with all other kinds of appliances and "fixable" items. Unlike India, Americans want to replace their cars, computers and appliances as soon as new models role off the assembly lines.

Well, manufacturers apparently found the best of both worlds. They got their cheap materials from America, shipped it overseas to the far east, India, Malaysia, China, where ever, and now could build their crap for cheap labor. Didn't matter that the labor was exploitative, or that they were trashing the environment of their cheap laborers' neighborhoods, or that they ruined the American economy by reducing the manufacturing base to skeleton-like crews. Didn't matter, at all. They made profits hand over fist. They made out like bandits. Yup, the bandits that they really are. A bunch of crooked, self-serving, now hugely and obscenely wealthy individuals that are laughing all the way to the bank. And, to add insult to injury, they even convinced dirtbag politicians that somehow their "free trade" initiatives were helpful, so they got tax breaks for their criminal efforts. Tax breaks so huge that they actually avoided paying any taxes at all. It was/is so cheap to do business "overseas" that it no longer even made any sense at all to keep manufacturing jobs in America.

Well, in my opinion, they're all a bunch of traitors, including the band of deregulators that enabled this fleecing of America. Dubya and his dick certainly come to mind. Phil Fucking Graham, too. They put America up for sale, for cryin' out loud. And, they've made a fortune doing it. There are laws against profiting from public office, but these dirtbags are apparently above the law. They've sold us all down the river. It's really quite sad.

In just over a month, Obama will take office. He is planning the largest public works initiative in over 50 years. He is going to get people working again so that they can have roofs over their heads, food on their tables, and boost the economy by buying more crap. Oh no! More crap??!!!

I dunno. I think a huge paradigm shift has to take place here. A shift that removes that concept that consumerism is the pinnacle of our economic wealth, and make it where the health of the people themselves are the basis of our economic health. Education is a key, and medical care, infrastructure, environmental health, and reduced energy consumption, are just a few of what I see to be critically important building blocks of a health society. I am holding out great hope for Obama. My hope is that he will institute a model of governing that tosses, finally for cryin' out loud, fucking Reagonomics, the voodoo economic model that was the beginning of the financial crisis we are in today. I continue to hold Obama Hope for the future. He's all we've got right now.

Labels: Christmas, consumerism, dubya, economy, liberal, traitors

posted by Dusty Dog at 12/06/2008