Trust No One

These are terrible times. It's hard to feel good about anything because the bad news just keeps coming.

Anxiety:


In this country, we divide the world into mini-segments, and assign responsibility for understanding or managing each segment to different groups of people. That means most of us are ignorant about most things in our lives. And the people who are supposed to be responsible for understanding and managing an area too often betray the public and instead act only to profit themselves. Then when we see the full effect of this betrayal, such as people now realizing that Bush and Cheney have looted our country and left us in serious trouble, we feel betrayed, afraid, angry.

Separation:
For example, we assign to the doctors the responsibility for our health and medical care, then are battered and bruised by doctors and drug companies pushing us into needless procedures and serving as guinea pigs for the drug sellers. Generations of women had hormones pushed on them with stern warnings that if they did not take them, their heads would fall off. Turns out the hormones have now been implicated in the radical increase in breast cancer as well as heart disease and stroke. But in the meantime, the drug dealers made a fortune selling women drugs that would kill them. And this happens every day.

Scream:

We have a 24-hour media, or entertainment/media system of TV, radio, and newspaper. And they in turn have stables of people they identify as "experts" who are called upon to explain to all us ignorant folk everything we should think about other fields. For example, every newspaper has a real estate section, and the articles are written by or quote extensively professionals who make a living buying, selling, building, financing real estate. What do you think they always say? It's a great time to buy. Can't lose money on real estate. They always say that because if people stop buying, they will go out of business. And then they've always got some clever excuse when people follow their opinions and lose everything. It's like you can't trust anyone.

Melancholy:
We also have a business section in the newspaper, and now we have 24-hour business TV stations. They are financed by advertising purchased by the Financial Cartels. If the talking heads say bad things about the Wall Street big boys, the Financial Cartels won't buy the advertising and the talking heads will be out of work. As a result, the only thing we see "reported" is what Wall Street has either written or pre-approved. They always tell us it's a great time to buy. You can't lose money in the stock market!! Or so they say.

Well of course you can. The people who make money are the Wall Street criminals and the Financial Cartels. They make money when we buy. They make money when we sell. They make money when the market goes up or down. They've just paid themselves millions more in bonuses, and they could care less that the country is broke. The insiders have hidden their money in private equity funds and secret bank accounts in Switzerland.

It was just reported that 47,000 Americans have secret accounts in one Swiss Bank -- just one of their banks. The understanding is that each of those accounts contains illegal money: somebody didn't report it and didn't pay their taxes; drug money; sex trafficking money; bribes paid to politicians. And the Swiss banks says they won't tell us who owns the accounts. What if it's everyone in Congress? We should go to Switzerland, tell them we've got bunker busters and we'll blow their banks up. Or they can give us the names. One way or the other. Their laws about secrecy should not be honored when that would serve to allow people to get away with crimes.

All the insiders have been looting our country during the entire period of the Bush-Cheney administration. And last September, when it became clear the Republicans were going to lose the White House and Congress, they did their best to clean us out. They sent Hank Paulson to Congress with a note saying "Give us all your money or we'll blow the whole place up." And Congress gave Wall Street an additional $350 Billion of my money, which those scum immediately paid out to themselves and put on private jets to Switzerland to be hidden away in their secret accounts. I say let's go get that money.

Despair:

Before our economy collapsed, the insiders had cute terms to describe attitudes towards Wall Street. Somebody could be "bullish" (like Merrill Lynch was in its official slogan) which meant they thought the future looked bright. Or they could be "bearish," which meant they thought the market was going to go down. I don't think that Thumper and Bambi cutesy little names really do us any good. I prefer something a little bit more honest. Those who see the future of our economy with horror could be called "horrorists." Those who see it with great fear could be called "Great Fearists." Those who simply despair could be called "Despairests." But no more with the woodsy animal names. We're way too old and bitter for that.

Paintings are by Edvard Munch, from Norway. He used his art to express many of the fears and anxieties of humans during other difficult times in the world. "We do not want to paint pretty pictures to be hung on drawing-room walls. We want to create, or at least lay the foundations of, an art that gives something to humanity. An art that arrests and engages. An art created of one's innermost heart."