Like being at the top of the roller coaster looking over the cliff

Okay lets be honest. We didn't get to this fiscal cliff scenario all of a sudden. And we are all to blame. We have been accepting the same crap out of our politicians for years and now we want immediate action. Who put them there? We keep electing the same people, well maybe the names change, but basically we elect self serving crap every election and now we wonder what is going on.

We have squeezed a Hemi 5.0 in a Ford Pinto and expect to ride out this dive over the cliff. We have all this power, but no frame to support our madness. So here we go pressing the accelerator as far down as possible to go screaming hundreds of miles an hour over the cliff hoping that as we drop someone will figure it out. And we blame who?

switching gears

I am a big believer in diversifying our wealth. We continue to put up with companies consolidating and becoming more powerful and wonder why we have a problem with how our Congress is influenced. Yes if you read my blog and have read some of Barry C Lynn's work you might wonder if I attempt to mimic him. I am not full fledged into large monopolies are our problem, but I can see his points. And you can also see the bigger problem. And something Mr Lynn wrote in the preface to his book CORNERED talking about Monopolies I think also applies to our problem in general with Congress. He stated: "The solution lies, as I hope to make clear , not in getting the details of regulation right but in getting the politics of ownership and responsibility right." Excluding the part about regulation, his point is correct for our complete picture heading into the cliff. We need to get the the politics of ownership and responsibility right. It is appropriate for what he wants us to realize in the book, and for us in general. Our Congress doesn't need to constantly come up with rules for us to live by, but to create policy that directs the nation. And we don't hold them accountable to what they need to do. We live our lives with our head in the sand hoping they will do right.

The fiscal cliff that is so popular in our media is really just the beginning. And yes the debt ceiling coming up is the next level down, but we are headed further and further to a much larger cliff. In previous blogs I have mentioned ways to compromise to stair step our way down. I am not saying my ideas are the complete solution, but offer possible suggestions to land softly and then work to get us back on track. Are they the best answer,my ego would like to say so, but at least I am offering ideas. And so are many others. So it is truly scary that if people like myself can ramble on in a blog and be more productive than our Congress what do we expect to find in mid air having thrust ourselves as far out over the cliff in our Pinto as possible. Momentum can carry you over the edge, but sooner or later gravity takes over. The crash will be one mean bitch.

I would like to blame others. I can put out my juvenile kick at you since I have not voted for a Republican or Democrat in decades, but I am just at fault as you. And yes if you are wondering I do vote and that means I have voted for a wide range of candidates from Lyndon Larouche to Ross Perot to Ralph Nader. And even wider bunch of third party candidates for the Senate and House. And if you think I have wasted my vote, well no more than you have for not finding better candidates from the two major parties or else we would not be in this mess would we?

So I cling just as desperately to the seat belt in the Pinto as the rest of the country. This seat belt offering no more protection than the anti trust laws not enforced Mr Lynn talks about or the banking regulators that never did their job, pushed aside by greed fed into our Congress by lobbyists with no conscious or concern that they threw our country into this debacle. Only hoping we buy into some more of their manipulation so the few leaders of the economic oligarchy can keep their way of life at our expense.

To win this fight we have to take ownership back of our country. It is more than one or two ideas. It is more than this problem or that problem. It is a conglomeration larger than the largest monopoly. This means achieving something the citizens of the greatest Republic on the planet haven't done since the beginning of our great experiment and that is truly get involved. This cliff scenario is just a literary reference to what is truly going on. Our media talks about the fiscal cliff, but that is only part of the picture. The Grand Canyon wasn't dug out in a day. It took time to create something so spectacular. It took time for our country to get to this point so it will take time for us to get it back. And any deal drawn up this weekend or next month will not solve the problem. It is Congress' inertia in solving the problem that is accelerating us faster over the cliff and further out from the edge.

My suggestion is: what do you want to do. We can keep pushing on that accelerator or we can demand more from our Congress. And it means more than a deal this weekend or next, it means holding them accountable for actually solving the debt problem, the spending, the taxation problem, the trade problem, the undue influence of lobbyists, the concentration of wealth in a few (doesn't mean socialism, but supporting true
entrepreneurship),regrowth of the middle class, yes even some smart regulation to protect our interests financially and as consumers, and not being distracted by sensationalism and demagogy.

You choose or not complain when you realize that Pinto was never meant to support the insane amount of power we have shoved into it without the structural integrity to hold us together at the speed we are approaching the cliff.