Weekend Onesie: At What Price?

Weekend Onesie:

At What Price?

This week, we reached a milestone of tombstones. 

A half a million dead because we, one of the most developed nations in the world, failed to get our shit together and do the right thing.

Yay! America! 

Still #1.

This is the price of freedom.

People act and vote against their own self interest all the time. It's their right to do so, protected by our constitution.

Stupid? Oh, hell yeah.

I just shake my head at all those folks living in crappy trailers in shitty little towns in the south all up in arms about the government controlling their lives, creating a welfare state... all the while they're surviving on state subsidies and food stamps.

The disconnect? I think it's a form of self-preservation.

I mean, people tend to want to be proud of who they are so they can live with themselves - so that kind of denial is a sort of self-preservation. Also... the whole shaming and pointing the finger at others for the very thing you're doing? That gives one a sense - albeit a false sense - of superiority. 

And no one has a need to feel superior more than Americans. 

We've been marching around with that chip on our shoulder since the day we landed at Plymouth Rock. It's in our cultural DNA.

But, back to the finger pointing - about the welfare state? Yeah... you know what that's really about, right? Us vs. Them? The 'them' in this case refers to urban folk - which is an institutionalized racist codeword for POC.

Now, there's a whole thing about southerners having lost all their free labor which destroyed a way of life that never should have been in the first place if they had any morals which plays into that anger.. but that's for another post. 

Again, getting back to the freedom to vote against your own self-interest...

Well, in this country... we are, indeed, guaranteed the right to be stupid. Guaranteed the right to do the wrong thing.

Yes, it's wrong to put others at risk simply because you don't want to cooperate. Let's face it... wearing a mask? It's not that much of a hardship. But, because it has been politicized and defined as the government trying to tell us what to do... well all those folks that constantly vote against their own-self interest, they got all up in arms and decided to defy what those of us who live lives guided by common sense saw as something that was in our own best self-interest to follow. 

But those who comply? We're the cucks. 

We're the problem. 

Not those spreading the disease by gathering in bars that were or should have been closed. Not those that flood the streets sans mask every time their favorite sports team wins some stupid trophy. Not those gathering and travelling when people in the know - people like Dr. Fauci - people who are guided by science (Yes, Meghan McCain, it is true!) - were telling us that was not a good idea. 

And anti-vaxxers? 

Well, that is a whole 'nother level of stupidity... but also guaranteed in the constitution. 

Personally, I am aghast that half a million people's lives have ended and none of these people - including many politicians - seem to acknowledge or grasp the magnitude of that rather morbid accomplishment. 

I watched Biden's speech. I was with my mother and my ex. Had I been alone, I would have cried. It was a moving speech... maybe a little too personal, maybe a little to self-referential, maybe a little too emotionally-manipulative. I dunno. It was effective. 

And it was chilling. 

Let freedom ring...

...but at what price?

We live in a divisive society. A certain faction of our government and a certain faction of the financial complex have teamed up, having recognized that it is in their best self-interest to keep people - particularly people of a lower economic status - pointing fingers and hurling insults at each other. 

Incidentally... this is also why the LGTBQ bill is suddenly such a hot ticket item. It's divisive. It keeps people riled up. It distracts.

It keeps the poor, the common folk, busy... and if they are busy, they won't recognize that our constitution guarantees them a say in how things are run. For if that faction should wake up and realize they are fighting the wrong battles and they do indeed have the power to change things... well, that would mean those in power - the wealthy, the titans of our financial complex, and those politicians kept in place by those one percenters... would, most likely, lose some or all of their power. 

So, it's really in the 'best' interests of those individuals and the likes of Fox News to keep people ignorant and riled up. It's a means of maintaining the status quo. 

And we all 'like' the way things are? Right? 

I mean, that's why we resist wearing masks and social distancing and actually acting in our own self-interest. 

Because we don't like change. 

Well, something tells me that the half a million people that lost their lives - more than the lives lost in WWI, WWII and Viet Nam combined... something tells me that they aren't too pleased with how that all turned out for them. 

Something tells me they are definitely not okay with the way things are.

And, while it is the freedom they ended up dying from... I don't think it's the freedom they held in their hearts while their hearts were still beating.

And those that paid with their lives on battlefields in the name of freedom? All those brave soldiers? 

Something tells me that this freedom... the one we all appear to be justifying and allowing to rule the day?

That is not the freedom they died for, either.

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Wishing you all the best.

Stay safe. Stay healthy. Stay strong.

And... wear a damn mask!

- uptonking from Wonderland Burlesque

This Is Not America - David Bowie / Pat Metheny Group