Tea baggers? Walmart? Warren Buffett? Get a life. Look no furthur than your mirror for the answer to today’s america. Also look around the world and see the people rising up in defense of their future. What kind of people lets the future of their children be stolen and do nothing? Maybe you can eat your cell phones and flat screens when food prices go off the cliff. Maybe your local sports bar will feed your family. Maybe the mall will give you shelter when you become homeless. Silence and indifference has wiped out america. but you don’t have time to worry about that right now, the holiday season is here. Shop til’ you drop…

Tea baggers? Walmart? Warren Buffett? Get a life. Look no furthur than your mirror for the answer to today’s america. Also look around the world and see the people rising up in defense of their future. What kind of people lets the future of their children be stolen and do nothing? Maybe you can eat your cell phones and flat screens when food prices go off the cliff. Maybe your local sports bar will feed your family. Maybe the mall will give you shelter when you become homeless. Silence and indifference has wiped out america. but you don’t have time to worry about that right now, the holiday season is here. Shop til’ you drop…

work.buy.consume.die.

10 Reasons Why Ordinary Hard-Working Americans Are About To Really Start Feeling The Squeeze

Start taking some personal responsibility for your situation.

(via rainbowhill)

A great sentiment and I agree with everything in it but only to a point—what about the responsibility of our leaders?  We, The People, end up getting blamed for our problems because we don’t speak up and do something, but we elect leaders to represent us. We vote with our dollars to make sure companies we like are successful.  Where are THEY in playing the “Take Responsibility Game” and why do we keep supporting them and letting them get away with not doing their part?

In a world where our leaders in government and business provide us with no positive examples to follow or learn from, how can we be blamed for our conditioned apathy?

It’s our leaders in government and business who have the resources to set a good example. They can afford to be heroes.  But they’re not.  And they blame us.  And we blame ourselves.

I’m sick of being blamed for shit I didn’t do.  I didn’t know my cell phone caused strife in Africa. I didn’t know the car I drove for 10 years would add a ton of pollutants to the atmosphere every year I drove it.  However, when I found out, I did something about it.  I sold my car.  I switched to compact fluorescent bulbs, I made sure to recycle. I don’t own as many computers as I could. I do a host of other things that help reduce my impact on the world around me.

And you know what? None of it’s going to do any good because our leaders in government and business are still dropping the ball.  They still fail to see that they are there for us—not the other way around.  And since they are in control, there’s not much We, The People can do.

International Monetary Fund sez Earth's Economy on it's Back Until 2010

International Monetary Fund sez Earth's Economy on it's Back Until 2010, originally uploaded by thepetecom.

Last month, the International Monetary Fund (not to be confused with the Impossible Mission Force) revised their prediction that the
planet's economy would be back on its feet by 2009, saying it wouldn't likely happen until 2010 at the earliest. Funny how, here it is,
2009, and they decide, as mid-year rapidly approaches, that the economy won't be out of bed before December 31.

Really? What gave you that idea?

Sheesh. Why does the incompetent news media keep listening to the incompetent money people who failed to see this mess coming at all?

They lied to hide that things were falling apart, they lied when things were falling apart, why should we believe any of them now?

What's almost as bad as letting the people who caused this mess stay in charge so they can fix it? Expecting those same people to be
honest and accurate when it comes to seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

If there is ANYTHING I have learned so far this century it's that there is NOTHING that "experts" in government, finance or business possess that should allow them to call themselves "experts." Whether you're Jim Kramer, the dude in the White House, or the doughy white guy in the picture in the CNN.com article I capped for this post (original here: www.cnn.com/2009/BUSINESS/04/22/imf.forecast/index.html ), odds are you're so entrenched in the current system you're too blind to see that system's blatant problems.

After the last, near-decade of messes, I feel like anyone who doesn't end their claim with the phrase "I could be wrong" should not be trusted. Hell, I'd be fine with a seeing a simple "IMHO" someplace in a press release from the WHO or the NHS or NOAA or whomever.

If We, The People, have any brains, we're about to enter another era like the 1960s, where the motto becomes "Question Everything" because that's exactly what we should be doing. We've been trusting our leaders in government and business to keep our civilization running and we see now that we have been lied to across the board. So we need to ask questions at every turn--stop trusting big business to tell us what is going on with big government. Question it all--don't read one article and be satisfied--find other sources in and outside the country--talk to people about what you read, compare notes. Think for yourself and, again, relive that motto from the 1960s: question everything!

This time, though, let's lay of the drugs, OK? I think that crap made the last generation forget all the stuff they were supposed to question and that got us back into this mess. It's believed that Thomas Jefferson once said "The cost of freedom is eternal vigilance." Where Tom said that or not, it's true.