Since bin Laden was killed

A hard week befell me after the announcement of bin Laden’s death.  Not because I missed the guy or anything but, rather, because of the inevitable responses of my fellow Americans that I knew were coming and they did not disappoint.  One needn’t be a prophet to have foreseen these remarks coming, one only needed to have one’s finger on the pulse of our falling, flailing failing nation.

It actually started with the celebrating flash mobs.  Hooray!  We shot the bad guy in the face and killed him bit good!  Now, I don’t wish death on anyone because my early morality training as a child holds all life as sacred and, unless they’ve radically changed the Sunday school programs nationwide, the youngsters of today are being trained like that today.

But they may have changed it.  My dad is not only a fundamentalist Christian, he is an ordained minister and he firmly believes that the death of bin Laden is a ruse perpetrated upon America by our Kenyan Muslim Commie Socialist (well at least I didn’t drop the n-bomb) president.  His Sunday school probably teaches kids that all Christian lives are sacred, everyone other life forms will die and burn in hell. 

Indeed, I spent the better part of that day arguing with my dad, several other family members and a few friends on this matter.  It didn’t matter what logical arguments were made or what facts were presented (and yours truly can dish it!), they would not admit that they were wrong.  Ugh! 

But my family members weren’t the only ones having issues.  If there weren’t jubilant tweets proclaiming “ding dong the with is dead…” there were the naysayers decrying the grave plot by Pres. Obama to deceive the American people.  Where are the goddamned photos?!  We need to see the goddamned photos! they cried.  Blood lust, blood thirst.

So I decided to unplug from the world and go on a bender.  No internet, no news, no newspapers, nothing but beer, rum, whiskey and herb.  I threw myself into playing hockey on my old PS2 and following my beloved Red Wings as they pursued another Stanley Cup.  They had swept the Phoenix Coyotes in their 1st round and I expected more of the same in round 2 against the Sharks.  Suddenly, they were down 0-3 in the series.  So I unplugged from that too, my superstitious side suggesting my following the games was killing the Wings chances.  Now the series is tied at 3-3 and who knows what will happen tonight?

So the last few days, I went back to checking out the news and nothing has changed.  

The idiots in Washington know nothing about economics so the keep talking about cutting spending, which you can’t do during a recession but they are attempting anyway, bin Laden’s death is still being celebrated and reviled, and the ghost of Gov. George Bush’s illegal rule over our nation continues to destroy it.  Our wars are to continue unabated even after the Bushies promised that once we got bin Laden it would be over (I laugh at you folks who believed that line as much as I laugh at those chumps who believed we’d be welcomed with roses and chocolates when we invaded Iraq).

Very few of you will know this, but way back in 1914 our nation was ready to end having a standing army.  It’s true.  But when Britain and France got in over their heads with the Germans, they threw a lot of bribe money our way to convince our rich folk and war profiteers to go to war on their side.  They didn’t bother with trying to convince the people of America, just the ruling class.  

Why?  

Because our opinions don’t matter.  It is the rule of the rich in a bastard form of social Darwinism.  The rich aren’t better than any of us nor smarter, but their wealth buys them security guards and police protection so that gives them a sense of lordship over the rest of us.

Now we have the largest military in the world, with the most weapons of mass destruction than anyone else in the world and we spend the most money to create better weapons of mass destruction PLUS better means for crowd control because they will make us behave and do as we are told or they will use their microwave gun to burn our asses. 

So today, our rich ruling elites still lord it over all of us, still want us to do as told, still want us to support endless wars at the expense of social programs, infrastructure and health care and make do with less and less as they make more and more of war profits and gouging us here at home at the gas pump, the grocery store or wherever they can get money out of us.

But at least we got bin Laden?