I’ve been plucking away through various songs on guitar. It occurred to me that I should learn the national anthem. The neat bit about art is that often when you interact with it, you feel whatever it was that the person felt when they crafted the piece–it rubs off on you. As I started plucking my way through the song in a less than perfect way, I’d hit little runs where it sounded right, and an odd thing happened. I got this powerful surge of feeling– appreciation for the song that I normally don’t have. I suddenly “got it” in the sense of what the original writer was trying to get across. He didn’t know if America still technically existed. He hoped it did. The flag represented the ideals. If he could see the flag, then he knew those ideals where still alive. We are so far divorced from ideals now, that I don’t even vaguely associate the flag with them. This sad realization impressed upon me how much we have lost.

One of the traits of America that made it GREAT originally was that there was the possibility of having a life of your own making. Normally, you’d have better hoped you were born into certain lineages if you wanted to have the “good things” in life. Otherwise, you were screwed. In America, you didn’t have that problem. You could, in theory, work and by your own merit and talent establish yourself.

Needless to say, it is hardly that way anymore. Why is it hardly that way anymore? Well, for one thing, it doesn’t really matter HOW you get money now so long as you have it. Instead of a business market that is competitive, what you get is a business market that is cunning. The business market has become predatory. (for an interesting read, check out this guy’s link. He basically concludes in order to be rich you need to either inherit or be a criminal)

It is one thing to offer a better product, and quite another to lie, cheat, and steal in ways that make your product look better. When lying and cheating is rewarded more than honest labor, then everyone has little choice but to join in on the lying and cheating. The people who will do the best are, any guesses? Those who lie and cheat the best. This translates, roughly, as saying if you take the most gifted people and turn their minds to lying and cheating, they will make the most money. Is that what we really want? Do we really want to encourage our intellectual capital to turn itself to conniving ways of deriving profit?

My ex-wife worked for a large pharmaceutical company that I shall allow to remain nameless. This large pharmaceutical company would, periodically, send out literature for the reps to go over, and questions the doctors might ask and how to best answer those questions. The literature often took careful pains to state the science in certain ways. I remember one product that was for urinary issues that had some measure referred to as “total dryness” which was some odd averaging of time. Either you piss yourself and you are wet, or you don’t and you are dry. Total dryness is another way of saying “Well, we have to distinguish ourselves somehow.” Clearly, that wasn’t being “totally honest” but it wasn’t egregious.

Egregious came when the materials pertaining to placebo arrived. You ever notice how most pharmaceutical companies don’t trumpet how much more effective they are than placebo? There’s a reason for that. The reason is, they are often BARELY more effective than placebo. However, they often have nasty side effects including things such as death. The company knows this. It’s hoping to make its piles of cash and get out before it can get caught. If it makes billions and has to pay fifty million, it’s still made a hefty profit. I remember remarking to my ex-wife that I was glad she enjoyed her job and I’m sure that there were times that the products helped, but that I would not personally be able to do her job in good conscience. After all, we aren’t taking money from rich oil barons here. These are sick people looking for help. However, the sick are exploitable. They have no choice but to seek some form of treatment. This is where we have arrived when it comes to business in the United States.

A society exists when it considers the needs of the society. When it becomes strictly about money and screwing other people to get it, it is no longer a society but more like a guild of thieves. Furthermore, it alienates the population when the ideals a nation are founded upon and people have died for become nothing more than lip service. It’s hard to be proud of a nation full of double-talking, double-dealing, greedy assholes. It’s especially hard to feel a sense of connection to people who, in business, are hard to distinguish from sociopaths.

Money: Blood Washed Off

The sad thing is that there comes an amount of money that, once gained, one does not increase their lot in life significantly by gaining more. Let’s say that hypothetically, you are pulling in 400,000 bucks. That’s a lot of money. If you suddenly pull in a million, how is that really contributing to making your life better beyond the 400,000? Contrasted against someone who can’t afford healthcare, it becomes apparent that though the extra funds do not enhance the quality of life for the person making 400,000 such funds could drastically improve the life of the one who can’t afford healthcare.

Candidates offer no answers  by running on platforms that they either cannot hope to implement, or won’t follow-through implementing. It simply highlights further the ideological divide between the values America should embody, and the values it does embody.

I think it’s possible for this country to still be great, and I’m sure there are more people out there like me who would LIKE to be proud of this country, but cannot be in good conscience. There is no one out there to act as “our” voice, because most everyone is too busy dancing to the lure of money alone. I hear politicians on a daily basis advise people to get jobs or create jobs, but I do find it interesting that the job of a politician is, relatively speaking, light. Once you become an official of sufficient rank, you really shouldn’t get to have much say on “jobs” because you are far, far removed from the concerns most people have. We work people literally to death. The difference in degree in doing this and stabbing them and taking their wallet is negligible. It’s one thing if it HAD to be this way, it is a tragedy in knowing it doesn’t have to be thisway.

When it comes to military spending, we always find money. However, let’s say that we can’t find any money from taxes. Remember my example of the person who makes 400,000? Guess what? They have a duty to those who are less fortunate. Yep. That’s just how it is. To horde money like that when people are having life and death problems and then “debate” about where money should come from is absolutely despicable. Do I want the government taking people’s money? Hell no. I don’t trust the government to do anything. The people WITH the money, though, should automatically be asking, “How can we help? What can we do?”

I don’t know if it does, honestly. I don’t know if our flag means what it used to or can. I’d like to think it could. I’d like to think there are more people out there who give a shit about our country and are tired of where our priorities have been. I know that when I look at America despite having generations of family members that have fought and died for it, I feel ashamed. I’m not proud to be an American, and I don’t see my fellow citizen as my friend. I see him as my competition. I see him as getting retirement while I don’t, or me getting retirement while he doesn’t. I see him as a “mark”, and he probably sees me as a “mark”. What else is left to him?

Are we forever divorced from the ideals America was founded on? Is it fixable? Too far gone? What would it take for us to turn it around and make this place something to be proud of again?