Sharing is Caring. Capitalism Doesn’t Care.

When I was young, I was hit with a heavy dose of lessons which included sharing and kindness. That’s what kid’s books teach. They still do.

Here’s the problem. We don’t take these lessons into adulthood. In increasing fashion, we are more and more libertarian.

Congratulations America.

When I was a kid, the Baby Boomers hadn’t had their say yet. They were still young and still believed in community. Without sounding like I’m taking a knock at my parents directly, the entirety of the Baby Boomer generation moved the country to the Right. They welcomed Reagan’s philosophies- even if reluctantly.

Here is the primary tenet of Reaganomics: Separate as much money from the population as you can.

That is the primary tenet of Capitalism.

That is the primary ideology of Libertarians. Well, that and, don’t tell me what to do!

We moved so far Right that people thought Clinton was Left.

Socialism gets a bad name. Basically it’s sharing for the better of the community. Wait, here’s a definition

/ˈsōSHəˌlizəm/nounnoun: socialism

1. a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

Does that help?

It’s simple.

We are all responsible for creating a better community. We should be all willing to invest into the youth’s future by providing world class education to everybody regardless of class.

And that is the primary disconnect today. Class. Yes, there is racism in the world, but the challenge is getting people to care about class.

Here is a sports metaphor for you: You are only as good as the worst player on your team.

Why wouldn’t the United States try to raise the lower class so they are more powerful as a nation? Instead they resort to holding the middle and lower classes down so that the wealthy can have more.

Reminder that the most powerful political family in the US are the Koch Brothers. One of whom ran as a Libertarian Party candidate in 1980 and lost only to take the entire Republican Party his direction with money as influence over the last nearly 40 years.

The Republican Party is bought, sold, and owned by a family who was determined too radical versus Ronald Reagan. Mix that in a caramel macchiato and gag.

Instead we spend our time debating whether or not the outlandish idea of somebody earning a living wage is okay. Or whether education is only a tool of the wealthy. Or whether or not it’s okay to raise the cost of your life saving medication because Pfizer simply “can”.

Donald Trump announced during his State of the Union speech that America will never be a Socialist country.

What if we simply want to get it back to what it once was?

You know, what if we just want to make America great again?

Because the influence of corporations upon our elections and politicians has made it nearly impossible to trust anybody anymore. Is anybody truly working in our best interests?

This entire nation is upset about Russian influence on our elections, but nobody gives a single fuck about corporate tampering. And that’s how far we have gone.

We are not interested in sharing anymore.

We are not interested in kindness.

All those lessons in children’s books stay right there. Between the pages shared as a bond between parents and their children. Truth is that it those words are all living in a fantasy like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. They don’t mean a thing because we all know that we are a nation of the haves and have nots.

Capitalism is the strategy of separating as much money from a person and their bank account as possible.

There is no kindness.

Nothing goes back to the people.

It’s rather perverse when you think about it. A nation of leeches. Sucking the life out of each other because we are not willing to share a thing for the common good.

Hey. We are within arms length of another housing market crash. But the wealthy will stand there with their hands out like bigots claiming socialism is a sin when they force tax payers to bail them out for the good of the people.

Watch it happen in front of your eyes.

A little economic responsibility and accepting that there’s a place for making decisions for the greater good and we could stop fearing for our welfare.

Personally I’m looking for work right now. I want to get paid as much as I can so I have a few bucks in the bank when it all crashes. Fiscal responsibility.

Steady as she goes.

Educate the masses and teach the children.

Keep everybody healthy.

Raise everybody to a point where they can still raise their kids properly.

We are not the nation we once were when people paid their fair share in order to create a better nation for everybody.

And I believe our children are bitter about the lies we sold them when they were young.

As they should be.

My dog took a baseball from the park today. Is he socialist or libertarian?

Philosophical Junk Food

I’ll start, as I often like to do, with a definition.

/ˈkärmə/nounnoun: karma

1. (in Hinduism and Buddhism) the sum of a person’s actions in this and previous states of existence, viewed as deciding their fate in future existences.
   • informal- destiny or fate, following as effect from cause.

I, as many people in the world, have always been fascinated by the idea of Karma. Sure, Karma is the Hindu version of the Golden Rule. Maybe the predecessor of it. All of the Woke Western World loves it.

My name is Earl.

We love to live in a world where we can say things like pay it forward. We love to pretend that our actions today will benefit us in the future. We love to think that there are equal reactions to each of our actions.

This isn’t physics.

This isn’t any science.

While much of what the idea of Karma claims is nice, it’s not accurate. I am not poor because I was a petty thief in a previous world. My neighbor isn’t wealthy or good looking or tall or any of that because he was such a charitable person in the 17th century.

But it is a nice little package. And isn’t that what we like? We like nice little packages. We like ideas that fit tightly.

Life is better if it can be understood as easily as a Hot Pocket.

Take your favorite ideas, stuff them in a crust, freeze it, and microwave it when you’re ready for your processed ideas and preservatives.

We love it when we can easily wrap our minds around a concept. Something that fits a narrative we can get behind. Maybe on a bumper sticker.

Make America Great Again.

Taxes on a postcard.

Yes We Can.

Let’s face it. Karma isn’t really for you. It’s for them. It’s a con job created to keep people in line.

Karma was only designed as an excuse why certain people have and most others do not. It was used as only justification. It was designed to make people think it’s their own fault why they were poor or in horrible living conditions.

Sorry you are poor. You must have been a bad person in a previous life. You must be good for generations in order to give your future incarnation a fighting chance.

Let’s unwrap that Hot Pocket. You’re putting that shit in your system? Willingly?

Karma gives you such a good feeling. May even make you full. But it’s not all that good for you. It lets those in power stay in power.

Willingly.

Why am I writing this?

Trickle down economics.

It’s like American Karma. This, relatively, new idea that if we put money in the hands of the wealthy, then we will reap the benefits at the bottom.

But the bottom keeps sinking further down.

The preach we put the money in the hands of the job creators.

Put all the power in the hands of those who write the rules.

They will justify your poverty. They will explain it away and create excuses for why you are just not succeeding in this life.

Karma made it understandable that a person was doing so great because of their previous lives.

The American system has made it justifiable for wealthy people to pass their wealth down from one generation to the next. This creates the greatest monster this world should ever know:

Inherited wealth.

See George W. Bush.

See Donald Trump.

See Donald Trump Jr.

I can find a lengthy list of examples. Examples of people who do not understand what it is to truly earn anything

We are a society that celebrates the wealthy. Whether they earned it or not. We allow them to continue to separate themselves from the rest of society by giving them unlimited power to develop strategies that continue to move the marker.

Let me put this together. Like a Hot Pocket. Let’s diagnose the real problem. We are on a steady diet of junk food fed to us by the junk food industry telling us it’s good for us.

Philosophical Junk Food

And we are consuming it because the advertising is so good. We are sold on bumper sticker slogans and slick words. We buy into the ideas because they seem too good to be true.

And they are.

Completely false.

Here’s the thing. Rich people get rich by separating people from their money. They will never suddenly get a conscience and start pushing the money down to the poor people. Ever.

Karma is bullshit philosophy There is nothing that could justify lifetimes being wasted.

I’m not saying that if we do good things that we won’t reap some reward in the future. That’s not Karma. Hard work is always beneficial. There may be a benefit someday to helping a friend in need. Being regarded as a nice person who would give a right arm for others could come back to be a benefit at a future time.

All I am saying that the challenges are getting greater the more we buy the garbage ideology.

We are all a product of everything that has ever happened to us. From the DNA which designed us to the interactions we have with all people we’ve ever met.

All the good things which happen to us are by hard work. Exercise. A healthy diet. We can find our center or we can continue buying into junk philosophy.

There’s no magic pill. There’s no secret formula.

We need to simply stop allowing those in power to sell us junk food philosophy.

Call it a South Beach Keto Atkins diet. Labels are silly. We need to start exercising. Need to exercise our rights and push back. Because none of it is out of our control, because that’s what Karma would have us believe. And trickle down economics tells us we are doing as well as we can even if we are not.

Enablers

This took me a long time to write. Sometimes I lose my train of thought. Here’s partially the reason why.

We need to be good to one another. We need to learn a ton of tolerance. We need to create strategies which help the most amount of people instead of justifying our greed.

We need to get on a diet which will make a healthier society.

We need to discard all of this junk food philosophy.