THESE are sure as Hell the times that try Men’s AND Women’s souls! THESE are the times when more Americans are living close to the Poverty line than they have since the LAST TIME Wall Street brought us to misery and the brink of ruin during The Great Depression. These are the times when those who peacefully protest the biggest ripoff in human history are arrested on their own streets…while those who pulled it off….give themselves RAISES. We hold THOSE truths to be self-evident! And, WE, the people, in order to form a more perfect union…are speaking up, LOUD and CLEAR.
I’m going to outline some reasons why the Green Party seems to be the most sane response to the controlled chaos that seems to confront us. This business of holding-our-noses and voting for the lesser of two evils has not really gotten us anywhere. The truth is hard to swallow for so many people, but it’s the truth, nonetheless, and here it is: What’s been sold as The American Dream for a long time, now, is basically an unsustainable, debt-fueled treadmill to nowhere. The Free Market is basically a recipe for the race to the bottom, and thinking that the millions of jobs that have been outsourced to foreign labor markets can and will return is most likely a pipedream. The Social safety net has been shredded by States that cry poverty while Bush’s tax breaks roll on and the rich get richer. Tens of millions of Americans live in homes that are worth far less than they owe on them. The generations behind the Baby Boomers should not expect to have it “better than their parents” and they shouldn’t. The old version of “better” is one that the planet and its people can’t squeeze out any more. We’re going to need to redefine the very definition of the good life. And, we’ll need to do that along the lines that the Green party follows and represents, not those followed by wildcat banksters and currency manipulators and debt salesman and Lobbyists who bombard our supposed representatives in Government with their pressurized pitches for rich special interests.
You know what gripes my ass, among all the other absurdities we’re forced to swallow day after day in our own country? I HATE when people say, “Who the Hell is Roseanne or some other Show Biz type to think anybody should give a damn about their political views?” I have a question for those people and want to get right in their face and ask it: “Who do you HAVE to be? I’m an American citizen who gives a damn and who can’t believe how upside-down things have gotten! THAT’S who I am!” Seriously, can anybody look me in the eye and tell me that it’s less crazy for the poor to have to bail out the rich than it is for ME to bitch about it? Listen, the fact that I’m not a politician isn’t a drawback; it’s an advantage. Do I need to know every micro-detail about a failed policy like our ridiculous “War on Drugs” to know that anyone who wants to buy some recreational drugs can probably do it, and that all we’re doing is making money for dangerous drug dealers and locking up users at a cost higher than a college education!
Let’s cut right to the chase, and get past the Coke-versus-Pepsi issues and straight to the bread-and-butter, or meat-and-potatoes if you’re still eating meat – Okay – now I made myself hungry! Alright, I’m over it. Everybody knows it’s the Economy, Stupid. That wasn’t my line; it goes all the way back to the Clinton days. Here’s what I’d like to know, and I don’t need a PhD in Economics to make good old common sense when it comes to asking the right questions. On the day before a big Market crash or Economic crisis or whatever thay want to call it…..what happens that’s SO damn fundamentally catastrophic? Does the sun decide to stop shining? Do the chickens decide to stop laying eggs? Do crops stop growing in the fields? Do people all decide they’re not going to show up for work? The truth is, it always seems to come down to some giant, almost overnight tsunami of you-know-what hittin’ the fan in the heart of BANKSVILLE or WALL ST. or wherever these money-manipulating geniuses play their games with everybody’s home values, livelihoods, savings, pensions and all the rest of the stuff that people who actually do real work WORK SO HARD FOR.
They work us, these guys that play the money manipulation games all day, with other peoples’ money. They work us and they PLAY us. Remember, not so long ago, how every other damn ad on TV that wasn’t for boner pills or bouncy hair or big giant cars that looked like little buses…was for HOME EQUITY LOANS? It was all over the radio and the internet, too: “You’re sitting on a small fortune!” they told us. “Why put off those dream vacations and room additions and that nice new car – when First Fidelity Financial Trust and Consolidated Con Artists can write you a nice big check for doing nothing but taking out some of the big dollars just sitting there in that big piggy bank you’re living in. What they didn’t tell millions of Americans that they convinced it was a bright idea was that they’d be putting their homes halfway in the banksters pocket from now till hell freezes over. Hey, before I go any further – are those people that told you that your home was worth more than you ever dreamed it would be by any chance hooked up or acquainted with those other people? I’m talking about the ones who came along AFTER the second mortgage and told you it’s worth a whole lot less than you thought it was? Hmmm? Are they in the same business? The playing-around-with-peoples’ hard-earned-money Business? The system isn’t broken…….It’s FIXED. Get it? FIXED, as in RIGGED.
Can you believe it’s been damn near four years since we all cheered wildly at the prospect of hope and change in our country? It feels like ‘the audacity of hope” was more like the audacity of TALKING about hope and change. Have the poor gotten richer and the rich gotten poorer? Did we get the meaningful Health Care reform we were promised? Is our social safety net less or MORE shredded than it was four years ago? Some people say, “Hey, Roseanne, you made a lot of money way back when your show was on TV. Aren’t you one of the 1%?” When we talk about the 1%, we’re talking about that very top elite who hold real power. The power to buy Politicians like John Boehner, who blab a lot about what the American People want and expect from their leaders but who do nothing but perpetuate gridlock. I’m starting to think Gridlock isn’t an obstacle -for politicians…. I think it’s more like a strategy. While the Demopublicans and Republicrats yell across the aisle at each other about who’s trying harder to serve the American people and protect their interests, it seems like more people are losing their homes and their jobs. And, more people WITH homes, that may be ‘underwater’ from all those years of ‘trickle down Economics,’ I guess – are having their adult kids moving back in with them. Lots of these kids aren’t any crazier about the idea than their parents, but they can’t find jobs. And, lots of them are staggering under big student loan debt. So, homeowners and consumers are buried under debt, young people coming out of college are struggling under debt, the whole COUNTRY is struggling under debt in the form of this enormous deficit they tell us out GRANDKIDS will be struggling with. And who does everybody owe this money to- this money we haven’t made yet? Lots of people think our biggest creditor is China. Our biggest creditor probably likes it that way, because the truth is: our biggest creditor is elite bankers – The Federal Reserve, the same people that yank money in and out of the System AND seemingly create it out of thin air. I have a suggestion for taking the biggest bite out of the Federal deficit that they’ve parked over our heads like a big dark cloud with no end to it: In the spirit of American ingenuity and Do-It-Yourself – why don’t we just tell the Federal Reserve to print up some extra money and PAY THEMSELVES OFF on our behalf. We’d be forever indebted to them… without being forever indebted to them…if you get my drift! They’ll still be filthy rich and connected. Let’s take a look at their partners and patrons over on Wall St.. WALL STREET! – – Mister Obama…TEAR DOWN THAT WALL! Let’s replace it with something we can SEE THROUGH!
The Republicans call Social Security a Ponzi Scheme. I’ll show you a Ponzi scheme: it was the scheme that George Dubya Bush was trying to pull when he wanted to hand our Social security over to Wall Street! Wouldn’t THAT have been a great idea?! Who am I to talk about running for President? I’ll tell you one impeccable credential I possess: – I’m NOT George Dubya Bush! And I’m not one of the members of his party running now that are telling us that the way to make this country better and stronger and more righteous is to keep shredding our social safety while asking the richest among us to contribute even LESS! THEY’RE JOB CREATORS??? What have they been WAITING FOR??! Are they waiting for the FREE MARKET to kick in? FREE MARKET? What does THAT mean? FREE to pick up our jobs and move them to China? That’s what it looks like, so far.