Deregulations and "freedom from terrorism" merge in meaning. We follow our leaders who grab and run like kids stealing candy from the sweets store. Never look back is everyone's motto. Make your own rules.
One single-minded dog can keep an entire flock of sheep huddled into a bleating mass of wool which gets sheared yearly. The master of the well-trained dog gets all the booty after the fleecing.
Our people are overwhelmed with the inability to think. The protagonist of this screwed up picture is mankind in the 21st century. We go to war for peace believing lies, and we unthinkingly hate any who disagree.
Religiosity sets us apart and gives us excuses to kill in the name of our God. We stand in the righteousness of our beliefs over others.
We raise kindergarten consumers and squelch any tools to understanding the real world. No one thinks about debt. No one fears bankruptcy. In the midst of creating national fear the nation's president urges citizens to shop--and most of us do. Time is eaten away by the act of acquisition. Feelings of emptiness are sated by the consumption of calorie-laden grossly proportioned meals at ever-expanding eateries while the homeless and hungry are erased from our minds and cease to exist.
Our citizens build monuments to themselves with enough square feet and rooms so that they need never to see each other. They call it "home." Why do they drive huge vehicles but to stand out. Rarely is anyone driving around the soccer team. Making a statement about their existence, they believe they are immortal as they busy about in their behemoths. No one cares about conservation except to take resources from the old, disabled and imperfect who are pushed aside and need to die to satisfy worries about overpopulation.
Honesty-impaired, people think they are beyond self-reproach. Ruled by self-interest, our society is conflicted. The press helps keep the masses reality-impaired. Our television screens are replete with reality shows that are not real but staged productions like wrestling. But nobody cares to question the lie.
The people who have reality makeovers are no longer themselves once the plastic surgeons finish. But they soon are depressed and disappointed by their diversions and what they can't escape.
Doctors prescribe drugs to smooth the pain of life. The drugs wipe out the ability to weep but leave a simmering anger. Those who are drugged carry with them bottled water to quench the side effect of drug-induced cottonmouth. They pee often. The pharmaceutical industry provides well healed males with a drug to combat drug-induced impotence. Wealthy men in their 50s, 60s and 70s can satisfy younger women who bear them children eventually to be raised by Mommy and nanny because Daddy will be dead no matter how many pills he pops.
The drug companies make a killing helped along by new Medicare drug regulations. Pill-peddling doctors join the charade and vacation in different all-expenses paid tropical isles each winter.
In 1959 Estes Kefauver (D-TN) led a subcommittee that examined the high cost of pharmaceuticals. His findings mirror today's reality. Pharmaceutical companies have the biggest profits worldwide with a disproportionate amount spent on advertising and executive salaries in comparison to research and development. But nobody studies history.
Congress did not have our best interests in mind when in 1994 it introduced the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act. Snake oil merchants have flourished. And honest scientific research continues to go unfunded.
People trust that the government and the manufacturers of the tiny pills they pop have their best interests at heart. But product liability lawsuits are thwarted by legislation protecting the company bottom lines. People trust themselves and their children to people who pray over them. Then the power of prayer is shattered by having believed in miracles only to be hit by the overwhelming sting of reality that negates them. Then more reality-altering drugs need to be sold.
What kind of legacy will those of you, too busy to care, driving around in your behemoth vehicles, constructing monuments to yourselves leave for future generations? You say there's no need to worry about the environment, conserving energy, or stepping on other human beings? You believe that science will find a way to prolong life just the same so that your progeny can continue to be too busy to care and will have time to drive around in behemoth vehicles and construct monuments for themselves, too.
Commentary by May Belle Osborne
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