Why Are You So Mad?

 

Why are you so mad?

 

She didn’t use those words.

 

The actual words were, what the fuck is wrong with you?

 

A subtle way to let me know I was scowling and snapping.

 

The governor of AR made me that way.

 

You know what I think of politicians.

 

If you don’t, let me remind you.

 

All politicians work for somebody, and it ain’t you.

 

The Arkansas governor works for Wal Mart, Tyson and JB Hunt.

 

He doesn’t give a rip about anyone who makes less than $250k in the state.

 

Not one iota.

 

And yet, they keep voting for this fool and fools just like him.

 

AR, let me remind you, is number 49 out of all 50 United States on every single list.

 

Which makes the state motto, “Thank God for Mississippi.”

 

It’s the only state that keeps us dead last in everything.

 

This governor is the reason we’ve been number 49 for 8 years.

 

And the three idiots before him.

 

I was mad because despite all evidence and truth to the contrary, the man stood in front of the tv cameras and lied.

 

And the news replayed it as if it were truth.

 

Now I know this is not unique to our state.

 

It is endemic to all states and all politicians.

 

Every single one are lying liars with lies coming out of their lying mouths.

 

Yet we still elect them.

 

So I guess I was mad at myself.

 

Because what’s the alternative?

 

Good men don’t go into politics, and if good men call for a mass culling of politicians, they are labelled insurrectionists.

 

It is a catch 22 of our own making that started two hundred years ago, and has been perpetuated by news, and bribes and money ever since.

 

Part of me argues, it’s beyond my control, so why worry.

 

Yet it impacts me on the daily.

 

It affects the price I pay for groceries, the stuff I order from Amazon, the gas at the pumps.

 

Maybe it’s because I write about the future so much.

 

Or because I spend so much time alone and fill my mind with information.

 

I can see easy solutions to complicated problems.

 

The aforementioned culling would be a good start, but I fear the lying liars we lose would be replaced by worse men and women.

 

Or better liars.

 

Take AR for instance again.

 

There was a bill going on in the state legislature to penalize pharmacists for filling opioid medications prescriptions.

 

But nothing mentioned about doctors prescribing so many.

 

Remember why we went to Afghanistan in the first place.

 

Not for terrorist training camps, but for the poppy fields, a billion dollar slush fund to pay for the private military contractors operating in Iraq, which we invaded because the 9/11 terrorists were from Saudi Arabia.

 

If you look at history, you only have to go back to the 1970’s to see our movement into Central America to “fight Communism” that turned into the cocaine cowboy rage.

 

Drugs were a tax on the American people.

 

The same thing happened after 2001, except it was opium.

 

All designed and sold to us by politicians.

 

We never punish the people responsible.  Or even hold them responsible.

 

The blame moves elsewhere.  Like in AR.  Doctors have a well funded lobbying group to pay state politicians, while pharmacists are behind the curve in “campaign reelection donations,” which is what they call bribes.

 

Money.

 

It makes the world go round, and makes magic happen.

 

Until you learn to live without it.

 

Ever wonder why we don’t teach people who need public assistance how to make a garden and raise chickens?

 

A small garden and a chicken coop can prove fresh food and sustenance for half a year.

 

But if 10% of the American population suddenly decided to make their own food, it would put Monsanto and big farm corporations out of business.

 

Simple supply and demand.

 

Except that big farm corporations buy politicians by the dozen, so if you grow your own food, you’re putting family farmers out of business.

 

Sigh.  That Catch 22 you just can’t win.

 

What can you win?

 

Especially if the deck is stacked against you and the odds are tight?

 

I think you take a Han Solo approach to the whole thing.

 

Never tell me the odds and always bet on black.

 

That might be a different movie.

 

I’m a big fan of innovation.

 

I think we could empower every single person in America to legally vote using block chain technology.

 

The more I research it, the more I understand why politicians hate it so much.

 

They can’t control it.

 

I think innovation could help us grow more food, and solve temporary gas shortages, and a million other things that would make the world a better place for people like you and me.

 

I know if we put the money and resources into education, into knowledge, into people that we put into the drug wars, (bringing cocaine and opium into America by way of third party cartels) we would be living in an amazing future.

 

But we don’t teach innovation in school.

 

It’s something that’s supposed to happen accidentally, and that’s why it’s called lightening in a bottle.

 

It should be.

 

It should be expected because innovation can be trained and learned.

 

We just don’t do it.

 

Maybe we should tell politicians they’ll get more “donations” if there is more innovation.

 

Then they would get behind it, and expect it.

 

Like a mobster making the rounds on local mom and pop stores to collect “protection insurance.”

 

I’m innovating today.

 

I’m working on a business that requires me to make stuff up out of thin air.

 

I’m taking ideas from one industry and building a brand new thing in another industry.

 

I was building houses, until the price of lumber jumped up, because sawmills decided to sit on inventory to jack up the cost. That’s okay, it just means I have to research alternative and innovative building methods. (3-D printed buildings?)

 

I guess politicians can piss me off every single day of the week and twice on Sunday, but it won’t matter.

 

Not to those of us focused on the future, on the results, on the ones who are out there doing and making, and ignoring them.

 

I just wish I didn’t have to give them brain space and energy.

 

There are much better uses than thinking about these wastes of space.