Doing Everything In Reverse In America

IN AMERICA, we do everything, or nearly everything, backwards. We drive on parkways and park on driveways, and that aint the half of it. We venerate entertainers, and ignore teachers. We build statues to those who entertain us sufficiently, and lavish wealth on them, and elevate them to the status of gods. Teachers we take for granted, and it takes the moving of mountains to pay them adequately. We build statues to honor corrupt politicians and bloodthirsty generals, while in places like Iraq and Iran poets are celebrated. Those who exploit labor become wealthy in America, while those who labor, those who do the actual work are the exploited poor. The harder the work, the poorer the worker. The greater the capital investment, the greater the return. Abraham Lincoln pointed out that this is the opposite of what should be, by pointing out that labor comes before, and is superior in importance, to money. We consider capital to be superior to labor in America, the opposite of the truth. Unfettered capitalism, devoid of government regulation, is our idea of freedom, when in fact it is a form of slavery, and does not and cannot work for the many, but only for the few, at the expense of the many. Socialism, which works everywhere it is tried (police departments, fire departments, roads and highways, all public infrastructure, public schools, medicare, medicaid, social security) is demonized, even as it supports all aspects of our lives, and keeps capitalism alive by ameliorating capitalism's erstwhile disastrous impact on society. We guzzle alcohol like sponges, and throw people in jail for having anything to do with marijuana, which is not a drug, even though the U.S. government so classifies it, even though its health benefits are many, including lowering blood pressure. We venerate youth, and celebrate its beauty and shallow accomplishments, while ignoring the wisdom of our elders and packing them away in assisted living facilities, because nobody wants to care for them, nobody is willing to care for them without being paid for it. We send our armed forces around the world, destroying other countries and stealing their natural resources, while leaving our own borders unguarded. The more relentlessly our politicians seek political office and power, the more likely they are to achieve it. We fool ourselves into thinking that our leaders are leading as a form of public service, when nothing could be further from the truth. We should give office and power only to those who accept it with reluctance, like George Washington, who was our first, and probably last, honorable president. We fail to see all this only because, here in the great American fun house, the land of smoke and mirrors, we choose not to see, because to see the truth would be too painful for us. We resist the truth, as Goethe said, only because we fear we might perish if we accepted it. There will come a time, and soon, when we have no other choice but to see the truth about ourselves.