Apathy!! Add that one to the list of: Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy and Pride. Sadly, the dumb down nature of our country lends for the nurturing of apathy. Travel through the supermarkets, Main Streets, malls and just about anywhere that Americans congregate and you can almost smell the foul odor of apathy. It seems that, with some exceptions, NO ONE CARES! The Trump inspired MAGA crowd, with all their rancor, act like they care. Factor out abortion, the undocumented and gay rights and these folks could not give a rat’s rear end about how this corporate empire shackles them. They are getting screwed royally in their health care ( or lack of substantial coverage) , cable and internet charges, insurance costs, residential rents, medicinal costs, college tuition, and most important, where their tax money goes. If they took off those red hats and stood next to the loyal Democratic Party suckers… sorry, voters, they ALL would realize that the empire owns them! This Two Party/One Party charade keeps flushing at least 50% of federal revenues down the toilet bowl of military spending. The next sound you hear is silence… the silence of apathy.
Maybe if my friends and neighbors would turn off and put down those electronic appendages to their hands they would wake up! They would realize that by government not subsidizing Medicaid fully and properly, the **** will really hit the fan. Most working stiff Seniors need to first go onto Medicaid to then be able to reside in an assisted living or nursing home without being bankrupted. Do the majority of us who continue to support both phony parties understand those ramifications? Or, how many Americans realize that the credit card companies have been screwing cardholders with usurious rates 20 points above the prime rate? This has been going on for generations with no recourse from the phony Congress and Presidency. As far as cable television, should we wait until the monthly charge for decent TV viewing reaches $ 400 -$ 500 per month? It’s already well over $ 200, when 10 years ago the same coverage was 1/2 that price. For what? All the cable providers do is send the signals into your home… period!
We just celebrated the 75th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in baseball. Well, during that time his teammates on the Brooklyn Dodgers, along with all baseball players, had to secure off season jobs to supplement their meager baseball salaries. Factor out the few superstars like Mickey Mantle and Ted Williams and 99% of players needed to work during offseason to support their families. Now, in ALL professional sports, worldwide, even the low man on the totem pole is making a million bucks. The superstars, or should I say most of the stars of teams, are earning mega $ millions. Even the ( so called ) sports journalists are earning $ millions for a few hours of work each day. Imagine paying a player $ 40-50 million a year? Imagine the super wealth of the billionaire owners and top management of teams who dole out that cash. Then look at the electronic media and how much they are earning from those terrible commercials we have to watch too often. The entire industry is swimming in cash… OUR cash, we the fans! Try to take your wife and kids to a professional sports game. Between the ticket prices, parking, refreshments and food and you are looking at minimum $ three to four hundred bucks… for one stupid game!
No matter where you focus your attention you should realize how powerful this apathy is. If it wasn’t for the military draft during the Vietnam ( so called ) War the apathy would have been preeminent. Of course, all those chickenhawks could be just that because they were exempted from the draft. One wonders if Dick Cheney and Donald Trump had to actually put that helmet on and wave away mosquitoes in some rice paddy… Or if Bush Jr. had to actually fly a fighter jet over Hanoi… So, the empire knew that except for the families of our soldiers and the few like this writer who protested, they could spend over a decade and trillions of our taxes in Iraq and Afghanistan. If someone was not in uniform, who cared? It was more important to play with your cell phone. The empire uses the embedded mainstream media to sell the **** to the public, replete with all those yellow ribbons and bumper stickers. How many times has this writer seen the famous ‘ Proud Mom of a Marine’ or something to that effect on the rear bumper of the car in front of me? They can sell war like toothpaste anytime they wish!
Yes, the apathy is actually deafening. The disconnect towards others around us is sad as well. I sat in my favorite restaurant before the pandemic, on a Sunday afternoon. There were five tables filled with patrons. Two tables had a couple each, one had three folks, another had four and one had five customers. I looked around and to my surprise not ONE table had people conversing. Everyone was too busy playing with their gadgets! As my former street corner activist friend, the late Walt DeYoung would say ‘ Nuff Said’!
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