Governmental cooperation purchased by amoral, greedy, unrestrained capitalism bodes nothing but destruction of the ideals of human liberty and moral regeneration. Everyone is susceptible, for sale. The dickering is merely over how much or for what. The saddest part is how prostituted are persons of supposed free will and adequate brain power.
There are three categories of human beings: owners, those who know they are owned and somehow live with it and maybe even struggle for freedom occasionally, and those who don't know they are owned and are deluded into thinking they are part of the ownership.
Are these ideas and observations just the ranting of an embittered, self-righteous, envious, impotent loser? Is it a character flaw? Can I not embrace happiness in any form…love and/or service? Were these thoughts the conjuring of someone with a little knowledge, not much wisdom, and a strong dose of anger? There is nothing more pitiful than an idealist turned jaded cynic…or is he a realist? My critique of present politics and culture could be just my wide-eyed liberalism soured to a mean, faded neo-Puritanism.
The old Bible book of Ecclesiastes cautions against the fretting over the world's insanity, its vanities: "I know there is no good in them [the worrying and moaning about life's corruptions and absurdities] but for man [and woman] to rejoice, and to do good in his [her] life. And also that every man [one] should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his [their] labor, it is the gift of God." To do good doesn't mean to be successful or loved. Someone wrote of having a "lover's quarrel with humankind." I appreciate that sentiment. Besides, a Thomas Paine I'm not, nor am I most assuredly a Daniel, Amos, or Jeremiah. Well maybe Jonahesque. Yet, I guess you can take the preacher of out the pulpit, but you really can never take the preaching out of the preacher!
Is there any validity to my analysis of the present situation in America? Is there any truth in my lamentations? Does it even matter given the pervasive mind/spirit altering opiates: money, sex, food, booze, toys, power, and of course brothels and sinful bars?
Though I really need to put this down for the sake of my blood pressure and soul's health, I tend to forget that Jonah, Daniel, and the others did not have very good job security, not to mention life expectancy. I must stay on task. Better get back to the park bench, my phantom teacher, and remembrances of what might have been rather than fretting over, never mind working for, the salvation of other benighted folk, regeneration of culture, and the reformation of the nation.