Morals and Ethics and Good Old Fashioned Midwestern Values

America has changed in ways that I thought were cool in my youth, but now looking back on it, I am rather ashamed at what has transpired. Forget about all the patriots and apologists that want to talk about how great this country was and how much the government has destroyed it over the last few years. Forget about arguments in support of, or speaking out against, the policies of Obama's administration. Everyone, every president, has had an equal hand in bringing this country to where it is at during the short time I've been on this earth. Some presidents were brought in fix problems; others created problems where they formerly did not exist during what should have otherwise been a peaceful and prosperous time in America.

When the restrictions were lifted on the last go around in American politics, everyone cheered, money fell from the sky, and no one complained. It is easy to talk about what is so wrong with the American government when you are broke, but when times are good, everyone is short-sighted and no one gives a damn about what may happen in the future with generations that are yet to come about. Had everything went right with President Bush we would never would have voted Obama into office; rather, we would have voted in McCain, a true patriot. Instead we emphasized and understood Michelle Obama when she said that she was ashamed of America, because a lot of us were too as well.

The country is in a strange place right now. You have who is supposed to be the head of the GOP on some Amos and Andy s* and talk show radio hosts and who is arguably either the dumbest politician, or the least understood, attempting to bring the Republican party back into prominence. It isn't saying much about the state of American politics right now, for either party, that such madness is going on. I titled this article as such because when I was a kid the good old fashioned Midwestern values of hard work and perseverance were all that mattered. If you wanted something, you went out and got it, you didn't hustle it from someone you didn't lie and steal or manipulate or whatever it is that people do to get ahead these days, you found a job, you worked your way up to the top and you moved on from there.

I blame a lot of this back to the vain attempts of banking institutions to encourage individuals to use the equity in their mortgages to acquire more than what they need, which goes all the way back to the seventies, and the ability of corporations and marketers to make everything that we don't need, seem essential because it was either of better quality or offered a better experience. The idea that individuals had a relationship with corporations that they didn't necessarily need to have a relationship with, that individuals felt free to develop a caste system around certain brands and that we could have other systems of haves and have nots outside of those parameters that worked for us for eons. The idea that the poor could live rich, when at least when they were living poor and within their means they had a better chance of getting ahead than they do now. All of this is under the guise of the democratization of the access to consumer goods for the poor and because of the idea of creating an equal playing field we had individuals thinking that if they could spend more, they would be on an equal playing field with everyone else. Nothing is further from the truth.

Then when said individuals ran out of cash, we lent to them, when they could no longer acquire credit cards we gave them loans against their tax returns, then against their automobile and finally against their own jobs in which we gave them $100 and asked them to pay us $115 by the next payday. You have to pay the balance in full, never mind that you need the balance to make it through the week and were loosing half of your check in interest each week you had to do it. This is the country that I live in; a country that is perfectly okay with all of this and will do everything to protect your interests just so long as you are creating opportunities for someone else. This means that, in this country, you are either creating jobs for someone else, or providing housing or some other essential, or you may as well not even exist; because if you are in the position of asking someone else for a job you are being taxed to death and penalized at every turn. If you are in the position of creating the opportunity you are an angel sent from above, and despite your sins, you will be forgiven and your debt spoken for.

Is this not what is happening in this current day and age on Wall Street? Even more bonuses, hell the city of New York was even willing to pay for them to go back to school to obtain employment in other fields because they didn't want to loose that tax revenue. When your employer pays you to go to school, they tell you what to get that degree in and they expect for you to remain at the company for a period of time so that they can recoup that investment. Speaking of school in that hard working Midwest it wasn't crucial that you had an education, it was all about what you could do and what you were capable of. Yet times have changed, if you don't list the education on the job resume, or can't explain why you do not have one, assuming that you get an interview in the first place, you may as well not even apply.

Don't waste your time speaking to me about the American government or the banking institutions. Why are we hustling just to prove that we are adept and deserve a second chance. Why are we being denied employment because of our credit scores. Why are we hustling just to keep the jobs that we do have, that most of us do not even want, though clearly it is better than the alternative. We are being squeezed from above and from below, the left and the right, and this isn't showing any signs of letting up. I never gave a damn about our government before, and I regret having done so buying into the rhetoric of change and the idea of another Kennedy being in the White House. Kennedy took some chances and went out on a limb and died for his, I seriously do not see the same happening to Obama. The six hours I spent in the freezing cold watching the inauguration, and the three hours I spent in line to vote is a good day of my life that I cannot get back. I want a return on my investment; since my hard work and labor no longer means anything because the corporation is preoccupied about who I do and do not get along with I would like a return on my investment. Get this country back on track or leave me the hell alone ...