Reflection? What Do YOU See? -OR- Time Fucking OUT!

We need to look at everything we're doing, everything we've done and everything that has been previously proposed, only to be demonized, marginalized and summarily dismissed. While I'm thrilled that many of our politicians, media and "leaders" are expressing some willingness to alter their stands on gun control, I'm not optimistic that they are willing to do so while admitting their mistakes or taking responsibility for the consequences of both their actions and inaction.

We need to get over this rugged individualism crappola to re-establish just how interdependent we NEED to be. We need to engage, not withdraw from society. We need new heroes. It's not Donald Trump or Bill Gates or Warren Buffet and their "self-made" billions. Every cent they have they owe to profiting on misery, whether directly, actively or passively. Their advantage came with costs. Nearly 300 million Americans have accepted lowered expectations to provide these "benefits".

It's time to face facts. The hippies were right. Or at least more right than the Right has been about ANYTHING. War is not an answer to anything, let alone THE answer. We've tried it their way for 50 years, we compromised our potential to appease delusionally superior intellects for decades prior to that. American exceptionalism is a multi-faceted beast. There is a genuine willingness to live more sustainably, yet our lives and lifestyles are driven by distractions and diversions.
We can be educated AND entertained or mindlessly consume drivel. We talk of opportunity in lofty terms, but the record clearly shows incremental, artificially imposed limits and disclaimers regarding the qualifications necessary to access opportunity. To gain an advantage, you must eliminate, exclude or partition others from an equal opportunity.

This is THE national security issue and overdue to be recognized. No, it's not just guns. It's health care, it's education, it's Hollywood, it's video games, it's downsizing, it's outsourcing, it's disinvestment, it's money pools, it's too big to fail, it's military "intelligence", it's Big Oil, it's big Corporate, it's Big Charity, it's a partisan, inbred, agendized Supreme Court that's increasingly hostile to hard-fought and won rights and traditions, it's big Pharma, and our entrenched military mindset.

These last two deserve a great deal more attention in any serious discussions.
More than 1 in 3 Americans are "medicated" on any given day. (even more if you include illicit drugs/alcohol). 3.5 Billion prescriptions are written and filled every year. By rote, you can probably litany the potential side-effects, since every third commercial on the TV that us Americans consume is either for some chemical compound or some law firm offering big bucks if you, or a loved one, was taking them.
Certain "medications" disclaim suicidal thoughts, changes in mood or behavior, but
might just as well list homicidal thoughts and/or actions.

Between "Health & Beauty" and the MIC, we devote multi-BILLION$ each and every day with little real benefit to show for the money. More than 100,000 citizens die each year due to pharmacological phailure. How does the uptick in senselessness fit on the evolutionary timeline? Past bouts with rampant societal instability have often been attributed to products, by-products some natural, others man-made; i.e. ergot, typhus, methyl alcohol, syphillis, cocaine, heroin, opium, cholera, y pestis and its relations.

When we ask where the money will come from to do what is needed, the obvious answer is by spending our limited funds on things that actually make us healthier instead of providing an illusion of health.

We're providing the MIC funds to retain/maintain three centuries of military thinking. A massive, inefficient, largely non-productive standing force in a theater that is ill-suited to massive force or WMDs, that is focused on destruction rather than construction. On death instead of life. These are our potentials being stolen. Two clear paths. We've been on the wrong one for 30+ years. Every opportunity to make needed corrections have been both monetary and rhetorical tricks.

Opposite World is unfit for cohabitation. Luckily, it's still possible to live cautiously, limitedly, if not confined, within its gravitational pull.

As long as we're asking such questions, can we ask when military spending will enter into consideration?