Were you surprised?

I wonder if there was this level of lawlessness in the days of the founding fathers.

Don't answer that. Of course there was slavery, and ultimately we got westerns, seems like everyone had a gun and didn't think twice about firing it. But there were no cameras.

Now there's a camera everywhere, but that does not stop the crime.

Come on, watch any TV show from around the world, you know, about crime, which is the plot of most of 'em, the successful ones anyway, and they always go to the footage, the security cameras, there's one on every streetlamp in Israel, seemingly on every street corner, and there's a plethora of them in the U.S. too...but people keep committing crimes. And they get caught. What's the deterrent?

Of course we've got the rich, the white collar criminals, and you think the computers they use would indict them, but that is not the case, we don't have enough people at the IRS to catch them. If you just stay quiet, fly under the radar, which most rich people do, contrary to public belief, you skate. And you throw a few shekels here and there looking like a big philanthropist when the truth is it represents almost none of your holdings, and the value of your assets keeps increasing. Seemingly the only billionaire who realizes this is MacKenzie Scott, giving away all those Amazon billions, not needing to vet the destinations ad infinitum before she donates the bread. That's another canard of the wealthy, that the government is inefficient and only they know how to distribute money. But we didn't see them helping out during Covid. And we don't see women shooting up public spaces. There's a message there somewhere, but it's lost amidst the debate for equality. And why would women be so eager to become men? Oh, this is politically incorrect, I know, of course women should be equal, in pay and stature, but do we have to turn them into the moneygrubbing males of business today? Maybe we can learn lessons from their deportment. That's one thing about women, they've got a sense of community, whereas most of the loners are men.

So what if you are a man... You're bombarded with messages that you're inferior. And it used to be you could lift yourself up, it was the American Dream, but that ended decades ago, when it was determined that if you were in the underclass you were a lazy nogoodnik, and the best way to incentivize you was to take away your benefits, and put you in lousy cash-starved schools to boot. Even better, if you live in darkness you won't know what you're missing out on.

Or, you could look to religion to save you. When you ain't got nothing, it helps you hold on. It's worked for Blacks, now it's supposed to work for whites too. Just give to the wealthy preacher who flies around in a private jet, who's got direct access to God, and then try to deny your inner feelings as you demonize everyone who is not praying, or not praying at the house of worship of your choice.

So we've got boys trying to combat their DNA. Sex is dirty, yet it's all over the web. Broke housewives are trying to make ends meet on OnlyFans. And if you're unhappy... Is it really your fault?

Maybe it's the government's fault. Messing with your freedom. To get Covid-19, to shoot a rifle, to spew hatred and falsehoods.

It's every person for themselves in America today, isn't that the essence of the U.S., the freedom that all these nitwits are looking for?

Get sick, have hospital bills, go bankrupt, too bad.

This all started with "Going Postal," yes, at the U.S. Post Office, which is now so slow they might as well rename it the "Pony Express." Turns out you can't fire people. And this is bad, kind of like the language police who are turning into the thought police, but if there were a safety net, if there was national health care, it wouldn't be so bad. Lose your job and you lose your health care. If you're over 45, good luck getting a new one. Meanwhile, you turn on the flat screen and see everybody living it up, as you lose your spouse, your home, your savings, your retirement money... How are you supposed to rebuild?

And everybody's got their own news supporting their own viewpoint. And when it comes to truth, it's fungible, after all, there are alternative facts. So what's it like being a young male on the ground in America... Not that different from being that fruit vendor who ignited the Arab Spring...college educated with no upward mobility.

And in America it's always somebody else's fault, no one takes personal responsibility. They want freedom, but not the consequences of said freedom. And anything that impinges on their right to do whatever they want to do all of the time, is just plain bad. Meanwhile, you don't get the right to do what you want to do, you can't get an abortion...tough noogies, don't try to be logical about all this, there is no logic.

So you're depressed, depleted. But mental illness is not seen as a real sickness so you don't have coverage and you don't see a professional. Meanwhile, insurance payments are so low you only get to see the second and third rate mental health providers anyway. Because no one any good will take insurance. The best doctors are reserved for an elite class that you're convinced runs everything, but the truth is they just do what is good for their pocketbook, they don't care about you at all.

And if you live in the inner city, you can get shot by gangs and everybody shrugs, it's your fault for having that skin color.

And drugs are cool, so if you O.D...that's always the risk. Come on, individual responsibility here. You should be able to lift yourself up, abstain, just hang around staring into space as you have no job or one that pays poorly as you work your ass off. Drugs are a relief!

So back in the sixties we had a revolution, we were fighting for equal rights and an end to the war in Vietnam. Now we've got endless war in the Middle East, longer than World War II. And we've got the silent killer of Covid-19, which is harmless, if you just took off your mask and ran free the economy would rage and the stock market would fix all your problems, even worse people believe this.

So, the country wakes up to racism in the sixties and after a few years what happens? Whites wake up and realize that if Blacks get more of a foothold, they might have to sacrifice a bit, and no one can sacrifice in America, certainly not today, so we remove their voting rights, get rid of affirmative action, the Supreme Court, THE SUPREME COURT, says we live in a post-racial society, that Blacks have no problem voting. Meanwhile, as I sit here, dozens of states are making them run a gauntlet to vote in the future. As for unemployment benefits? Did you see John Oliver on this, the goal in Florida is not to give them to you: bit.ly/31ba7YS But there are so many TV channels that nothing gets traction anymore. They have ratings, they have charts, but the truth is no TV show gets universal attention, no record, no movie, but they keep telling us they do, because to admit the truth would raise questions, and those in power just want things to stay the way they are.

So, they kill a Black man in Minneapolis and the whole world erupts. So far, change has been minimal while whites have demonized the demonstrators, voting for a strongman to protect them, as if history doesn't tell us that in the end, the joke is on them.

So you're sitting there telling me to be optimistic, to not be such a downer. You say the same thing to the people who perpetrate these crimes, who kill these people, that America is great and if they just believed everything would work out for them. What a bunch of hogwash.

Meanwhile, the image of America keeps fading in the minds of the rest of the world. But it also fades in the minds of Americans. You can wave that flag all you want, as you re-enact Civil War battles, but flag-waving never put food on the table, gave the underprivileged advantages. America has turned into a religion. Either believe in it or be demonized. No questions allowed, pay fealty to the greatest country in the world or shut up.

And you wonder why people are scratching their heads.

They used to just hate the Blacks and the Jews. Now they hate the Asians too. Half of America is hated and the rest shrug, at least it's not them.

That's what people think when these school shootings happen today, at least they weren't in the line of fire. Which is why the elite live behind gates and fly private, you can't get down in the pit with the regular people, you'll never know what might happen.

Optimism? Yeah, like they're gonna get rid of assault rifles. Then again, Biden's relief program passed, yippee! Biden is so much better than expected, it's astounding, better than St. Obama, which Maureen Dowd pointed out in last Sunday's "Times": nyti.ms/3f2DeFY But the left have their heroes too, you can't pierce the veil, just like with St. Reagan.

And you tell me to mourn, to participate in the national grief, when by my calculation everything is going in the wrong direction. As for Biden himself, according to the right he's a senile old man hiding from the public whilst he's ruining the country. Just let the corporations rule, they know better. Or start a new business, even though the truth is the big outfits employ the most people. And the jobs they provide... You either think or you don't. And if you don't, all the heavy lifting is done by robots, so you can only do the most menial tasks for few bucks that don't cover your needs.

But it's your fault. It's always your fault in America. Which is why you're compassioned-out. Does anybody really care about you, is anybody watching out for your future? Doesn't feel like it.

So this has been going on for forty years. Taxes and welfare cut, all in the name of freedom. Yeah, freedom to buy a gun and shoot innocent people willy-nilly. As for the consequences? You die, or go to prison forever, not bad when you consider the alternatives. Yup, the life expectancy is going down in America anyway, maybe best to short circuit the process.

But we can't address the hard problems. Hard problems cannot be attacked and solved anymore. We put a man on the moon over 50 years ago, now government computers oftentimes don't even work, the software is riddled with bugs, what happened to the can-do spirit that accomplished so much so long ago?

But you gotta believe. That if we just send our thoughts and prayers no one will shoot up the next public place. That if we rid the public school system of enough funds everybody will go to private schools that don't want them and everything will be groovy. That there's a level playing field when it is tilted. Everybody in America is the anti-Columbus, telling us the world is flat when we know it's round, but they've never been anywhere so how the hell should they know?

So you can be depressed.

Or you can do your best to get ahead, getting a good education so you can get a job at the bank or the tech company. You certainly don't want to be an artist, the odds are too long, and art doesn't drive the culture anyway, the internet does, where it's all about social media, becoming an influencer. That's the new art, with odds just as long. But maybe better than the established artistic avenues, at least creativity is king as opposed to the products built by committee.

Of course there are good things about America. But if you look at where we're headed, especially after looking back and seeing the road we've been on, it's hard to believe it's morning in America, rather it's the dead of night, and you ain't got a flashlight.

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