Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Photo Of The Year


Ben Goff / The Gazette

Take a good, long look at it. This photograph was taken in the "richest" country in the world, the country of your dreams, my dreams, where a man's willingness to work has long been prized, respected, and rewarded above all else. So why is this man in jail?

Why didn't James Richard Verone just pull himself up by the bootstraps? Why didn't he just stop feeling sorry for himself and his thoroughly debilitating list of physical conditions? Why did he actually expect to receive medical care after fifty nine years of being a productive citizen in the land of his birth? Surely, real men like a Limbaugh, Beck or Cheney would be able to work right through the pain, without complaint, without these pitiful theatrics for public attention!

This is what we have allowed ourselves to become- a country that kicks its own to the very gutter the second they can no longer produce to maximum peak efficiency- and profit. For anyone counting every lost penny (or dream), living one check to the next- this could very well be you, it could damn well most definitely be me. We live in a country where greed is a virtue, and being poor is a disease unto itself, if you're part of the ever growing "working poor," you're obviously not working hard enough. If you're as sick as this man and can't work, you're lazy- if you can't find work, you're criminal.

Somehow the American Dream got distorted, twisted beyond all manner of reason. Instead of striving to get their fair share, there were those that started demanding it all and goddamn anything and anyone who got in their goddamn way. Middle class jobs were outsourced out of existence, war became our number one industry, mercenaries became honorable, education the luxury of those who could afford it. All this while the rich were allowed encouraged to scheme, divert and reconfigure other peoples' money into personal pinnacles of wealth so obscene that the very government (who they refused to pay tax to) forgave and then aided them anew when they failed in their grandest of larcenies. And who do you think they blamed?

So look long and hard at that photo good people of these semi United States. And think of it some more when your "leaders" ask you to rally round the flag, fight another war, and give up something else for the filthiest of those you already helped make rich. It's the same look the emperor wore that day the empire cascaded all around him- the same look its citizenry denied in their own faces for many a year prior.

8 comments:

jurassicpork said...

I don't think I could've added a word to this, Stan. This may well be your best post.

Eric Rose said...

Holy crap! When are the American right wing nut jobs going to wake up!

I have linked to this posting on my facebook. Well written piece. Very compelling.

Stan B. said...

Thanks, gentlemen.

Eric-
Theirs is the eternal sleep- voluntary maybe, but eternal nonetheless...

sharyn said...

a brilliantly executed piece of observation and critique. Beautiful, couldnt add or take away a word.

Sharyn

Stan B. said...

Thanks, Sharyn (you're making me blush)- in the interest of full disclosure, Sharyn and I have been very close friends for many a year.

It's small rewards writing to let some steam off when what you really want to do is beat those responsible until they are every bit as helpless as the most helpless amongst us.

Serr8d said...

Utter bullshit. This man made poor choices earlier in his life; those choices led him to this destination. To think that other citizens OWE him, or anyone else, a different outcome is ludicrous.

Your envy and greed for Other People's Money isn't helping you make better choices. You'd best look to your own future, and not expect anyone else to bail you (or this loser) out.

Stan B. said...

Yeah, he was guilty of trying to make an honest living- unlike every single one of your Republican heroes who fuck the American public over and over again to make their millions, get corporate welfare and avoid paying taxes. Don't come over to my backyard spewing your simplistic, one note bile- stay home and play with your guns.

Had you ever been seriously concerned about giving someone shit for living on the dole for their immediate needs- this would have been your very first stop:

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2007/12/10/18160/cheney-health-ad/

Panagiotis said...

@Stan B. I stand by you on everything you said, eloquently expressed, and sadly all too true. A long line of links brought me to your blog, and I am more than happy to have discovered it. My country is on the verge of collapsing and the government seeks to privatize the Health Sector, which has been economically vandalized through the government's efforts. So we know what we are heading to. Armies of Verones.

@serr8d. Go suck your teabag. Man, Other People's Money, capitalized? For real? Why not name it Good Old Debt while you're at it, and put it in a temple?