Yes We Did

It’s been a month since my last post.  The big budget bugaboo hasn’t put me out on the street or starved my cat to death or anything.  We’re actually doing better now — the price of gas dropped from $4.29 to $2.11 / gallon.  I filled up the car yesterday for $35…a month ago it cost nearly $70.  Now our family budget is merely elastic-waistband tight, not snare-drum-head tight.

So that huge bailout plan passed about a month ago…and we haven’t seen a single benefit from it yet.  The economy still reeks.  The news this morning said the NYSE dropped 10% in the past two days — yet another record drop.  Those record drops happen so often now that I’m blase’ over the whole tanking-economy thing.  Isn’t that sad?

And we elected Barrack Hussein Obama as our next President of the United States.  I’ll say it right up front: I never thought I’d see a black man elected to the presidency in my lifetime.  I sincerely thought that the combined prejudice of Americans would never let that happen, and I’m elated to have had that stereotype shattered.  Obama’s acceptance speech, given at midnight on a Chicago stage on Election Day, moved me to tears — not just through the power of his words, but from the realization that I may soon become proud to be an American once again.

The past eight years of Bush have severely shaken my pride in America.  The mere act of having him *appointed* by the Supreme Court in 2000 shook my faith in Democracy.  Another thing I’d never thought I’d see…I saw:  a president who was not elected, but appointed…and contrary to the popular vote, as well.  I could not believe that in 2004, the American people simply handed the country back to him.  My wife actually cried.  “How could they just do that?” she cried, “we just gave the country back to the super-rich.”  She was right, look at us now.

After eight years of Dubya attacking anyone and anything that farted sideways at the U.S., playground-bully style, the world views us as just that — playground bullies.  They’ve called the Bush presidency a “regime,” something we reserve for people like Saddam Hussein or Communism.  The world views Bush as a dictator, a despot, an unstable tyrant…and via a sort of “trickle-down” theory…they view the American people as some mixture of sad victims, spoiled brats, vulgar cretins and ignorant hicks.  Americans abroad are not greeted warmly, nor welcomed with open arms.  We’re the loudmouthed, tackily-dressed buffoons ruining everyone else’s quiet breakfast.

Well, the world has welcomed Barrack Obama with open arms.  It’s amazing.  I’m glad I’m here to see it.  Yes, I voted.  Yes, I voted for Barrack Obama — we voted for Barrack Obama.  Yes We Did.

Listen To The People, Ya Morons!!

The big, bad bailout plan failed yesterday.  So far, we the people are not on the hook for $2,300 each to pay for Wall Street’s boo-boo.  I, for one, say “Woo-hoo!”

Listening to Anderson Cooper last night, it struck me that the only people who really want this $700 billion bailout to pass are the wealthy — because they’re really the only ones worried about this problem.  The wealthy live off their stock dividends and mutual funds, and they’re all tanking right now.  By my standards, they’re still raking in the dough, but by their standards they’re watching their incomes plummet.  Heck, they might have to postpone buying that new Bentley, and keep driving their V-12 Mercedes for a second year — could you even imagine that horror?

All the “party line” keeps saying is that Wall Street needs bailed out, and they keep waving the boogey-man of recession at us.  I now dearly hate the catch-phrase “From Wall Street to Main Street,” by the way.  It’s on the lips of everyone in the news now; it’s like a white-collar version of “Git’R Done,” and I dearly hate that mindless phrase, too.  Regardless — the White House is blatantly trying to scare the American people into knuckling under and agreeing that we each have to pay thousands of dollars that we don’t have.  The “experts” keep bleating that “the people don’t understand.”

You know what?  That doesn’t help.  Trying to scare people and call them stupid isn’t the way to get their blessing — anyone with children should know this.  “Hey, dumb-ass!  Vote for the bailout or I’ll kick your ass!”  How’s that sound?  Good?  No?  That’s essentially what Dubya, Paulson, et al are saying on the TV.  “Submit or suffer, you weak-minded fools!”

I, for maybe the first time in my life, am GLAD that the elections are a month away.  The politicians are actually listening to their constituents right now — mostly out of fear for their jobs, yes — and their constituents are not just saying, but screaming at the tops of their lungs, “NO, DON’T PASS THIS THING! WE CAN’T AFFORD IT! WE DON’T WANT IT!”  CNN polls run 20 to 1 against the bailout.  Online message boards get 2,000 angry messages in an hour.  Chicago radio shows get five people in the entire week in favor.

Yet, the politicians keep trying to push it down our throats…again, threatening us with plagues and boogey-men, and telling us we don’t understand.  I think that We the People understand more than Congress thinks — we understand that no matter what the market does, or is supposed to do, or didn’t do, they’re asking US to pay for it. Is this any different than Dad gambling away the mortgage payment at the casino, then asking 8-year-old Timmy for the money?  No.

Hello, Congress?  We’re not buying it.  Literally.  Enough with the “bailout.”  Find something different.  Or don’t.  Whatever, we don’t care.  We’re just not paying for it.

I Am Generation X

I am not a Baby Boomer.  Please do not treat me like one.

I could stop there and have summed up a whole lot of my take on generational dynamics.  However, I think it may be a bit lacking in substance.

So yeah, I am Generation X — I was born between 1964 and 1981, as it seems to be classically defined.  We got one of the first Atari 2600’s when I was nine.  When I was 13, General Motors laid off most of the City of Flint…and since I grew up in Michigan, that single act pretty much depth-charged my attempts to find an after-school job.  Why would McD’s call me, when unemployed 30-somethings with a kid to feed would pledge their loyalty to the Golden Arches?

That attitude has plagued my entire work career — why would anyone hire ME when every other applicant has 15 years more maturity and work experience, as well as more college and/or more willingness to pledge their entire soul over to Widgets, Inc? (or whatever employer it was)  I have fought an uphill battle to stay employed in the face of overwhelming numbers of more-experienced, more-trained, more-established Baby Boomers who also posess, coincidentally, a monumental selfishness as part of their Code of Ethics.

Picture the “Me Generation” as a meat grinder, and “Generation X” as a juicy strip of tenderloin.  Possessed of an “I win, you lose” mindset, there has been no way that my Baby Boomer supervisors and managers were ever going to let some (as is popularly perceived) apathetic slacker bum get ahead while they were on watch.

And now they’re starting to retire.  In the next few years, all of those managers are going to be leaving open jobs, then it should be MY time yet…I have a sneaking suspicion that some few will cling to employment just long enough to eliminate those open positions and crow about cost-savings before they, too retire off to a condo funded with MY Social Security contributions.

The ironic thing?  After the “Me Generation” turned down ballot proposal after ballot proposal to fund the schools I was enrolled in…they now want ME to approve ballot proposals for Senior Citizen Services.  I finally have the chance to choke them off and make them quit sucking me dry…and my generation has completely given up the desire to vote.  Our legendary apathy is going to make our taxes go up to feed the very Boomers who have kept us poor our entire lives.  We have a chance here, and I’m going to watch my generation squander it.

Yay, Generation X.  Here’s a slogan:  “Generation X: Sacrificing ourselves for the MIllenium Generation — Even though they won’t say ‘thanks!’”