June 11th, 2012

Spread across the media reports emerge glossing over the incident of corruption and other miss-deeds that point to a gradual slide into an acceptance of our day-to-day plunge into darkness. As a society we have been convinced that things happen and that there is little we can do about it, we crawl through our day hoping beyond hope that someday the masses will shake off this feeling of despair and do something about it. From the highest political office in the land to the man sweeping the street (not a lowly occupation mind-you-me) we find huge swaths of apathy, we shrug and continue on our way strolling down a darkened hallway lit but 2 inch birthday candles groping our way along we sometimes pause to wipe the slim from our hands we use to feel the wall on either side. Governance, whether public or private, does and will effect our survival on this planet, and right about now were more than solidifying our existence behind that famous 8-ball, in this particular cycle in the United States of America the voting public is preparing to choose their 45th President, in this we find the media plugged with 15-30 second sound bytes, either flashing across the boob tube, or plastered on this or that social network these to be supported with wordy document splashed across the newspapers of the country pro or con depending from the area they are published. Both sides are guilty of announcing half-truths, just as both sides are linked to some enormous economic forces whereas they both play fancy footwork in portraying the others accomplishments or thereby the lack of. The sitting President walked into his position with his eyes wide open, promising the people who elected him to clean up the mess that had been accumulating since Sept 11th, 2001 the mess evolving into two wars, one that began with a

shock and awe performance with the bombardment of Baghdad, Iraq to secure the oil fields, and the other a war to capture the supposed eyes and brain behind the 9-11 toppling of the twin-towers in New York City two wars that over time once again drained the coffers of the U.S. Treasury, and to no ones surprise stuffed the pockets of the military war machine. To top all this, lack of adequate controls over the too-big-to-fail financial houses of the West who played willy-nilly with their investors money, the direct result being the collapse of the housing market place in America and a sharp decline in unemployment in the land of milk and honey or a chicken in every pot couple this high rate of unemployment with millions loosing there homes, to the accompaniment of the U.S. Congress approving a huge amount of taxpayer money to the very same financial houses. rectify or to provide a quick and easy solution. Failures of this market or that one we all know are cyclic, it is a fact of our financial world this time the failure swept up the very entity, however their small contribution individually, the working man, which began a deeper reflection of those at the top of the financial food chain. This was bound to happen, there is or was no other option, whereas over the past few decades those who accumulated untold millions from the sweat off the brow of the factory worker, farmer and other occupations existed in a world held at bay by the corporate or government shield of silence. But then along came the world wide web, social networks and other advanced forms of mass communications and their world came apart leaders across the world either ran seeking a safe haven, while others were physically jerked from their lofty perches, while the CEOs and other highly placed members of this or that corporation hired body guards and shelled out copious amounts of cash to protect their status in this or that country government. Today our society (not only in the West) has firmly and lovingly embraced the dollar, putting it far above any other measure of civilization, and in this it is only natural that the less fortunate will be discarded along the highway to accumulation. Their struggle an unfortunate result of the scramble for material wealth and a upscale condition of survival, where our way of life is no longer measured on loving our neighbor, but has morphed into a scale from keeping To this the now new President stepped into a situation that for the lack of a better word was impossible to

up with the Joneses to one of flaunting our well-being on a day-to-day basis, couched with demands that are hard to imagine. Our culture has changed from a hushed phrase here or there into one of a super-quiet denial, where local leaders closed their grey matter to the less fortunate coupling their wagons to the bundles of cash waved in front of them, using their positions to roust the poor, deny their children a solid education, continuing the downward spiral of ever increasing plunge to poverty, creating a culture that is only evidenced by the overcrowding of our institutions (prisons). If we continue to slam the steel bars on those who have no options to improve, we only increase their avenue of surviving taking from those who have while they march toward an uncertain future. I realize that we cannot force children to attend school, yet as we work within our depleted public educational financial system we are faced with a diverse situation whereby the children that need the groundwork for a productive life and the ability to recognize the difference between right and wrong, are being denied the constant day-to-day education. In addition, the worlds economic and international trade is disappearing much faster than some predicted where nations that sat on top of the heap less than ten-years-ago have tumbled down the hill now looking for funds to continue their governmentit is not enough to blame less fortunate but those in power do on a daily basis, blaming the ills of their government on the anchor they label the poor. The power-brokers in the United States point their finger at the various Unions, you know that collection of Ordinary Americans who banded together to advance their way of life, in other words the Power-Brokers are blaming the Unions for the mass exodus of wage earning jobs outside of Americas borders thereby leaving over 23 million people unemployed. Count them 23+ million, in reality these numbers represent 11.74% of the working population between 18 and 64 years of age this mass exodus began during the Clinton Years with a trickle that has changed into a rush to embrace the cheap labor found in India, Malaysia and China Unions, I dont think so but Im a battle weary conservative who is getting old and feeble, and to tell you the truth a little bit embarrassed at the way our powerful elite now look down at the Ordinary American.

Ordinary Americans, only thought of during an election year as a real political currency is bankrupt, where in preceding years when a representative finally made their way into the political circle along the Potomac the people who elected them counted for their success, and the representative understood this. Today once their achieve their position, big money waves an envelope of cash and the representative caves voting for the power represented by the big money the voter back home becomes so much garbage until the next election cycle. The present batch of candidates for the 45th President is not ordinary people, lets get that straight, albeit they attempt portray them as such get a grip. We find one man (the sitting big boss) with four years under his belt as the leader of the biggest military machine, and what used to be the most modern and efficient industrial complex of world history, the other who made his fortune buying and selling companies selling bits and pieces to satisfy his investors and we are asked to decide who will sit in the oval office for then next four-years based on sound-bytes and blurbs over this and that blog or newspaper article or a well constructed political mantra based on the weak points of each of them. With each telling us they are ordinary people. We see where the sitting President has failed the people who elected him, just as we see that his opponent is now preaching his success for this and that, even at one point taking credit for saving the auto-industry where when our 44th President pushed for its bailout his opponent was all for letting them go bankrupt. At the end of the day to believe that one or the other relates to the ordinary American is nuts you and I know that Barack Obama or Mitt Romney is about as ordinary as a snowball in hell. The definition, according to some, of the Ordinary American has changed from a hardworking 8-5 person into a lazy unattended individual who is on the dole, whereas hard work seems to have become a faded snapshot of the past. Gone are the days when your father or mother walked out the door at various times during the day in hopes that their labor would provide for the well being of their family. This according to the hell-bent for leather power-brokers and their corporations, their primary bitch is that Ordinary Americans will not work for $5.00 a day for 12-14 hours a daypetty I know, but that is it in a nutshell.

What is it that we mean about these ordinary people, is it still the people who toil every day, marry and raise families, pay their bills and taxes, serve their communities and country, and understand the difference between their God and Caesar. While it may be true that our standards have shifted a bit, I am convinced that the gradual slide of our concepts, albeit owing to our own perception and some undue pressure from outside forces, has not and will not eliminate the Ordinary Person and withstanding acute criticism I still believe that a democracy such as experienced in the United States was and is constructed to function without a President. Many look upon the Ordinary American politically as a Sunday morning cartoon character, an undereducated, overweight entity who shouts up at the wealthy elites in contempt, and in reverse the wealthy political elites naturally poke down at the Ordinary American at times peddling their mantra but for a few bucks they too are Ordinary. The working class in America banded together in response to the near-dowells and their roughshod treatment of the factory workers putting in 12-16 hours a day, toiling in unsafe buildings, 100 to 300 crowded in a space meant or 25, 20-30 minute lunch breaks with no breaks in between, the result being the birth of Unions. These Unions forced the upper-class to acknowledge the above conditions, these Unions forced the government to acknowledge the working class and now our representatives want to eliminate those Unions you ever wonder why? Wonder no more it is the new symbol of the wealthy the greenback! Unfortunately our present judicial system will find it next to impossible to prosecute and convict the members of the powerful and rich, and if an action was so implemented do you think a jail term is forthcoming naw a slap on the hand with maybe a fine equal to about 1% of what they ripped from the Ordinary People. Corporations are considered people, well treat them as such when it comes to the law of the land close their doors, dont allow them to peddle their products, drill any more wells, make any more cars, make any more airplanes, along with taking the owners passports along with those of the corporations leaders sort of a house-arrest if you may. Of course none of this will come about as long as these multinational corporations are allowed to run

willy-nilly up and down the halls of our government handing out money like rock-candy at a Christmas Parade. We notice that any judicial response in being able to convict corporations of a multitude of crimes, in order for mankind to survive, must be closely examined and if a corporation if found in disobeying a regulation the owners must be held accountable, and by this I dont mean a monetary fine equal to one days dip into petty cash. A great many corporate leaders and their high-power board members require psychiatric help, although our present penal system in incapable of such assistance a number of years in an open prison system (not some special big money lockup) would go a long way insuring that they have learned their lesson after five to ten years wandering about in the general population would solidify the meaning of giving it (supply your own it) to the behind the bars inmates. For too many years the greedy and corrupt leaders in government, being force fed bundle of cash have turned a blind eye to the blatant disregard for the law of the land by the huge multinational corporations in doing so massive regions of our planet have morphed into large tracts of waste land land incapable of supporting life (of any kind), giving its all to procure large amount of wealth by the silent and protected individual behind the corporate shield with their mantra today they are creating jobsin this we find a crowd that embraces their bully pulpit speeches and the promise of a better tomorrow. These self-righteous followers label those who stand for the land as liberals and inbred socialists, while the self-righteous call themselves the saviors of humanity (basically the false economy). As a society we must bring all to bare on these midnight spoilers of our planet spoilers who slip on their garb of guardians of our Blue Marble during the day spouting fancy words assembled as self-serving lies and falsehoods, most supported by equal lies by those of our scientific community in their employ, while at night they sneak behind the curtain of darkness ripping our planet asunder, stuffing copious amounts of their ill-gotten financial gain in hidden accounts across the globe. Working 24/7 the corporate crowd is not only doing it level best to destroy the Unions, they now are attacking with gusto our educational system their

goal, to create a new batch of followers who unfortunately are unable to understand what their bosses are doing to their environment it is that simple. Their children, driving around in their $250,000 cars, are learning less than their parents in college and if for some reason they step outside of their parents influence are held in check by an enormous allowance dont play by their rules simple no more car or an open ended VISA card. Our new digital world has all but put an end to the evening discussions around the dinner table, if not this it is the long commute that Dad or Mom has to get between their 9 to- 5 job which now takes up to 2 hours each way in some locations. Gone are the meaningful conversations, which just might include some small town politics are the State of the Union, replaced by a hurried goodbye in the morning and a brief interlude initiated by a tired parent who just fought a 2 hour traffic jam a word or two aimed at their children as they rush out the door with their gang on the corner or at the neighbors to play a new video game or two. All in- all our society is experiencing a slide backwards, the wealth of our Nation has slipped outside of our borders, just as our ability to determine our future our past is being re-written by those who control the press events that should be on the Front Page are now buried on page 13, while the Front Page shouts the news about a policeman or woman arresting a protestor or two marching against this or that some pages showing a scruffy looking individual hold a card up that says simply where are our jobs, being hauled off to jail for disturbing the peace. Have a nice day! James L Bradley