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LIFE IN BUSHISTAN
So I’m watching TV, and there’s one of those filler factoids they put on the air when it’s a slow news day. This one was interesting, though. US consumers spent over $54,000,000 on American flags last year – all made in China.
There it is, our once proud nation’s new history in a nutshell; let’s all cannibalize our own American way of life for the sake of the big corporations and their biggest pals, George W. Bush & Co.
Nowadays, it starts with school and thanks to poor funding, you're working with out-of-date textbooks and religiously correct(ed) information. So you land in college believing there are forty-eight states, positioned on a flat earth created six thousand years ago. And there you are, set to compete in the 'world market' you've heard so much about.
So you work your ass off and get a degree, just so you can land a job with some big multi-national company, where you get to work for six months before they decide to pack up and move to Mexico or India, where someone else is willing to do your job for fifty cents an hour.
Now you’re out of work. But not to worry, you still have those credit cards the banks delivered, unsolicited, to your doorstep, just to ensure that you spend way more than you can afford so you can pay them back at interest rates even the sleazy loan shark on the corner is too honourable to charge.
Of course your first purchase on those credit cards was an SUV, and isn’t that as American as it gets? What better way to clean up the environment and free ourselves from our dependence on foreign oil than offering tax breaks on every purchase of a gas-guzzling, all-terrain pseudo-tank, even though you live in the city and there’s a public transit bus stop right across the street from your apartment?
Anyway, you hop in the SUV and for a cool fifty bucks worth of gas, you can drive twelve blocks to your local Wal-Mart, where you can buy a suit to wear to your next job interview.
Ah, Wal-Mart! The fine people who barge into every town they can find and put the local businesses under -- you know, the smaller shops that sell things made in the good ol' US of A -- just so they can sell an out-of-work dope like you a cheap suit, cheap because it was made in a cozy little sweatshop in China, right down the street from the one that makes the American flags!
The kid behind the counter is thrilled to be a Wal-Mart ‘associate’. If he works hard, he’ll make ‘senior associate’ within twenty-five years, for which he’ll earn, after adjusting for inflation, about two bucks less per hour than he’s making right now. He started working there because he couldn’t afford to go to college and get a degree, so he could get a job which he could then train someone from India or Pakistan to do for fifty cents an hour, and wind up unemployed. So there was really no point in going to college after all, because in the end he would have wound up like you, wandering around the local Wal-Mart – except he’s got a job there and you don’t.
After a few futile months of looking for a job, your unemployment insurance runs out and now you’re getting nervous. But you probably have another credit card or two in the back of the junk drawer, and as long as you still have that SUV, that stereo system, or that vital organ, they’re more than willing to carry you for a few more months before they have to step in and repossess your spleen.
With no job and not much to do, you spend a lot of time watching TV commercials created by pharmaceutical companies who remind you of all of the drugs they sell that are just right for what ails you – even if nothing is actually ailing you at all. “Ask your doctor if unnecessary drugs are right for you!”
The pharmaceutical companies have to sell unnecessary drugs so they can use the profits to research and develop more useless drugs that people like you will buy. No pharmaceutical company worth its questionably-obtained FDA approval is ever going to find a cure for actual diseases like Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s, because that’s a much smaller market than the market you represent, and we’re in this to make money, aren’t we?
After taking a month’s worth of totally unnecessary pills, you’re starting to have one of those ‘adverse reactions’ they put in the small print at the bottom of the TV screen, so you figure you’d better get some professional help. You drag yourself into the SUV and drive over to the local hospital, which is closed, having gone bankrupt six months ago having treated, free-of-charge, the thousands of illegal aliens pouring over the Mexican border looking to take that Wal-Mart kid’s job by offering to work for fifty cents an hour.
You see, the government can’t afford to hire enough border patrol personnel, being short on revenue because so many corporations have moved their operations to Mexico so they don’t have to pay US taxes. And even if the taxes weren’t eating into their multi-billion dollar profits, health care benefits for American workers have made it impossible to operate a profitable company right here at home, because hospitals have to charge ridiculous rates to make up the shortfall caused by giving free medical care to illegal aliens who come here to work for companies that don’t pay them a fair wage, no less medical benefits.
And why should they cut into their bottom line by paying medical benefits to illegals, when they can just pass that expense along to you, the taxpayer? Besides, providing medical coverage to illegals when they’re not willing to provide it to US citizens would be inequitable, wouldn’t it. Hey, the way these companies see it, fair is fair.
So you finally give up on the idea of driving around, because the price of gas has gone up five bucks a gallon since you left home, and you’re running on (albeit expensive) fumes. So you pull up to the pump and as you watch the little numbers roll around on the meter, you remember that when you were a kid, your parents always told you that if you didn’t get a good education and a good job with a big corporation, you’d wind up pumping gas for a living, and here you are doing just that, only you’re not getting paid for it. And neither is anyone else, because the oil companies that own the gas stations don’t want to cut into their exorbitant profits by hiring people to pump gas. Besides, there’s always the security risk -- they might inadvertently wind up hiring some terrorist, like the ones who came here September 11th from the very country the oil companies do all their business with.
The price of gas combined with the crap drugs you have in your system are making you woozy, so you stop at the mall and head for a fast-food place and grab a burger and some Freedom Fries, one of those fine establishments where you can’t smoke, because your ever-vigilant government, the same one that allows corporations to spew tons of toxins into the air and water supply, wants you to enjoy your nutrition-free meal in a smoke-free environment.
So you eat the non-digestible plastic food that comes in the non-degradable plastic package, and you watch the local delinquents strolling from one store to another, spending their parents' cash on electronics, clothes and shoes that sell for twenty times what they're worth because they've got the 'right' name on the label, all made by some poor slob in a country they've never heard even heard of, who works for fifty cents an hour. But you can't be mad at them, because you figure by the time they're your age, they'll be paying 90% of their meagre income in taxes just to service the debt their parents' beloved Bush & Co. have been running up for the past five years, so let them enjoy their Nikes while they can still afford to wear any shoes at all.
You head back to the SUV and as you sit in traffic, you tune your radio to a news station, and you hear about how well things are going in Iraq and Afghanistan, and as you sit there melting in the 134-degree temperature, you thank God that global warming isn't anything to worry about, because George Bush said so, and hey, when was the last time he was wrong about anything, especially something scientifical?
You finally make your way home and as you walk in the door, that annoying little red light is flashing on your telephone, and there’s a sinking feeling in your stomach as you listen to the thirty-two messages left by various and sundry credit card companies, wanting to know where the SUV is parked so they can repossess it, along with your stereo, your TV set – and yes, your spleen.
But then you feel that little glimmer of hope, as you remember the small stock portfolio your grandparents left you when you were a kid. So you call your trusty stock broker who, as luck would have it, is out on bail, and he gives you the bad news that your stocks are worthless because the CEO of the corporation you hold shares in absconded with a major portion of the company’s assets and, just to add insult to injury, stuck the accounting department with the bill for a $6,000 shower curtain.
So you weigh your options and figure the only way out of this mess is to declare bankruptcy, but thanks to your representatives in Washington, the ones you stood on line eight hours to vote for, there’s no chance you’re ever walking away from those credit card debts. And if you think you can just pan-handle and live on the street, you can forget it because the credit card companies are lobbying (but not via Jack Abramoff, who nobody even knows) for a law that will allow them to garnish your tin-cup full of change, and put a lien on the cardboard box you’ll be living in.
But, hey, you’re not completely down-and-out. You’re a new style American with that re-adjusted yankee-doodle entrepreneurial spirit! So you hitchhike to the airport, cash in the air-miles you racked up on all of those credit cards, and armed with just a cheap suit and a scar where your spleen used to be, you land in China where you open a sweatshop that makes "Not Made in America!" labels that are attached to American flags, US military uniforms, and "Happy 4th of July!" banners, hand-printed by workers who dream of someday going to the United States, where they can get a good education, land a job with a big multi-national corporation, and train someone who’s willing to do their job for fifty cents an hour.
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