by Jack Lee
I’m walking in the park on Saturday afternoon, it was beautiful day even though it was cloudy and threatening to rain. I observed a lady pushing a stroller with a little boy in it. They were walking along on the park path and there was a couple of teenagers walking their pit bull. I’m not sure exactly what happened next, but I believe it started when the pit bull got dangerous close to the baby and the mom said something.
Anyway, it appeared to me this started a verbal exchange between the teenage girl and the mom, and it was mostly on the side of the teen.
The teen went totally berzerk, I mean totally out of control! She was screaming at the top of her lungs, “F – – – you!” And she was calling the woman every name you could think of and probably a few new ones! She held nothing back trust me – like I said she was really out of control. When her teen companion ( a tall boy in a baseball cap) tried to move her along, she turned on him too and started screaming, “F – – – you and don’t touch me!” She seemed to really like the F word so much she could not say 3 words without inserting it.
This girl with the pit bull then pranced across the street at the Valombrosa round-a-about, stopping cars, as she turned to scream once again at the woman. I heard her challenge this lady to fight and said she wasn’t afraid of her and to bring it on! This was intermixed with F – – – this and F – – – that…yeah, she was a real class act.
I can’t imagine what kind of parents she has, if any. Of course I felt sorry for the woman with the baby, but since the abusive teen was leaving the area with her boyfriend coaxing her along there didn’t seem like much anyone could do, so the drama just fizzled out. But, the peace and serenity of my afternoon walk was definitely shattered.
Okay, now that was Saturday and today (Sunday) I’m standing at the ATM making a deposit and I notice this skinny young lady in her early 20’s walk up to the Bank of America front doors. She shook them and I wondered why, but not for long. She yelled out, “F – – K! (that got every ones attention) Then she screamed so she could be heard clear across the parking lot,, “Why is this God D – – – bank closed on a Sunday? (Hmmmm…were they ever open on a Sunday? I don’t recall.) She muttered something else as she stormed off to meet up with her girlfriend in a nearby car.
Both of these mouthy females looked pretty rough like you might expect, but it still stuns me that young females could behave this way with no concern for their image. They had not a wit of self respect or concern for others.
In the past month I bet I’ve noticed at least a half dozen cases of road rage, several middle finger salutes and two other angry outbursts. That’s why I say, whats happened to civility?
There’s getting to be way too many nasty, hotheaded people in this world and it concerns me and I wonder why? We should be getting better with every passing generation, but it sure doesn’t look like it to me. So, do you think it’s just me and I’m showing my old age or are their really more scummy people out here than ever before?
Here’s an idea for a little social experiment, lets take note of every mean, nasty and angry event you witness this week and then report back here. (Writing in about our articles in PS doesn’t count! lol) Let’s see what the average person encounters in the course of one week.
Those two sound like tweakerz.
As for the general incivility facing society, Michael Moore offers this theory . . .
America is not broke.
Contrary to what those in power would like you to believe so that you’ll give up your pension, cut your wages, and settle for the life your great-grandparents had, America is not broke. Not by a long shot. The country is awash in wealth and cash. It’s just that it’s not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the uber-rich.
Today just 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined.
Let me say that again. 400 obscenely rich people, most of whom benefited in some way from the multi-trillion dollar taxpayer “bailout” of 2008, now have more loot, stock and property than the assets of 155 million Americans combined. If you can’t bring yourself to call that a financial coup d’tat, then you are simply not being honest about what you know in your heart to be true.
And I can see why. For us to admit that we have let a small group of men abscond with and hoard the bulk of the wealth that runs our economy, would mean that we’d have to accept the humiliating acknowledgment that we have indeed surrendered our precious Democracy to the moneyed elite. Wall Street, the banks and the Fortune 500 now run this Republic — and, until this past month, the rest of us have felt completely helpless, unable to find a way to do anything about it.
I have nothing more than a high school degree. But back when I was in school, every student had to take one semester of economics in order to graduate. And here’s what I learned: Money doesn’t grow on trees. It grows when we make things. It grows when we have good jobs with good wages that we use to buy the things we need and thus create more jobs. It grows when we provide an outstanding educational system that then grows a new generation of inventers, entrepreneurs, artists, scientists and thinkers who come up with the next great idea for the planet. And that new idea creates new jobs and that creates revenue for the state. But if those who have the most money don’t pay their fair share of taxes, the state can’t function. The schools can’t produce the best and the brightest who will go on to create those jobs. If the wealthy get to keep most of their money, we have seen what they will do with it: recklessly gamble it on crazy Wall Street schemes and crash our economy. The crash they created cost us millions of jobs. That too caused a reduction in revenue. And the population ended up suffering because they reduced their taxes, reduced our jobs and took wealth out of the system, removing it from circulation.
The nation is not broke, my friends. Wisconsin is not broke. It’s part of the Big Lie. It’s one of the three biggest lies of the decade: America/Wisconsin is broke, Iraq has WMD, the Packers can’t win the Super Bowl without Brett Favre.
The truth is, there’s lots of money to go around. LOTS. It’s just that those in charge have diverted that wealth into a deep well that sits on their well-guarded estates. They know they have committed crimes to make this happen and they know that someday you may want to see some of that money that used to be yours. So they have bought and paid for hundreds of politicians across the country to do their bidding for them. But just in case that doesn’t work, they’ve got their gated communities, and the luxury jet is always fully fueled, the engines running, waiting for that day they hope never comes. To help prevent that day when the people demand their country back, the wealthy have done two very smart things:
1. They control the message. By owning most of the media they have expertly convinced many Americans of few means to buy their version of the American Dream and to vote for their politicians. Their version of the Dream says that you, too, might be rich some day this is America, where anything can happen if you just apply yourself! They have conveniently provided you with believable examples to show you how a poor boy can become a rich man, how the child of a single mother in Hawaii can become president, how a guy with a high school education can become a successful filmmaker. They will play these stories for you over and over again all day long so that the last thing you will want to do is upset the apple cart — because you — yes, you, too! — might be rich/president/an Oscar-winner some day! The message is clear: keep your head down, your nose to the grindstone, don’t rock the boat and be sure to vote for the party that protects the rich man that you might be some day.
2. They have created a poison pill that they know you will never want to take. It is their version of mutually assured destruction. And when they threatened to release this weapon of mass economic annihilation in September of 2008, we blinked. As the economy and the stock market went into a tailspin, and the banks were caught conducting a worldwide Ponzi scheme, Wall Street issued this threat: Either hand over trillions of dollars from the American taxpayers or we will crash this economy straight into the ground. Fork it over or it’s Goodbye savings accounts. Goodbye pensions. Goodbye United States Treasury. Goodbye jobs and homes and future. It was friggin’ awesome and it scared the shit out of everyone. “Here! Take our money! We don’t care. We’ll even print more for you! Just take it! But, please, leave our lives alone, PLEASE!”
The executives in the board rooms and hedge funds could not contain their laughter, their glee, and within three months they were writing each other huge bonus checks and marveling at how perfectly they had played a nation full of suckers. Millions lost their jobs anyway, and millions lost their homes. But there was no revolt (see #1).
Until now. On Wisconsin! Never has a Michigander been more happy to share a big, great lake with you! You have aroused the sleeping giant known as the working people of the United States of America. Right now the earth is shaking and the ground is shifting under the feet of those who are in charge. Your message has inspired people in all 50 states and that message is: WE HAVE HAD IT! We reject anyone tells us America is broke and broken. It’s just the opposite! We are rich with talent and ideas and hard work and, yes, love. Love and compassion toward those who have, through no fault of their own, ended up as the least among us. But they still crave what we all crave: Our country back! Our democracy back! Our good name back! The United States of America. NOT the Corporate States of America. The United States of America!
So how do we get this? Well, we do it with a little bit of Egypt here, a little bit of Madison there. And let us pause for a moment and remember that it was a poor man with a fruit stand in Tunisia who gave his life so that the world might focus its attention on how a government run by billionaires for billionaires is an affront to freedom and morality and humanity.
Thank you, Wisconsin. You have made people realize this was our last best chance to grab the final thread of what was left of who we are as Americans. For three weeks you have stood in the cold, slept on the floor, skipped out of town to Illinois — whatever it took, you have done it, and one thing is for certain: Madison is only the beginning. The smug rich have overplayed their hand. They couldn’t have just been content with the money they raided from the treasury. They couldn’t be satiated by simply removing millions of jobs and shipping them overseas to exploit the poor elsewhere. No, they had to have more something more than all the riches in the world. They had to have our soul. They had to strip us of our dignity. They had to shut us up and shut us down so that we could not even sit at a table with them and bargain about simple things like classroom size or bulletproof vests for everyone on the police force or letting a pilot just get a few extra hours sleep so he or she can do their job — their $19,000 a year job. That’s how much some rookie pilots on commuter airlines make, maybe even the rookie pilots flying people here to Madison. But he’s stopped trying to get better pay. All he asks is that he doesn’t have to sleep in his car between shifts at O’Hare airport. That’s how despicably low we have sunk. The wealthy couldn’t be content with just paying this man $19,000 a year. They wanted to take away his sleep. They wanted to demean and dehumanize him. After all, he’s just another slob.
And that, my friends, is Corporate America’s fatal mistake. But trying to destroy us they have given birth to a movement — a movement that is becoming a massive, nonviolent revolt across the country. We all knew there had to be a breaking point some day, and that point is upon us. Many people in the media don’t understand this. They say they were caught off guard about Egypt, never saw it coming. Now they act surprised and flummoxed about why so many hundreds of thousands have come to Madison over the last three weeks during brutal winter weather. “Why are they all standing out there in the cold? I mean there was that election in November and that was supposed to be that!
“There’s something happening here, and you don’t know what it is, do you…?”
America ain’t broke! The only thing that’s broke is the moral compass of the rulers. And we aim to fix that compass and steer the ship ourselves from now on. Never forget, as long as that Constitution of ours still stands, it’s one person, one vote, and it’s the thing the rich hate most about America — because even though they seem to hold all the money and all the cards, they begrudgingly know this one unshakeable basic fact: There are more of us than there are of them!
It stands to reason, that as more people’s livlihoods succumb while at the same time, they are learning the TRUTH for it, there will be even more incivility.
Moore opines that these folks will leave the US. But, where else might they go?
I honest-to-God feel sorry for the guys, AND the fools who carry their water. They are openly mocked now, but as people get angrier, they put themselves at risk with their big mouths.
Do you honestly think a Union cop is going to risk his/her life when the mobs start to storm FOX News to tar and feather Glenn Beck? Why do you think Rush is esconced in a bunker? He’s deathly afraid of being tied to a pole, and given his final cigarette.
It’s going to happen–sure as history repeats itself. It gets ugly when the serfs throw off the tyrants, but as Jefferson told us: This is a good thing.
Unless you’re a tyrant!
Michael Moore is a piston in the Hollywood fiction machine. He has armed himself with just enough information to lend him credibility to thiose who know very little. The information left out of this little drama is key to understanding what has really happened in America, what is ongoing, and what is needed to move forward with a positive result.
Quentin…I thought you had a lot more going for you. You really think this moron knows what he’s talking about?
I wish I had time to rebut Moore point by point. Sadly, I do not and the soonest I might be able to is days away unless something changes.
Jack, I thought you said you used to be a cop. You don’t know drug-addled behavior when you see it? or hear it?
The deranged ladies were tweaked … or more likely, no longer tweaked, and therefore deranged.
What you want to ask yourself is why the ladies were not having a relaxing Saturday afternoon, after a week of diligent and productive study and/or work?
Quentin’s trying to tell you a couple of reasons why that is … but you just won’t hear it.
Yep I was Libs, but not just a cop, I was a detective and narcotics officer, among the various titles I once held. But, here’s the kicker, it getting harder to tell when I’m looking at a tweeker on crank or coming off it or just a nasty, selfish, mean and all around scummy human. (that’s kinda disturbing when you can’t tell the difference)
I spent my afternoon at the shooting range today practicing how to be civil. There was a lot of smiling, happy faces there. The people were all courteous and friendly. It was an appreciation for firearms that connected us and perhaps made us also appreciate our freedom and the opportunity to be there enjoying the day. I’ve never met a shooter I didn’t like.
PS Libs, I was shooting pistols at a small 12 inch target at 50 yards…never missed, not even once. Yep, it was a good day with my pals like Sam Colt, Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson, etc.
You should try it Libby, its very therapeutic.