One of my favorite singer-songwriters is ex-Eagles' Don Henley. His vision of the world is much like mine. Light and dark. One song will be sublimely sweet, the next dark and foreboding.
That's the way the Cosmos works. One minute you're looking at a beautiful sunset, birds singing their evening song, the breeze warm and heavy with jasmine, your best girl sitting on a rocker with you, your bare foot atop hers. The next minute lightning strikes and one of you is toast.
Henley's "Workin' It" is a perfect expression of what's happening to America. We're still the only super-power, but our best days are past. We live in a culture where everything is PR and "packaging." Our infrastructure and morals are crumbling from the inside. But the rich and influential are still "workin' it" for every penny before the well runs dry and it all tumbles down around us.
Politicians "work the system" from both sides, keeping their poor fool voters pointing fingers at one another, spinning in the dark. The Parties endlessly bicker, Democrat and Republican, disguising their anti-John Q Public policies by making you believe the reason they never do anything good for you is "the other Party's fault."
Educators "work" the system, getting paid more to teach less - to indoctrinate our youth into the New Progressive Future, Ritalin-subdued, sexually-released, micro-chip-enhanced fodder for the New World Pervs.
African-American "leaders" work the system by the perpetual guilting of their white brothers and sisters for (what is it up to now... six thousand centuries?) of slavery and repression. Yeah, Jesse and Al and Harry know how to work the system all right.
Unions work the system, knowing exactly what they can get away with, how much they can steal, how little they have to do to get by until they bankrupt the best of America's corporations. And yet corporate management laughs because it's a fine excuse to dump the unions, workers and all, and move to another country where they can begin anew the exploitation of resourceless workers, leaving another legion of America's fools wondering "Why me?" That's workin' it!
The wonderful world of entertainment works the system by suckling its nepotistic self, paying the same tired un-creative hacks over-and-over, pumping out the same endless stream of shit, counting on eight-year-old mentality to keep them afloat. Films, music, tv, games; it's all the same. They're workin' it.
The stock market and other investment schemes work the system by telling you how hot the investment is, artificially pumping it up until you buy it and push the price up to a ceiling that eventually collapses. Up or down, buy or sell, your broker always wins. But when you're out of dime, your broker doesn't take your calls, leaving you twisting in the wind. A couple of years later, the brokers start all over again with another generation of dumb-asses who don't know any better.
The pharmaceutical industry works the system by "inventing" new health problems to terrify you so you run to your doctor to get the drug company's new-and-more-expensive-prescription for whatever it is. The doctor gets rewarded by the drug company, your health coverage costs rise, and you pay more taxes to pay for it all. Feeling better?
Illegal immigrants work the system as good as anyone. Sneak into the country, have a baby that's automatically a citizen and entitled to stuff the rest of us pay for. Then they go to a sports event and spit on Ol' Glory and cheer for Mexico. These folks want to reclaim America by populating it, and we liberal dumbbells are there to grease the skids for them.
Third World nations and their network of United Nations' international organizations work the system to the tune of tens of billions of dollars yearly, much of which disappears into the black hole of Africa and other continents populated by despots and their barbaric followers who are unable to figure out which end of the Coke bottle opens.
Perhaps the most egregious perpetrator working the system is the legal "profession." Lawyers and judges employ lobbyists to pressure Congress to pass new laws which the lawyers then "work" to bring litigation against unwitting parties who fall afoul of laws they didn't even know existed. "Ignorance of the law is no defense.". The number of statutes now on the books is googleplex. Do you know them all? Of course not. So your ignorance makes you fodder for these outlawyers. Most of these suits are settled out of court for substantial sums which accrue to... guess who.
The list of those "workin' it" goes on and on and on. Maybe you see people all around you workin' it? Which is why the system has become so stretched it can't endure for very much longer.
Those who are working the system will keep on doing it and doing it and doing it and doing it to you until you are six feet under. And then the court system will rape your dead body to get any pocket change you left on the kitchen table before you croaked.
When I was 16, I worked as an usher in a small-town movie theater. I was a diligent employee. After six months, the manager called me in and, unemotionally, fired me. When I asked why, he said "Don't take it personal... I fire everybody after six months." Baffled, I asked why on earth would he do that? His answer was wise and I never forgot it. He said after about six months every employee, no matter how diligent, learns to "work the system" ...figures out how to take extra coffee breaks, get free candy and popcorn, sit in the back row necking with some teenage girl, watch the movies instead of the patrons, and so on. He said he couldn't afford to let that happen and run a good movie house.
The old fellow was right. Especially when it comes to our politicians, the same hacks we hear from year after year after year. It's time to dump everyone who's been around long enough to figure out how to work the system. It's time for another Revolution, my friends.
