I am reminded of this joke... or is it?

Q: Whats the difference between ignorance and apathy?

A: I don't know and I don't care.

As I write this silly little blog, that gains some readers,I recently received a comment from a writer, poet, artist, who has his own blog. In that comment he made a wonderful observation. "helping someone, a stranger smiling at me" I want to first say, thank you for reading, and commenting. 

You sir, are correct. I would also add this to your comment. "helping a stranger".  That does at times appear to be lost in this fast moving day and age. I would like to share an example, this is just a microcosm of the problems that I have see in society at large.

I was going into my regular convenience store last week. Just popping in to pick up some 1/2 & 1/2.  I usually park at the gas pumps, if you  park in the "parking spots" backing up is a pain in the ass. As I got out of my car, there was this older woman, about 70'ish,  I would guess, standing in the front of her car, trying to fiddle with something.   I glanced over, she looked up and she asked me if I knew how to open the hood of her car? I told her that the latch was probably inside the car, and she walked over, opened the door. I showed her the latch, pulled it, and it made that "thunk" noise that we all know.

She then asked If I knew what kind of oil went in the car. I told her that it was usually written on the oil cap. She looked absolutely helpless. I was reminded of my grandmother and her knowledge of automobiles.

 Anyway, I asked the woman if she wanted me to check for her, she nodded yes. Indeed, the cap said "5W-30". She said that her oil light had come on, and she wondered if she needed oil. I went in my car, got a napkin, and checked her oil. She was down, almost to nothing. I suggested she follow me into the store. The clerk "John" said hello(I am a regular) , and I walked to the back of the store and picked up a couple quarts of oil, plus my 1/2&1/2, while the woman stood at the counter.  She paid for the oil, I asked her if she wanted some help putting the oil in, she gave me this smile, and nodded yes. I walked out, poured the oil into her car, checked the dipstick, and she was fine. I told her, that usually there is a leak, if the oil light comes on, all of a sudden.  She then said something that blew my mind, but in retrospect did not. 

She told me " what a nice young man you are, I asked about 10 people for help, and you are the first to help me, thank you so much" I was shocked. The fact that 10 people either did not have the time, or the inclination to help a stranger, it just made me shake my head in disbelief.  Is this where we are as a society? Is this what we have become? Very sad, very sad indeed.

This was confirmed to me a day later, I went into the same store, and John told me what a nice thing I did for that lady last night.  He could not go out to help, he was the only clerk on duty, but yes, she had asked many other people for help, and I was the only one to aid her.

It made me think about things in the bigger picture. I dare you to walk into any store or mall, and look around. I will bet the ranch that you will see most of the "younger" people all with their heads down, hands up, twiddling their fingers on their phones, totally unaware of what is going on around them. It appears that we are so self absorbed in our own little spheres, that we rarely look around at others. Am I wrong? 

Is it only in times of crisis that we help strangers?  

When I was a kid, our family moved, and our new next door neighbors were these two older women, both were in their 70's. When we were moved in, my dad told me and my brother, "you will cut their lawn, you will trim the hedges, and shovel their snow, you will not ask for money" it was the right thing to do. It was all about "duty".  From that point on, whenever we finished those chores, one of the women would call us into the house, and tell us take a couple of dollars, with the caveat " do not tell your father".  It was our little secret. We never took the money. But we would take a cold soda in the summer, or a hot cup of cocoa in the winter, and they would tell us stories out their lives. I wish I could get those simple times back.

If everyone would look around, help someone out, see if that "stranger" is in trouble, what a difference we could make, one small step at a time.

Billionaire's Over Breakfast!!!

Want to become a Billionaire? Create a cereal!!!
I always knew there was money in breakfast, but holy moly, this Documentary will blow you away!!!

Part 2 of Ongoing Conversation-What Can We Do?

As I wallow again, with too many cups of coffee, Here is the present situation. The middle class is rapidly disappearing.  The worst part about that is, it is going the way of poverty. That's a fact, not speculation. I am wondering about what we can do?  My last post dealt with what is wrong? 
This post is about "what can we do?" and "what we can do?" Those are two similar yet very different questions.

They are very complex questions on many levels. I will try to tackle them the best I can.
The vast distribution of wealth in the US is quite shocking, take a peak at the video here.

What can we do?  to stop the ever growing surge of corporatism? For those of you who are not aware of this term, here is the definition:
Corporatism: the control of a state or organization by large interest groups.
Anyone with a bit of common sense is well aware of just how much "big money" influences our elected officials. I will start here with the enormous amount of cash from mega corporations that flow to Washington DC. 

You and I cannot even fathom the corruption and corporatism that is so rampant and pervasive, and built into the "system.  I cannot say with enough authority that this is where we have to start to effect change, but it would definitely be on the top 10 list. This is a complex issue, but in order to change it at all, the corporations must not be allowed to bribe  donate money to our congress. It would literally take an act of congress, and since they are bought and paid for my these corporations, that will not happen. What a twisted web of deceit and deception.

That being said, our congressmen when they are not stuffing their pockets with cash, sometimes do listen to the people.  I have the website to the Senate and Congress as well as the White House, as default home pages on my browser.  I try to write them every day, in the short term, it makes me feel better, in the long term, like anything else, there will be many letters from me, and their sycophants must delete them all. I do think it is very important to remember the first amendment.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The above mentioned amendment seems to have been lost on the people here.  There could be many factors, but what I see the mos,t is apathy. That is EXACTLY what the government wants.  I can recall a couple years ago, when the "Arab spring" was happening half way around the world. The President went on television and was congratulating the Arabs for exercising their right to free speech and protest. At the same time our president and the corporations that pull his strings were shutting down the "Occupy" movement HERE! What a fucking hypocrite. He encourages free speech everywhere but here.  There is a new term is the American lexicon ever since 9/11. I find this as hard to believe as you do but "free speech zones" are real, and a very scary precedent. Again, I refer to the first amendment, CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW.  That is that. They are illegal. 

What can we do?

THIS IS HOW IT SHOULD BE.

When the people fear the government there is tyranny, when the government fears the people there is liberty.-Thomas Jefferson.

To me, that is the central question. How do we get the government to fear us? 

I believe in my heart that there is going to be an event, a situation, something is going to happen, that is going to be the "no turning back" moment for the people.  I wish I had a crystal ball to predict that moment, but my worst fear is that people are going to die, for that to happen. I do know that there is one thing, one event that can bring down the whole house of cards. 

If there was any real investigation of Building 7, that could be the proverbial card that starts the house tumbling until what is left is, in shambles. How do we accomplish that? WE MUST PUT PRESSURE ON THE GOVERNMENT, OUR CONGRESS, OUR SENATE, AND BE RELENTLESS.  Being relentless is the problem.  Our leaders and corporations, they think of the long game, they think about things in blocks of decades. We the people must live our lives, and worry about paying the mortgage, rent, going to work, taking care of our kids, paying bill, yada, yada, it is VERY DIFFICULT TO SUSTAIN THE RELENTLESS PRESSURE. 

This Building 7 is the key, if we took to the streets, if we put relentless pressure on all elected officials, and by pressure, I mean, bombard them with every thing, mail, email, mass protests, television documentaries, banners everywhere, mainstream media, and kept this pressure on, then something would happen. I believe that in my heart.  This is not the ONLY thing that the government fears, this would be a pressure point that would get quick attention. They cannot explain how a 47 story skyscraper fell at free fall speed.  Its that simple. This is the key. I would suggest a great place to start would be going to the Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth website and take a look at the information there.

I am a parent, and I am very fearful of the country that I am going to leave to my kids.  We always hear the words, I want my kids to have it better than I did. Do you honestly think that is true nowadays? The statement might be true, but the reality is a whole different issue.

What we can do?

What can we do? Stop paying attention to media distractions.  Where to begin on this one? hmmmm... Lets start with the complicity of the media to keep us not only distracted but apathetic as well.  Everyone needs some entertainment, but the media has quite successfully figured out how to distract us from what is truly important.  Our fascination with the Kardashians, and Honey Boo Boo and people of that ill, it to me quite frankly, fucking embarrassing. I couple of years ago Jesse Ventura was on with Geraldo Rivera. I had heard that when Jesse showed a clip of WTC 7 collapsing in its own footprint, it was the first time that had been on television since 9/11. Now whether that was exactly accurate, I am not sure, but I can tell you I had not seen it on television, and I do pay attention.

From where I sit it certainly does appear that corporations and the elites of the US have the upper hand, that has how its been since the start, and I personally see no end in sight.  The best "we", and I say we, because I am in the lower middle class, and I would gather that my readership, and I do thank you for reading, is in the same boat I am.  I do wonder if there are any elites who read my little rants, if you do, I would be curious to hear your point of view.

 What can we do?

 Find out which corporations are paying the most money to your congressman and make a concerted effort not to put any money in their pockets. The answer is much easier than the actual implementation of that strategy. But, you can do it. Believe it or not, boycotts do work. The reason they fail though, is that the people do not have the determination to follow through with a boycott, I have a few things that I do to make a difference. Its not much, but my conscience is clear. I do not put one penny in the pockets of Exxon/Mobile. Exxon is waiting for people to die in Alaska so they can pay a few dollars less on the Exxon Valdez tanker spill back in 1989.  There is a class action lawsuit that they lost to the citizens in Alaska, they still have not paid for the damage they did. 


They have fought at every turn to not pay anything to the citizens that were harmed or killed by this spill.  As a matter of fact they have fought at every turn to pay for their crimes. This is so sickening to me, but what makes me upset is that no one cares.  If only 10% of the people woke up and stopped using Exxon, believe me, they would take notice.  But, they can afford to hire big public relation firms, advertising agencies to make you believe they are the most virtuous companies on the planet.  


In July of 2010, the Deep Water Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico decimated the southern coast.  The long term exposure of the spill as well as the Corexit they used to "clean" it up will be felt for the foreseeable future. They were negligent on the rig, on the clean up, and the cover-up of the spill and clean-up. How is that for a tongue twister.  I dare you to watch the "The Big Fix" documentary and go to BP for a fill up. My brother and I have talked quite a bit about with these purely evil corporations, you have to basically pick the lesser of the evils.  Is there a bright shining beacon of hope? I do not know?  But at least I do know about the true evil of those two.

Is there a company or product that you boycott for whatever reason? I would like to hear your comments.

So to wrap up this part of the conversation, yes, there are things we can do. I have found two reporters that appear to me to not have been co-opted. Jeremy Scahill, and John Pilger.. I am sure there are others, if there are, I sure would like to hear about them.  I am going to leave those two gentlemen for the third part of my conversation, coming soon.

I do have a question for you, dear reader. If you could wave a magic wand and make things better, what would you do?

Part One- What is wrong?

As Gitmo Gils sits at his desk (yes, he is in the "third person" phase again) He wallows and contemplates what is wrong, what can we do, is there any hope?

In this ongoing conversation, this is Part One. 

What is wrong?

Alas, where to begin? 
Lets start at the quasi local level. I am employed in a field of work that does not pay a lot. I am a caregiver, I am a friend, I am a voice for those unfortunate to not have one. But more importantly, I am a protector, I keep 3 people very safe, very secure and do my best to give them the best that this life can offer. What I do is not most financially rewarding job, nor is it the worst. I have been doing this for over 25 years, and as of the last two performance reviews, I am very, very, good at it.  I can honestly say that the days that I have left work with that "great day" feeling have been the ones where one of my guys, has accomplished something new.  Whether that is figuring out how to call his parents, or building some absolutely amazing structures out of Leggo's , or making a bed my himself, the feeling of a job well done has nothing to do with the amount of money on my paycheck.  


Sadly, that "great day" feeling does not pay the bills, or put gas in the car.  I have thought long and hard about changing my field of work. I did for a few years. I worked for a nursing agency as their computer guy. I loved teaching. One of my responsibilities was training nurses, Physical Therapists, and Occupational Therapists how to use a computer, and the medical software on that PC.  I was so good at my job, I was eliminated when the budget was tightened, and they did not need my services anymore. I knew then end was coming when the phone listing came out, and my name was noticeably absent.  The IT director to her credit, pushed for the agency to keep me in their fold, but in today's world bean counters win.

Now we go back to the fall of 2008, when the "Masters of the Universe" on Wall Street and all their crony banksters were going to lose everything. What happened? The let us slaves pay for it all. Did we get a vote? nope. What was the line that EVERY COMPROMISED MAINSTREAM OUTLET REPORTED?  " Too Big To Fail" that lie was told over and over until many believed it was the truth. If you do not believe me, watch this movie, The Academy Award winning Documentary "Inside Job"

They bailed out each other, gave each other bonuses for screwing all of us, it was sickening, and if you don't think that this country is heading in that direction again, take your blinders off. Out of that major screwing we took, there cam the "Occupy" movement. That grew so much, and became a force to reckon with. So much so that the banksters wanted to hire the FBI to have snipers kill the leaders of the Occupy movement.

Maybe you see where I am heading in this mild prose about my employment history.  There is no money.  There is a gigantic hole somewhere, where if you listen to some, over $60,000,000,000,000 has vanished from the world.  There is a giant sucking sound, and all those greenbacks are flowing there. Trying to figure out "where" that is, well, that is the $60 Trillion dollar question.

Many, including myself would like out leaders in government to be more accountable for their actions, and for how they are spending our money.  When ever a Congressman or Senator questions the Federal Reserve, and demands an audit, they are quickly hushed up and pushed aside. Just ask Ron Paul.

I have always made the analogy to friends that the United States intervention in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the money spent there is almost akin to my friends giving me 28% of their paycheck from here on.  They can do it for a while, but after some time, it is going to affect them in every aspect of their life. The little things in life are going to become more of an expense, and so on.  Folks, that is whats happening to our country. We are being bled dry by a national security state, that is quite frankly, out of fucking control.  We as a people have no concept of the vast amounts of money being spent on our "security".  

As I look at my sub headline on this blog, "Those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither", it makes me come to the realization that it has never been more true than what is going on around us these days. We as a people have made the decision that liberty is gone, and a police state is in full force.  The NSA and who the hell know who else, is spying on us, every second of the day. We have various government agencies who are basically at war with each other to get a bigger piece of the pie, and there is no end in sight.  

 If you can't figure out by now that we have been bamboozled and most of all distracted from what is of real importance, then I really do pity you.  You do the math. 30 Million kids in this country go to sleep hungry every night. Go into every store in this country and look where the products are made. 101 Million people rely on food stamps of one sort or another every month.  The actual unemployment number is 23%, not that 8% that is reported by the govt.

But the most telling thing that you cannot ignore is right in front of your face at the grocery store.  Have you noticed how much smaller the containers are for all goods?  That 1/2 gallon of Beyer's ice cream is now 46 oz. This is done by the food companies to try to keep inflation from being noticed by distracted citizenry.  I myself happen to be a Ritz Cracker freak. One year ago a regular box of Ritz was 16 oz. The box I have in my pantry right now, is 13.7 oz, and it costs more, than the 16 oz. box from a year ago.

We have a compromised media that sucks at the teat of big government and will not report on anything of importance.  They will offer up a few sacrificial lambs from time to time, but anything that we NEED to know, that is covered over and evidence destroyed.  When more people care about who wins American Idol than they do about warrant less wiretaps, police corruption, government graft, illegal spying on citizens, then we have truly lost. Lost our way, lost our money, lost our souls, lost our liberty.

The last time I could remember one person actually making a difference for the good was Dr. Martin Luther King. And we do know what happened to him. Like James Earl Ray, and Lee Harvey Oswald, if you think that these men acted alone, well, you are an idiot. J Edgar Hoover had been secretly spying on King, for many years. Of course that only came out after any "real" investigation. 

The forces of evil are so intertwined with the government, and big corporations, that it is going to take an exorcism to eradicate and destroy them. There are so many people in office who only want to get the biggest paycheck, the most power possible.  This is not some conspiratorial rant, this is fact.  In future posts, I will do my best to expose the true evil that I see.  

One of my starting home pages is the contact page for the White House.  I write a letter to the President every day.  Some are good letters, those are rare. Most are critical of what I see, but more importantly what I feel when I am out and about. If everyone who feels this way felt compelled to write their congressman, their senator, or the President everyday, we could make a difference. These elites in power do listen, when they are bombarded with letters from constituents.

 There is not the optimism that I felt in the 90's during the Clinton years.  I feel this general morose, this feeling of apathy, and despair.  This is not some imaginative creation that I made up, I am not that good. That's how it is. 

In the small city where I live, I see more and more homeless people on the street.  My heart goes out to them.  I was coming out of a store on Thursday, and there was a man with a small child standing outside with a sign. He had no job, no home.  The look on the little boys face was of pure desperation and grief about their situation.  I put what I could in the cup the boy was holding, he gave me a nod of thanks. What happened next absolutely shook me to the core.  The man I work for is autistic and mentally retarded.  He asked me if he could put money in the cup to " help that boy" and "could they come live with us?"  I gave RT another bill to give the boy. He put the money in the cup and we walked to my car. I was sitting next to a man who was born with his disability, and he cares about those who are more fortunate in one sense, and less fortunate in another. The other "normal" people who just walked by them, doing their best to ignore and pretend they were not there, I pity them.

  We sat there and watched as many, many more people walked past that man and boy without giving them a thought. Without even a glance in their direction. Those that did look at them, quickly looked away. 

 How much different this country could be if more people cared about those less fortunate than themselves.

Just imagine a world where the 1% actually cared about the country and wanted to see the other 99% of the people prosper as well as they did.  I know, there I go, dreaming again.

These are just observations by me. I do research, probably not as much as I should, but I look into things, and they are scary. There is injustice everywhere, and that is how they like it. Divide and conquer is a concept that the government and media have been using quite successfully for a while.  They keep us distracted on matters that in the end, will never be solved, just to keep us looking away from things that truly do matter. 

There are many things I see happening now around the country, that when I was a kid my dad would say "that only happens in Russia".  I see videos of brutal police tactics on innocent citizens. I see martial law enacted for tracking down one person. I see people exercising their right to free speech being arrested for that free speech. I see people asking questions to power, silenced and arrested, for asking a question.

There are times that I wonder what gets me more frustrated. The fact that people just don't care, or they don't want to care. I see it every day, their heads are buried in the sand, and soooo easily distracted.  But the sheer amount of apathy is very disconcerting.  There are so many documentaries on YouTube, that if they were shown on "network" television,  it would wake up enough people to maybe make a difference. 

  I was at meeting with a friend last night, and she is a owner and operator of a business that provides care to people with TBI ( Traumatic Brain Injury).  There is a movement afoot to cut the funding to those families in need of care by 40% by the state politicians. This problem flows upwards, when the local government has no money, that is a problem that flows up to the state level of governing. When the state level of government has no money, that flows up to the national level of government.

  This might be a basic way of trying to explain a very complex situation, but I will give it a shot.  According to "the cost of war"   Since 2001 we have spent $4,000,000,000,000 to kill brown people for oil.  If we took that money and invested in teachers, schools, infrastructure, construction, manufacturing, in this country, I can almost guarantee that we would be better off. Can you imagine how much better of each state would be with an extra $6.6 BILLION dollars flowing in every year?  Think about that one for a second. President Eisenhower warned us many years ago about the military industrial complex, and what would happen when they were out of control. It has happened.

If you have any questions or comments, I would like to read them. 





Gitmo Gil.

Part 2 - Coming soon- What can we do? or, What we can do?