POVERTY LOTTERY

POV LOT NATIONAL POWERBALL
November, 2024

WINNERS CHOICE!
(This month only)

$50, 000 CASH
or
POTUS BONUS
(Note: President Of The United States BONUS requirements:
35 years or older, native born citizen, 14 years residency
required. Sorry folks, it's the law.)

In Support of War

Or How the Anti-war Community Came to Love War

The earnest but essentially futile effort by the anti-war community over decades, even centuries, suggest a new approach is in order. Nothing is working. By using spoil-sport methods and banding about the dread Peace word, the message has fallen on deaf ears. What has been consistently overlooked is the propensity for young men and, alas, a few misguided young women, to be so convinced of personal immortality they cannot hear anything to the contrary. This elementary fact of life has enabled every army in history to exist.

To accomplish our purpose we must begin to glorify war; the uniforms, the comradery and feats of daring-do. We must speak constantly of the nobility of armed effort in behalf of ones country and family, ones friends and loved ones; we all know the language. But this talk must not come from the usual suspects. It must be noised about enthusiastically, nay zealously, by the anti-war community.

This 180 turn will not go unnoticed by the old guard supporters of the status quo.
Resentment will quickly follow astonishment as a rush to defend turf is sure to ensue. After all, who are the true believers here, and what are these usurpers up to anyway? When the cacophony builds and the jingoism crescendo reaches critical mass, and it will, the time will be ripe for the next step which is...

Compromise! Yes! That's the key. The anti-war folks agree to go back to the old stance if...
the establishment agrees to one small change in the Military Code. If they do this one thing, both sides return to the old position. Not such a big change, really, simply tweeking a number, that's all. Will they agree?

Do this and we have detente. Change the minimum age for entry into any of the armed services to thirty-five...and reinstate the draft! That's all. Then loose the dogs-of- war to your hearts content and the movement will shut up. That we promise, (our mission will be accomplished).

Ten...Nine...Eight....

Well, we screwed up this time...big time. We had a century or more to get it right or it least to give it our best shot. But the time has passed, all those precious years wasted and we didn't even really try toward the end.

A flashback. 1950. Stalwart explorers had been breaking new trails for decades . Starting with Freud, Adler and especially the Swiss wizard from Thurgau Canton, Carl Gustav Jung. They were getting closer all the time. Closer to a description of mankind free from pious dungeon and secular waffling that just might lead to something real. Like maybe a clear picture of what constitutes a human being after millennial layers of obfuscation and exploitation are removed.

Alas, it was not to be. Close but no cigar. A powerful new distraction had been released affecting the brave world of human psychology. What was heard abroad was the sound of hot potatoes dropping as the media rushed to their new darling. The old guys and their big complicated ideas were abandoned never again to occupy even page six.

Miltown, that wonderful happy compound, had been invented in New Jersey. Hallelujah! It would prove to be second only to the discovery of fire in the minds and hearts of millions. Especially to the second tier mind mechanics who had visions of tranking the folks into a modern nirvana.
No more heavy tomes and endless talk. No more professional disdain for those low earning docs who merely sit and listen. Now we can bottle it! Lots and lots of beautiful pills in those charming bottles with the glorious M.D. imprint. Scripus Reignus, hooray. Stop listening and start writing scrip. And as a bonus, stop thinking too. You've done quite enough of that!

With Miltown the folks began to cheer even more loudly for man the consumer. U da' man! My material man! All hail! How happy he is now! See him as he shops. Note how cleverly he consumes Earth's goodies. Homage to the most efficient user-upper of damn near everything. All Hail!

Did this simple compound and those that followed herald the end of the search for the human?
Have the forces of Joyous Consumerism triumphed and Economic Man become the paradigm that prevails? Are we, since that era, content to treat only symptoms and ignore first causes.? It appears so. But then,

Carl Jung cautioned that if we did not soon find a universal understanding of what makes us human the future looked dim. That perhaps we will see a gradual collapse of our material way of life and enter into a time comparable to the Dark Ages. The failure to examine in depth the actual nature of the human as opposed to the arbitrary hunches and dogmas currently in vogue fail to ground mankind within nature and the scheme of things. In no regard are we meeting the future united, prepared and in agreement on what we really are and what we really need . If we couldn't fix things during good times, how on Earth will we do it now?

Start making candles. It could get very dark outside.

It Just Isn't done

Amidst the wailing of voices, alas I'm often among them, who cry out to bring the boys home now, I suddenly remember, whoa, we never do! It just isn't done. They're not back from Germany or Japan yet and WWll is long gone. Or Korea and that's what? Fifty years.

So then I begin to drift back even further ...to Cuba! we're still there. 1901 was it? And Hawaii since 1874, Mexico 1846 (think: California, New Mexico, Arizona et al). Fugetaboutit. Won't happen. Not in my lifetime, for sure. It just isn't done.
And the troops are still in Viet Nam, oops, they kicked us out, I forgot. Cross that one off the list.
So that's it. The grand kids will have to deal with Iraq and Afghanistan, not my job!

But then what about the future?
Will China continue to lend us the money to keep the troops in Japan?
Will the Russians buy back Alaska if we need the dough?
Will the Romans ever leave Sicily? Hmm.

Let Toyota Do It, or Nissan, etc.etc.

NO,don't give them a nickel! Not one red cent! To reward companies in business for a million years who can't make a car anybody wants to own is nutty. Japan rose from the ashes in 1946, never looked back and learned to manufacture cars that lasted, were attractive and got decent miles per.

They are making quality cars, hiring Americans and paying taxes right here in I.O.U.S.A and if we begged, they MIGHT consider taking over our dinosaur companies and resurrecting them. And that would be the free-market coming to the rescue as, so were are hectored, is always best.

Hark! What's that sound? It's the call of the dread Jingo bird. Why it's loud enough to be heard in the Halls of Congress. Will it cause our masters to waver, to waffle, to succumb to its seductive cry? What do you think? Will Toyota and Nissan save the day? Or do our dinos lurch on into oblivion?

"...like Herbert Hoover again."

(from "All in the FAMILY" theme music)

I expect some voices raised in praise of the President Elect who cheer "he's the new FDR" may one day sour and croak , "he's the new HCH". The president he comes to resemble may not be Franklin D. Roosevelt after all.
Consider: Herbert C. Hoover elected in '28 installed in "29...Market crashes in the fall.
Barack H. Obama elected in '08 installed in '09... Market ??? in the fall.

Roosevelt was not in office until 1933 so Obama may be channeling Herbert Hoover and not the great hero envisioned by swooning acolytes. He may turn out to be, as Hoover was, brilliant enough to do all the wrong things and then to mark time until the next great savior appears. Or he may be, as was Jack Kennedy, such a breath of air that his failures are given a temporary free pass by history.

Our system today is so flawed and the bias for the status quo so profound the power of the Executive to actually change anything of significance is almost nil. The only hope we have is that a President by strength of character and determination, against all odds, actually tries.