Little Mr Mahatma

In which the middle-aged Peacenik mouths off about War Drones--and all the other things that make him cranky.

Mr Mahatma--who is a Mr in real life--lives in the valleys of Southern California with his wife, a herd of Dears, and an impressive collection of books. Pnorny!
He is reachable at:
littlemrmahatma@yahoo.com

All writings are copyrighted 2003-2008 and trademarked: Little Mr. Mahatma

tBlog Mirror

Some fun links:
Little Miss Attila - polar opposite and origin of LMM.

Critical Sites:
Dr. Forbush Thinks
Slashdot
Games Slashdot
UserFriendly
James Randi
Snopes
Home of the Underdogs
The Sun Online

For those generous in spirit, heart, and wallet:

Archives
<< current

Little Mr Mahatma

Monday, January 03, 2005

First Frothing of the New Year
Sunday morning while flipping channels I ended up on Fox. The show was yet another poltiical exploration and they were finishing up the hour with predictions for the coming year. The four prognosticators seemed a bit too eager with their predictions. The feeling I got - all told - was that the mighty U.S. is in a heap o' trouble. Among the memorable predictions, and they're not all that far out, were:

Jeb Bush will run in 2008. This is not surprising. However, after a bit of thought, I realized that one could easily consider the 2000 election a test and 2004 a confirmation that the election system can be manipulated. Consider that in 2000 Bush got appointed because the flaws and manipulations were too obvious. In 2004 not a peep although there were problems. It looks like Diebold may have delivered to Bush as promised. That is, electronic voting without accountability equals one President Bush.

Scalia or Thomas will head the Supreme Court. Again, nothing Earth shattering. With the Supreme Court swerving to the Right, hell, with the entire Government swerving to the Right, expect some Fundamental changes in our lives, namely more secrecy by the Gov and less Liberties for you and me. Think SS.

Privatization of Social Security. Yawn. Too obvious as this is what gives Bush a woody. But consider what would happen in reality if this goes through. For the Middle and Lower classes they'll get this nice sum of money to invest in the Stock Market. Lo and behold, there'll be this new mass of experts to help them. Hucksters and market scams will increase and so will the Market. A frenzy will ensue with Big Players sitting out, yet urging on the new players to invest, invest, invest. The market will skyrocket and the frenzy will turn to panic because if you don't get in NOW you'll miss the bus. People will invest on margin - heavily. And then the Big Players will enter in to start the collapse. They'll win on the plummet. The Stock Brokers will win on the collapse. The scam artists will win period. The losers will be Joe and Josephina American, who will find themselves out of their nest egg and out of a future. Net result: back to work. Forget retirement at 65 or 70. You will work until you die. What a future! Hey Goergie, simple solution for Social Security - reduce payments. A little less is better than nothing.

Here are my predictions for 2005 and beyond:

Accountability loses all meaning for our Government. As does Integrity, Honesty, Responsibility, Liberty, Truth, Fairness, Balance, United, and any other words that don't kiss up to UberFuhrer Bush.

Bin Laden - who? All eyes will be on the Trial of Hussein. The War in Iraq will continue and continue and...until a replacement War can be found.

Jeb Bush / Arnold will run in 2008 and will win, after a few rule changes for Arnold. The Democrats will become yet another 2nd tier party.

The gap between rich and poor will continue to increase. Combine that with the privatization of Social Security and the inevitable transfer of capital from poor to rich after the Stock Market bubble bursts and you're looking at the utter destruction of the Middle Class. In fact, you could say that we're on a course to where the Upper Class literally enslaves the Lower Class. What else can it be called when Joe American has to work until he dies just to make ends meet? Think about it. No retirement - work until you drop. Unless, of course, you're in the privileged class. Elite Universities will be just that, catering to those who can afford to get in or are connected (*cough* Bush). All other can go to Podunk U. and learn a trade or enter the Military.

The U.S. will expand its influence because "Democracy is on the march!" With the Military increasing it's number one way (draft) or another (no jobs), Bush will salivate at the opportunity to put our kids in harms way. Think liebensraum,

Little Miss Attila (no link intended - she gets enough exposure) crows, in a comparison of European and American workers, how we like to work hard in order to do things right. As always, she's wrong. We work hard because we can't afford not to. One financial slip-up and we're on the streets. And we can't expect the Government to help out. Look at the tsunami fiasco. Bush initially pledged $35 million. After a public ruckus, it's up to $350 million. If the Bush Admin doesn't give a crap about that, you can't expect them to care about American homeless. Oh wait, the homeless are supposed to go to the nearest religious shelter for food and religious indoctrination - my bad.

Anyway. Miss Attila seems to say that people want to work. Fine! She can work until she drops. I'd love to have the European 40 days of vacation per year instead of my 12. Worse, I'm sitting on 40 days of vacation but the company would collapse if I took it (translation, I take it at my own risk and yearly review is coming up). Europeans have the right idea. There is more to life than work, work, work. There's friends, family, the World to explore. The American public has been suckered into believing that the Puritan work ethic is a fact for all of us. It's not. Folks, take off the blinders and live a life.

And with that, Happy New Year!

9:55 AM

0 comment(s)