"Comfortably Numb"
"Submitted by a reader
"I have become comfortably numb".
This I think is should be the new American anthem. Everyone in the United States seems to be comfortably numb.
In the last 7 years the citizens of the US have seen their President (who himself went AWOL from the Texas National Guard) go to two wars based on lies and no authorization from Congress. He calls himself, "The War President". He apparently finds it amusing to threaten other countries such as Iran, Syria, China and Russia, while ignoring the carnage in the Gaza territories. The country's "leaders" threaten other countries because they do not walk in lock-step with the current jack booted Administration.
The war machine is supplied by companies controlled by the Vice-President and former Secretary of War and other connected friends. Those companies are making billions off the sacrifice by our young people and the American people. In order to continue the war machine the government contracts with mercenaries apparently without oversight by anyone of authority to do the really dirty work, while the song Comfortably Numb repeats in citizens heads.
US citizens are violated, humiliated, threatened and sometimes arrested for refusing to be "patted down", when they go to airports and searched by TSA goons. Gray haired middle-aged women seem to be especially good terrorist targets for these sub-humans to harass. I once saw a very elderly woman in a wheel chair having to go through additional searching in front of everyone in line to get through “security” before being allowed to pass through.
American citizens are wiretapped, listen to, spied on, bank records being looked in to, their grocery purchases spied on, their emails are read by govt. agencies; neighbors have been encouraged to spy and report on other neighbors. Still they hum the song Comfortably Numb.
Police no longer need to have a court order in order to bust down your front door and throw you to the floor handcuffed, and tasered for asking a question. Elementary school children are being handcuffed and arrested for temper tantrums, that when I was that age I was sent to the principal’s office and was paddled. Now, children are criminalized.
Police have the right to stop any person and demand to see their identification papers.
Police who kill are no longer prosecuted. They are simply placed on paid leave until the people go back to being numb. An unarmed man in NY coming out of a club the night before his wedding was gunned down and shot 50 times by NY Police. The police were acquitted this week.
The vote you cast is no longer counted due to the use of electronic voting machine with computer codes controlled by the corporations who manufacture the machines with the result being votes can be changed to whomever the media and the “deciders” chose and without a trail.
Gasoline has tripled in price since the bankrupted, drunken, drug addled oil-man became President. No one in politics seems to care. I saw one female interviewed on a television news show asked if the price of gasoline shocked her as she was fuelling her vehicle, she said "No. Why?" When she was told by the interviewer what the price per gallon she'd just bought, the female laughed and said, "I didn't know the price was that high! I never looked". Comfortably numb.
A US citizen can be arrested and held indefinitely in a prison, without charges, for as long as the President wants. There is no longer habeas corpus in the US. I guess it's okay for the govt. to do this since those arrested seem to be muslims and the govt. must protect us against "turrurists". Innocent people whose lives have been crushed, mentally broken and then released after years of torture with no legal recourse to remedy their situation.
The US now ignores the Geneva Convention and arrest innocent people and send them to countries that will torture them (rendition) into saying whatever the US wants them to say. Our own little juniors who are in the military tortures people and take photos of the torture to show their friends what fun they had in Iraq!
The US drops cluster bombs in the middle of neighborhoods killing everyone within a certain area (children, women and old men), and then calls them "insurgents"! Insurgents? Innocent people who are simply trying to survive? The “insurgents” are people defending their country from the invasion by the US. Insurgents? Just stay comfortably numb.
Our troops break in to Iraqi houses in the middle of the night, throw the father to the ground and beat him and humiliates him in front of his family, terrorize the wife and children, sometimes raping the young daughter and then defecates and urinates in the food before leaving after finding no weapons, no bombs, no IED's. Nice, huh? Makes me proud.
48 million US citizens are without health insurance because "the country can't afford it". Yet the government spends up to 3 trillion dollars in Iraq fighting and losing an illegal war against a country that had NO WMD's, was NOT involved in the 9/11 attacks, did not and had never "threatened the US" in any way. Yet, something like 35% of the people interviewed thought the statement above was true, even after it has been admitted by the government they lied about the reasons for going to war..
Our bridges are collapsing, road go unrepaired, water pipes in cities leak a tremendous amount of water, schools no longer teach, senior citizens must decide do I eat today, or go buy my medicine, soldiers returning from Iraq return to their base at Fort Bragg and their barracks are in a shambles! Corporations make record profits and the US spends it's money to repair the bridges, road, water treatment plants, rebuild the Iraqi army and schools in Iraq that we destroyed in the first place! Yet there is no money to repair the US.
Countrywide Mortgage destroyed many lives with sub-prime loans to borrowers that never should have been approved in the first place, now those people are losing their homes, people are losing their jobs and Mr. Mozilla, CEO of Countrywide, was paid $131 million last year! But that's okay, you are comfortably numb. We understand.
While gasoline tripled in price in recent years, Exxon makes $48 billion a year in profits ($11 billion in the first quarter of this year) and pays out huge bonuses to their executives who helped make this little racket work. I hear of no one screaming about that as they pay $3.75 for a gallon of gasoline. When the CEO’s of the three big oil companies testified before Congress a few months ago, one of the Congressmen asked the executives if, in light of record profits had the CEO’s ever consider lowering the price of gasoline to help citizens out and all three of them looked dumbfounded and were speechless. The thought had never occurred to them to lower prices…simply keep raising profits!
Over 100,000 people a year die by pharmaceuticals, either being mis-prescribed by the physician, taken improperly (wrong dose or time), given the wrong medication (by the physician or Pharmacist) or just being a dangerous drug. Yet the Pharmaceuticals make exceedingly high profits each year and can no longer be sued (thanks to Bush and the mighty moneyed lobbyists) yet the government is concerned about people taking vitamins and supplements and wants to limit their purchase..
Our air is being used to manipulate the weather by using a combination of barium, aluminum sulfate, and magnesium in a soup called "chemtrails". The govt. says they are contrails. Contrails are water vapor that dissipates in a few minutes. Chemtrails are aerosolized chemicals that span out to form gray skies and funny looking clouds. Most people fail to see them or even ask questions. Flu-like symptoms, asthma, sinus congestion, fatigue all result after the chemicals are sprayed in the air. Barium is a desiccate (dries moisture out). Where chemtrails are sprayed rain disappears. Droughts are becoming endemic. Why? I used to teach Medical School and I would take my students outside to show them what a chemtrail looked like. They still didn’t seem to get it. Look up, people! Turn the tune off you I-pod and look up.
Food prices are rising and now stores are RATIONING food in the US. In the US for God's sakes! Food basket of the world they used to say; now basic food is being rationed. George Bush came into the Presidency with a budget surplus and he leaves the office with the country in shambles and food being rationed! Prices are going up quickly and no one in the govt. or the people are doing a thing about it. Keep your eyes on the road and do not look up. Stay between the lines. You are comfortably numb.
Housing prices have fallen through the roof. People can't afford their houses or afford to sell them at a loss. This situation was created by speculators who bid up prices far to high, "flipped them", then took the money and ran and banks who created ingenious financing so they could bundle all the sub-prime loans and sell them to investors.. The govt. does not care about the people who got hurt and lost their homes...THEY ARE BAILING OUT THE BANKS!
The news media, especially FOX and CNN are nothing but mouthpieces for the government. You know those "military analyst" that are on all the news shows touting how great things are going on in Iraq and Afghanistan and who help Bushie threaten Iran? We found out this week they are on the payroll of the Pentagon and go to classes held in the Pentagon to learn how to present the lies on the news shows. That’s okay, the good citizens show their support by placing the little yellow (made in China) magnets that they proudly “Support our troops”. All is well as the song continues to hum in their heads.
Credit cards companies are charging interest and fees that are over 30%. In the 60's this was called "loan sharking". Now it is just business as usual. If a person has difficulty paying their credit card balance the banks will raise interest rates and “fees” to make it more unaffordable. Why? Why don’t they decrease their charges so maybe the people behind on their payments may be able to pay something and stay current?
And yet the people stand mute!
No protests, no shouting, and no demands that those in the govt. who caused all these disasters be held accountable. The US is rapidly becoming a "Third World Country"...with fancy weapons. No culpability of the crooks that have wreaked this havoc over the last 7 years. I am afraid because US citizens may not vote for a woman or a black that they will instead vote for John "Insane" McCain. He is no “war hero”, he got shot down for God’s sake…he lost his plane! Becoming a POW and sitting out the war makes him a “hero”? Give me a break! Remember all the truth he's supposed to bring (The Truth Express?) just remember he was one of the Keating 5 of the late 1980's. Who along with Charles Keating ripped off people and the government and caused the Savings and Loan collapse. One of the Keating Five! You don't remember that...okay close your eyes and gently hum the song.
Where is the activism of the 1960’s as people poured into the streets to demand civil rights for all, the students who demanded the end of the Viet Nam war, the protestors who risked prison by burning their draft cards and refusing to serve in an unjust war? Today no one dare raise their voice against the government either out of fear of being labeled a terrorist, arrested, tasered, fired from their job, become audited by the IRS or otherwise targeted, or perhaps, perhaps they do not care.
Anyway, this rant is to try and wake up the great unwashed or as Henry Kissinger called us, "The useless eaters". It seems to me most Americans are asleep at the wheel, either drugged up on antidepressants and other prescribed anti-psychotics, or street drugs or just too damned tired to see the current mess they are in.
I think, the people should sing the American anthem, "I've become comfortably numb!""
