The Big Pretend (I Only Watch Funny Movies)

* UPDATE - New article on Call Centers


Tell me exactly how far we have slipped as a society when people are deciding that the only option left after losing a job. A FUCKING JOB! Is to murder their entire family and then take their own life. This isn’t some isolated oddity that snuck into the news. It is a repeat offense making National headlines weekly. It has momentum. It’s the fear. It’s crashing. An example that it’s becoming a crisis in places, a common occurrence, is that it’s become so rampant in LA that the Mayor of Los Angeles made a plea to the community to seek "mental health alternatives" and support when job loss occurs.

Really? That is the compassionate call to the community. I mean I understand the intent behind the statement but come on. We have to do better then this. Think about the stuff NOT making the news. We just get to hear about the mass slaughters, what about the parents losing to stress and striking their kids, beating children, and fighting each other, and walking out on marriages and responsibilities. None of this is okay! Spare us the shock value of the murder suicide story and stop reporting in this irresponsible reckless way. Tell me how fucked up ALL of it is, we can take it. Maybe everyone will collectively stand up and start grabbing hands and helping. If you turn your back on your family and your promises, then you have no place here. You don't get to run from this. We are all rapidly approaching the same boat. If not thru straight up job loss, then job security, wage cuts, bonuses gone, we are quickly approaching common ground. We are not making enough money to live in the way that we are told we should be living.

Let me say that again. We are not making enough money, so we can live the way that we have been told we should be living.

The stress will not kill us, will not divide us, IF we are acting as a community of people that are waking to the fact that we do not need all of this stuff. Then we will not only rise above this financial doom, we will forge new ground and a new way of life. Realign our priorities. Stimulate our humanity, not our bank accounts so that we can keep purchasing and tumbling towards the epic fail.

I woke up to this murder/suicide story staring at me from my computer screen this morning. This man that murdered his entire family. The blame for this desperate act has to be spread around equally. To everyone. To all of us. Doesn’t it? Aren’t we the supportive community? Wasn’t there a time when people would rest their woes on friends and neighbors and we proudly took the responsibility of building one another back up from scratch when times were tough? Does this exist outside of the doors of the church? Many of these cases were carried out by people of deep faith. What could these people have been praying about? What is the church telling their people? What did God say to the man that decided he would slaughter his 5 children and his wife before he blew his own brains out rather then persevere and trudge forward and find a way to keep his family intact and safe.

Oh I guess that was the Devils work right? That man must have just strayed from the flock?

This “progress” we are living thru is really starting to irritate me and I have the feeling that it would be a better idea to throw out the TV’s and Video Games and Disney Worlds and burn them at the stake for casting their evils. Happy children come from happy Parents. So are we forcing face for the kids, or are we really happy and laughing and filling hearts with genuine golden love and light heartedness?

More then not I think kids are being plopped down on their fat asses over eating and feasting on processed food, drinking 98% chemicals and 2% juice so they can stay awake watching shit like My Super Sweet 16 on MTV wondering why this spoiled girl is cussing out her parents for buying her the wrong sports car, and simultaneously wishing that they had parents that were as stupid and bullshit to give them anything that they swore for. Meanwhile they text their friends how cool the episode their watching is on their Sidekicks, while they wait for the new Jonas Brothers to finish downloading onto their I-pod and ringtones for their cell phone while they are checking their Myspace page a thousand times to see if anyone is talking shit about them on some blog somewhere because they don’t dress hip enough at school to make the top 20 coolest people list. All of this is happening while the parents are in the other end of the house with their hands in their hair trying to figure out how they are going to be able to pay for all the extras that they have been programmed to believe they need.

It’s all fake. All of it. We don’t need any of it. Our kids need us to be happy and keep our shit together. And keep them away from this bullshit.

Deep breath…

I am certain I am ranting about stuff that nobody here wants to read about. But that’s the problem and I will risk losing readers to say it. Most people don't want to hear about what’s really going on it seems. It’s like the asshole that refuses to watch anything real about the world because it’s depressing. People beg for blindness so they live without the burden of reality. To maintain their smile, their soft touch. They can't know about Darfur, or Somalia, or Uganda, or curable diseases wiping out thousands of people across the world.

I am pretty sure everyone at this point is figuring out that things are going to get bad. Don’t you think it’s fucked up that the only way that these geniuses are figuring out how to “save us” is to stimulate the economy so we can keep buying shit we don’t need. This country doesn’t make anything anymore. If we cannot consume, we perish. What do we even make that the world needs? Entertainment? Seems like lately our main export is war. The entire idea behind pumping more cash into the country is to stimulate us into confidence, to keep consuming. It’s a monster that we have to keep feeding, or it’s going to turn on all of us and kill everything we know.

I have questions.

Why are we a nation that needs to be lied to in order for us to keep smiling? How long can you pretend that creating cash out of thin air and borrowing from China isn’t just creating a new even bigger problem that can’t be fixed. The really paranoid person in me thinks they are just stalling long enough until they get that underground city built so they can all run and hide and keep living the life they created, when all the rest of us start to turn on one another and tear this place apart.

I just want someone to walk into frame on the TV and start telling us the truth. Just look us in the eye and say look everyone. We’re fucked. This is why. This is how. And this is what we are going to have to do to get out of it. We are all in this together (and truly mean it).

How much longer before our sports stars and celebrities will take a pay cut. I hope they don't collectively take pity on the poor and down everyday Americans and show their great sensitivities of our economic crisis by dressing down this year at the Oscars and slipping quietly in the back of the Kodak Theater rather then parading their luxury down the red carpet. Are we really going to feel better if the guys don’t wear tuxedos and the girls take off the diamonds? How insulting. Please use your celebrity in deeper more responsible ways.

This was sparked by the story of the man who killed his entire family from falling to madness over money, and I have been watching CNN stumble around speculating on the passing of this stimulus package that is basically just pouring gas on a raging fire if it passes. Every time a single dollar is printed and circulated into our economy we are being set up to fail.

We cannot spend our way out of this. Please present new alternatives. I am all ears. I have nothing but hope for this Country and for the new President. But at some point someone has to start leveling with everyone here about what's going on. We have to break habits and start working as One Nation again instead of separate households trying to get a piece of the pie. We have to start being nicer to one another. We have to care more about our neighbors. We have to watch out for one another.

All the Love in the Universe ~ R

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