OMG! The System is Corrupt!

I woke up this morning with this urgent message screaming in my head. I was writing copy as I stretched. Must blog. Must lash out the only way I know how. Must do something about our broken political system. Yeah, as if I can. As if any of us can. I stopped trying to do that when I switched majors in college at 18 years of age. A degree in political science wouldn't do it. Even then, I saw the brokenness of our country, our world. And my inability to change it.

And so I gave up and became an advertising major. I can control what people like and dislike, I figured. I'm good at persuasive writing, creating interesting, fun ads and news stories that move products and services. In particular, I know how to entertain through advertising. And then I became disillusioned with that, as the conglomerates bought up everything media and the whole ad game changed, not for the better.

And always, I meditated and mostly pretended to live a Zen existence, as if it didn't matter what the idiots in Washington or the monsters in Bahrain did. But even with meditation today, I find I'm compelled to speak out, call out the idiots in Washington. And the monsters among us.

It's a broken system. People, we need to start screaming "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore." People are losing their homes to banks while bankers claim $9 million bonuses. Each. Each year. From tax dollars we've given them, because they were "too big to fail." And we continue to foster the "trickle down theory" of giving tax breaks to the top 2%, the Kochs and the GEs. While the silent majority (yes, we've become those fools again) eats it. And pays for it. Find the error in that picture without being an economist. It's not hard.

We continue to war when in 2011, we've had a long enough history on this planet, for even the dimmest witted of us to see that war only begets more war, more awfulness.

The mean, greedy bastards who make millions sucking off the American political system want to cut "Obamacare" and Medicare and everything else that even halfway portends to good social services for our citizenry. While we pour trillions into a war machine that only cripples our young who serve and those upon whom we wage this incessant madness.

We are a corrupt government. We are no better than Egypt. In fact, the economic disparities and social inequalities are scary similar. And I'm afraid that economically, we're closer to Greece. Or Rome, when Nero fiddled. Arrogance is going to do us in.

I think I understand why Americans are so fat. We overeat because we're trying to escape this crude, unequal system under which we live where the middle class is taxed to death. Where we borrow to the hilt from those to whom we give aid, like China. While the Cheneys and the Department of Defense contractors continue to profit on war that only destroys everything.

I'm mad as hell. I'm going to meditate now.

Friends Indeed

You'll find them tweeting and giving good face, blogging and phoning it in by text. But today in this very fast paced media-centric world, we're communicating more than ever. It's interesting the shift. First we hid behind email where we learned to share very little since it can be used against you. Then with the new social media, we're sharing our deepest razor cuts in the morning and our late night laptop exploits. And we're writing again. I love it.

Many of us who were born communicators, majored in it and then made it our life profession, do it well. And we often do it with a purpose. Our clients, our companies where we're the communications pros, have great pages and info, of course. We're building biz brand and we know it.

But everyone else is just having fun and sharing stuff. And I like it, a lot.

The more we share, the more we have.

Aloha pumehana

When It's Time to Change the Channel.

When the ways of the world get you down, it's time to turn off the computer, lose the remote control and cancel your subscription to whatever is bringing you bad news. Truth is, we're only going to get more of what we concentrate on. I'm not making this stuff up. You get what you expect. And when the fear mongers get to us, we sometimes forget we have the power to focus on the good, and to change things.

Not to denigrate television since it's a huge part of my business, but the other night I found I had been watching way too much because I was feeling way too down, after turning it off. Was it the California fires that got me so locked in to the talk shows and the bad news which I normally avoid like the plague? My family in LA is out of harm's way. Why was I not counting my blessings instead of obsessing?

It's the nature of the beast. And by the beast, I mean that part of me that needs to calm down, breathe, and think bright thoughts, as my Roxy shirt says. Global warming, war, immigration, and human rights won't be solved by watching more talk shows or BraveNewFilms.org. However, it would help to use less electricity, waste fewer trees, plant a garden, and take a bike ride to the beach every now and then.