Yep, Naked.

Some days after I read the news, it is all I can do to not scream till I am hoarse, while throwing a ten-ton hissy-fit. I feel like that boy in the story who is pointing out that the emperors junk is exposed and everyone just wants to shush him while continuing to pretend the emperor could not possibly be naked, in fact it's the most splendid suit that has ever been crafted… Of BULLSHIT!

Yes, I'm going to say it.

The President is naked.

Our Congress.... naked.

The Senate?

Yup, naked too.

Here's the really sad part;

Everybody already knows.

It’s like they kicked off some immense toga party a really long time ago, hmm, togas... hey wait,  Romans… Nero, something about fiddling while Rome is burning...starting to see some correlations here… Caligula, appointing a horse as senator… but I digress… So while we the people are busy waging war (Because the ignominious “they” have sold us the dubious fear of yet another govt./person over something tragically nonsensical.  Again. I.E. oil that is not ours, WMD's that don't exist, countries we don't have dominion over or people who aren't beholden to us or our laws...) they get to ransack our freedoms for their convenience and at their leisure while treating the treasury as their personal piggy bank.

To this blue collar blogger it seems as if the bulk of our elected officials have reached LSD-saturated college frat party heights of indecency. (more toga's?) They blatantly and systematically flout their duties and responsibilities, ignore our polite protests, lie through there grinning teeth, pollute our sense of representation, dilute our constitutional rights, and then use ungodly amounts of faux social lube to help us swallow the jagged pill that is the almost total abdication of their appointed duties. All this after making extensive and detailed promises just so they can go to the “party “! Then they conveniently forget they ever needed our permission to be there in the first place. (Reminds me of my teenagers...hmmm) And let me just say that in my not-so-humble opinion, they have puked in the rhododendron’s one too many times my fellow constituents. 

Yet here we lie, apathetic and taciturn. It would seem we are almost contented to merely register our benign disapproval quietly from a safe distance, that is if we choose to do anything at all. And um, in case you haven’t noticed, our right to privacy has been viciously raped and left for dead. Our right to gather in public, to non-violent protest, that's been shredded too, along with our right to silly things like freedom of the press or legally obtained warrants, speedy trial, due process, etc. 

I have watched with increasing horror this flagrantly diseased progression through the years and I attribute a great deal of its speedy climaxing to primarily,(but by no means limited to); the convoluted laws passed within three days after the OK City bombing that, among others things, allowed for the wholesale invasion of one’s privacy (tapping your phone, reading your mail) without a warrant, and the ability to detain you for an undetermined period of time on suspicion of "domestic terrorism" alone. To the wretchedly under-read, historically least understood, heartily abused and generously twisted Patriot Act which has allowed the govt. to, among MANY other things, track your library patron history(?), credit card purchases, bank activity… as well as giving the NSA and other acrimonious acronyms the hazy green light to harvest and store ALL our communications with impunity. To over nine hundred executive decisions in just the past six years, more then all of the other presidents combined. Republican and Democratic regimes alike (yes I meant to say regime, who are we kidding here after all) creating generously open ended, unmitigated power for themselves in the name of security so that they may then gruesomely compromise each one of our long established, cherished rights and freedoms. Some are twisted so far in contradictory alignment that they are unrecognizable; some are irreparable, and even perhaps incurably tainted. 

From what is left of our allies to those who claim to be our enemies; each, seem equally willing to lounge complacently, stuffing themselves at the table we senselessly provide for them while criticizing our every move, cutting our political throats while continuing to have their hand out for more of everything…. 

It is my opinion that we are in bondage as a nation, in grave servitude to debt, to a dearth of national character, to damaged affiliation(s), and to a demise of our integrity.

We are willingly placing the boot on our necks, fairly begging for someone to come and kick our collective asses!  

This process is terrifically unhampered, even facilitated by the egocentricity of our unchallenged elected officials, evidenced by their woebegone voting histories.  All this, while our “middle” and “lower” class citizens fade into an indifferent catatonic malnourishment, only barely distracted enough by the new iPhone5s to keep on feeding their body’s life-force to the mechanisms of this Sisyphean curse. Name me one guy working for minimum wage who would still hae a job after his lack of action got people killed, or perhaps further pushed that company into debt... Yet there they are, still pulpit surfing, still earning their abominably huge paychecks regardless of their marginally to completely unsuccessful work output. You didn't see any of them ponying up their salary during that ridiculous game of chicken that caused the govt. shutdown did you. It was the little guys, the soldiers and the workers who got screwed. Typical. Easy to play chicken with a car you don't have to pay for and you aren't the one driving.

So congrats America, we now find ourselves the proud owners of a more than reluctant resilience in our political, economic and social system, and yet we behave as if we don’t understand why!

35% voter turn out! That's why!

You work for the government you want, or you get the government you deserve.

I swear to God and all that is holy, if we elect Hilary Clinton to office I am immigrating to Canada, if they will have me. Cuz we have even managed to piss off the Canadians! Good God, really? Who pisses off Canadians?

It’s bad enough she hasn’t lost her job over the Benghazi crap. Hell, I really thought maybe that would be the final nail in her political coffin. But oh no… last week’s Anchorage paper informed me that the funding agencies for Obama's heretofore unprecedented billion dollar re-election campaign are already lining up to have their pockets lined by her bid for democratic nomination and what will undoubtedly be her subsequent run for presidency. What the hell, over! There’s talk that Biden might run. Oh lord… Cuz that would be so much better. I can't count how many times he called the vp nominee "friend" during their debate and the absolutely last thing that his shark-toothed smile said was friendly... He is a scary scary dude. Of course, hiring a "woman scorned" like Hilary is just plain stupid. She makes my skin crawl with her officious angry agenda-face. Though I can’t say the republicans have done any better… and the tea-baggers haven’t exactly garnered a lot of my faith either. BAH! I say BAH!

I guess the point is that we can't expect this dog and pony show to get any better the longer we allow it to run this way. It will only get more ludicrous and eventually go plaid all together.

So unless wholesale revolution is in order (and I'm not saying it isn't), we gotta work within the system we claim to love. But that means active participation. Regardless of what many might think, each vote DOES COUNT. Educate yourselves about the candidates, pay attention to what the ones who you help to elect are doing and write them letters/emails when you have ideas, concerns or information you believe they need to make intelligent and informed decisions. Otherwise, you are just another armchair assassin and you should content yourselves with eating your hot pocket and watching Hoarders.

If you aren't willing to be part of the solution, you end up only a part of the problem.