"Singin' The White Boy Blues"

The life I have now is not the life I have always lived nor did it come to  me easily. I’ve travelled some dark roads in my life. I’ve been successful and I’ve been so broke I was homeless for awhile. I’ve achieved a few things and failed at others. Each brought its own lessons about life and about who I an as a person and each brought me closer to the life I now live.

It wasn't easy getting here but it was worth the journey and for all the difficulties and challenges I have encountered along the way, I consider myself blessed. 

I mention this because someone who doesn’t like the things I write about, or the opinions I hold, tweeted that I was consistently wrong about everything and that my opinions were shallow. It didn’t offend me. I’ve had dialogue with this particular individual before and found him remarkably under-informed. He is less than half my age, hasn’t lived the life I’ve lived nor experienced the things I’ve experienced. His juvenile evaluation of me almost made me laugh and would have except that it saddens me that there are so many coming up through the current generation who just don’t get it. They remind me of a lyric from a Jude Cole song.

“There are people dyin’ on the streets

sure don’t make the news,

while others are livin’ up on the hill

singin’ the white boy blues.” 

It never ceases to amaze me how many people today, especially young people see themselves as victims when they live a pretty privileged lifestyle compared to more than half the world’s population. There are hundreds of millions living in poverty and circumstances so destitute that starvation is almost an improvement for them. Others face terrible political oppression. They are imprisoned, tortured and slaughtered while university students in Quebec, Canada protest and riot in the streets over the equivalent of a seventy cent a day increase in their already heavily-subsidized tuition. It's like fighting over the cost of a cup of coffee a day.

They demand it as an entitlement. They condemn those already providing more than 80% of the cost of university for them because they think it's hard to attend school while working to pay for their share. Of course it's hard and it was no less difficult for the generations who went before and maybe even harder because our tuition was not subsidized.

Most of the folks in Occupy cry poor mouth while texting each other on their $500 smart phones They demand respect even as they show no respect for the rights or the property of others and that, my friends, is not the political statement of well-informed and thoughtful gjroup. It is a temper tantrum caused by spoiled, self-absorbed and adolescent thinking.

Unfortunately, it’s the kind of thinking that too many are bringing to the serious issues we face in society today. We’re in debt beyond our ability to pay comfortably but people demand more entitlements even as we are forced to borrow money just to pay the interest on the debt we already have.

Standing in solidarity against austerity, as so many did on May 1st,  is like being on the Titanic and standing in solidarity against icebergs.  When the ship goes down, all that protest will have achieved nothing because simply blaming the people who owned the ship isn’t going to save anyone. 

But that’s what we do now. We blame others, especially the rich; they are after all nothing but greedy, dishonest crooks who are the author of all of our misfortunes. Students, Occupy, Unions and countless other groups demand that the rich pay their fair share without a moment's consideration for the less than 'fair' share they pay or the more than 'fair' share they already take. In the United States, the zero income tax club is made up of more low and low middle class incomes than millionaires and the bottom 20% of income earners receive back $8.00 in government largesse while the top 20% receive less than $1.00 in taxpayer benefits for every dollar they each pay.

In Canada, the average Canadian pays over $40,000 per year in cumulative taxes from all levels of government and including all forms of taxation. Considering that the average income in Canada is only $41,000, it's pretty clear that the bulk of that tax is being paid by higher income earners.

There are some in the 1% who definitely need a good slap on the side of the head, there is no question about it but they aren’t the majority. Many who are wealthy came from nothing and what they have, they earned. Bill Gates didn’t even finish college while Steve Jobs came from a broken, lower middle-class family.  Their circumstance didn’t prevent them from building two of the most successful corporations in the world or from becoming wealthy. It also didn’t provide them with the opportunity to avoid taxation.

Like most of the wealthy, they do pay income tax along with, capital gains taxes, property taxes, surtaxes, sales taxes and corporate taxes. They also donate a significant amount of money to charity which does reduce their income tax burden but which would you rather they pay.........the government who will squander it or charities who will put it to direct good use in the community? Either way, they give the money to someone.

Those who have been successful have achieved their riches because they took risks. They invested their own money, their talent and their ideas. In the process, they created jobs for the rest of us and just like the students in Quebec, we show our appreciation by blaming them for their success and what that success brought most of us. I suppose we'll blame them when they get fed up, leave the country and take their companies and their jobs with them.

It doesn't get much more stupid than attacking the very people and companies that many students will depend on for jobs when they graduate.

Even the President of the United States worked to get where he is. He borrowed the money to go university, eventually became a senator and eventually the world’s most powerful politician. In a speech about a week ago, he admitted to having only repaid his student loans eight years ago which means he was still carrying some of those loans when he was first elected to the senate.

There are countless examples of people like this, people who started with nothing or very little but who succeeded as the result of hard work and perseverance.  You’ll find them in professional sports, entertainment, the professions, finance, technology and pretty much every other field you can think of. You’ll find even more people who failed and blamed others for their circumstance as a result.

The simple truth is that some people aren’t poor because others are wealthy and the irony is that so many who blame the rich are themselves striving to achieve the same thing.

The Internet is littered with web sites offering easy ways to make money on line and most of them are doing a booming business. There are wealth seminars and get rich quick schemes in real estate, the stock market and a myriad of products nobody ever heard of. 

Some think that poker or some other form of gambling is the road to easy wealth while others, too lazy to figure out the intricacies of the strategies in those casino games simply purchase lottery tickets week after week. The lotteries are making a killing and very few casinos go broke.

Everybody wants more but the difference today is that fewer people today are prepared to earn it. They are impatient or see themselves as victims and have an unwarranted sense of entitlement as a result. That leads to expectation that someone else is responsible; someone or something else should pay. They don’t care who gives it to them; it can be government, the rich or a windfall from a lucky lottery ticket. Easy money is the goal, entitlement is the driver.

But the simple reality is that most successful countries were built by people who wanted to achieve on their merit. Most failed countries are the result of too many demanding too much that they hadn’t earned. We’ve all seen more than a few examples of that. 

At the end of the day we all have a choice to make. We can either continue to see ourselves as victims who demand that others owe us a living or we can take responsibility for our own individual lives.

Take a crack at guessing which provides not only the most opportunity in the long run but the most self-respect and satisfaction. If you guessed seeing yourself as a victim who is owed some of what others earned simply because you find your life difficult, you might want to take a trip to Greece before you lock in your final answer. It was that thinking that led to where they are now.

RELATED


Greed!
http://bearsrant.blogspot.ca/2012/04/greed.html

Entitlement Addiction
http://bearsrant.blogspot.ca/2012/04/entitlement-addiction.html

Sun Media: Quebec's rebels without a clue
http://www.ottawasun.com/2012/05/02/quebecs-rebels-without-a-clue

© 2012 Maggie's Bear

all rights reserved

The content of this article is the sole property of Maggie's Bear but a link to it may be shared by those who think it may be of interest to others

Crossing The Line -Surfer Killed By Sharks & Reality TV

A few days ago, a young man in South Africa was attacked and killed by a Great White Shark. His name was David Lilienfeld and he was a champion body surfer with his life stretched out before him. He was only 20 years old and his death was the unnecessary result of the carelessness of others who crossed the line.

There is an old saying about crossing the line which refers to having gone too far in doing something. It means that a person has gone beyond what is acceptable and done something wrong. Robbery, for example, crosses the line from legal to illegal behaviour.


It used to be relatively easy to identify when someone crossed a line because the lines were pretty well-drawn and were fairly-well established. If not universal, they were boundaries agreed to by the majority of people in a society and which basically defined the values of that society.

Those days are gone.

Whatever values our societies have these days, they are no longer universal and they are no long clearly defined by bottom lines which we have mutually agreed are not acceptable to cross. Today, morality and integrity are defined by individuals and often are based on expediency rather than any specific universal moral code.

“Some people cross that line but I think as film makers you have to make that moral decision for yourself.” 

Bill Wallauer – Wildlife photographer

We all face moral decisions at various times in our lives but the decision to chum waters close to the shore near Capetown, South Africa; to attract sharks for the a reality tv program was not a moral decision. It was a reckless decision made for the benefit of the filmmaker without regard for the safety of others. The decision to try to attract sharks to an area known to be frequently used by body surfers crossed the line.

Most of our societies were founded on values expressed through religious faiths like the Judeo-Christian code, or other faiths. Some codes have evolved to become purely secular but have retained the basic moral tenets of many of those religious-based codes.

Regardless of whether a society is based on faith, is purely secular or is a blend of both, it is usually only successful when it has an agreed-to set of moral values and principles. Once that is lost and people either redefine the boundaries for themselves without regard for others within the same society or simply ignore the existing boundaries, a kind of moral anarchy takes hold which begins to undermine that society’s values. It is happening now in most major democracies around the world.

While many still hold to their faith or to some other set of principles, collectively we have cut our moral anchors loose and are drifting.

People seem able to justify just about anything now, even the manipulation of nature in order to save it.

“We have to understand the life of the white shark if we’re going to protect it’s future. If we don’t handle a few of these sharks and we don’t know anything. About their lives, we could accidentally wipe them off the face of the planet.”

Chris Fischer – Shark Men

Mr. Fischer misses the point completely. What happened here is not about saving sharks, it is about a careless disregard for the safety of others so that he and his film crew could make a television show. It is how they make their living. They put all other considerations aside and crossed a line that resulted in the death of a young man. Rationalizing the decisions that were made in this case does not validate those decisions. It exemplifies the moral decay our societies are experiencing.

It is the same attitude that many who supported the Occupy Movement brought to their attempt to rationalize the self-indulgent behaviour, the vandalism of our cities and the crime in Occupy camps. For them, it was a small price to pay for what they considered a greater good. For most of us, it was simply one more example of rationalizing the lack of real values attached to the movement.

It’s not all that surprising because we have become societies that put our individual opinions and feelings ahead of the common good and which revere celebrity status rather than moral leadership. We are societies that give more support to American Idol than to religious observance or respect for the founding principles of our nations.

John Kennedy once said, “Ask not what your country can do for you but rather what you can do for your country.” Today, the only question that usually gets asked is, “What’s in it for me”.

It is how organizations like PETA, which kills more animals than SPCA and The Humane Society combined, rationalize their actions in the name of treating animals ethically. It’s how politicians, who’s morality is so flexible, they are able to rationalize to themselves the fact that they do not personally or professionally live the values they represent to the people during elections.

It is how places like Guantanamo are built and a nation’s own constitution is violated and how people can ignore the rule of law when our personal prejudices and opinions are offended.

Whether we are religious or atheist, we are part of democratic nations built on core principles and moral values. The documents where our nations' principles were set down are noble and revered documents. Many believe in them but while we may wave those documents around as defining who we are, we have lost sight of their true meaning and no longer honour their intent.

We have replaced our morality and values with trite, bumper-sticker slogans. We have replaced our need to learn with speaking endlessly on things about which we know next to nothing but have cribbed from some web site or another. We form instant opinions based on whatever is currently trending on social media rather than on what we should believe in because many of us believe in nothing beyond the moment.

We are quick to take offense and slow to forgive.

In our attempt to be more inclusive, we have so watered-down what we collectively stand for that as nations, we stand consistently for very little.

We fill that void with mindless entertainment from reality tv, causes that are poorly thought out but which seem important and which we allow to delude us into believing we are living meaningful lives. We play computer games and watch twenty-four hour news reports that are less about the transmission of information than turning life into a circus for the masses. We need to be entertained rather than informed and we indulge ourselves in the mindless violence of extreme professional sports.

We text, tweet and 'like' all over social media with friends we've never met while ignoring the real people who live down the street.

We have become like every previous civilization that was in its final decline. Like the ancient Romans and others who came and went before us, we are too busy watching gladiators in the arena to notice our own declining civilization.

We are spiritually and morally bankrupt and we have not only crossed the lines that once defined us but have blurred them until we no longer see them.

Collectively, we no longer have a collective moral compass to guide us. We no longer understand or know which lines should not be crossed because we no longer believe in anything beyond  this morning’s news,  last night’s vote on American Idol or own personal interpretation of what is or isn't moral .

We have become societies filled with individuals and governments that can justify almost anything.

RELATED

The Death Of Trayvon Martin - A Feeding Frenzy By Well-dressed Sharks

http://bearsrant.blogspot.ca/2012/04/death-of-trayvon-martin-feeding-frenzy.html

What Ever Happened To Integrity?

http://bearsrant.blogspot.ca/2012/04/what-ever-happened-to-integrity.html

Entitlement Addiction

http://bearsrant.blogspot.ca/2012/04/entitlement-addiction.html

© 2012 Maggie's Bear

all rights reserved

The content of this article is the sole property of Maggie's Bear but a link to it may be shared by those who think it may be of interest to others

Michael Moore - Discovering Society Also Eats The Heroes It Creates

I have come to the conclusion after watching and listening to Michael Moore on various television programs and interviews that for all of his success, what he most craves is to be accepted….by anyone or someone. He would like to be liked, to be picked for the team and to be admired for his intellect. How else can you explain his schizophrenic pandering to various diverse groups and his inconsistent approach to the issues?

It starts with the the ball cap and sweat shirts or t-shirts. Someone in his income bracket can afford to dress with a touch more finesse and we all know he has nicer clothes. He shows up at the glam events in suits, he just reserves his 'common man' look for the cameras at the events where it might seem a little awkward to acknowledge or flaunt his financial success. We’ve seen him in his tuxedo when he accepted his Academy Award. Dressing down is just part of the ‘common man’ image that Mr. Moore likes to portray. It appears that the performance is starting to overstay it's welcome in some quarters.

On Saturday, Michael Moore dropped by the OWS celebration of St. Patrick’s Day in his humble, 'I’m one of you guys’ outfits. He mingled. He signed autographs, managed to find a microphone or two into which to speak and just generally enjoyed the benefits of being a celebrity. I’m sure he felt the love he seeks or at least he did until the heckling started. Watch the video, have a chuckle and then we can chat some more.

video from YouTube

Once priding himself on being a Hollywood outsider, Michael Moore was so flushed with gratitude for receiving the Oscar that if the Academy had asked him to stay after the telecast to help sweep up, he would have gladly complied.

He is a man who can’t decide whether he wants to be a rebel or one of the gang, whatever that gang may be.

He produces documentaries that are biased, sometimes factually wrong as Sicko was in its claims about Canadian health care and who speaks out on social issues often with embarrassing results and a requirement to do some serious backtracking.

He has called middle class, middle aged Americans racists forgetting that many of those he criticized were at the vanguard of the 60s civil rights movement. They marched with Martin Luther King while Mr. Moore was still in school. He suggested that it was only the young people of today, many of whom are more interested in free tuition and have demonstrated a severe intolerance for various cultural and racial groups as being at the vanguard in defeating racism.

From the beginning, he jumped on the OWS bandwagon and was soon showing up at various rallies to condemn the 1% high income earners. He would spend an hour at each appearance to pontificate into the mike for the assembled rabble, sign some autographs and have a few pictures taken before retiring to his $1.5 million waterfront home.

Michael Moore's $1.5 million waterfront home

He was never quite able to see the hypocrisy between his words and his lifestyle although he gave it a valiant effort. He told Pierce Morgan, in response to the criticism about the dichotomy between his lifestyle and his criticism of the wealth of the 1% that the 1% was actually an attitude, not a measurement of wealth. He changed his criticism from wealth distribution to attitude distribution in an attempt to downplay his own membership in the 1% club.

You have to almost admire that attempt at tap dancing your way out of hypocrisy. Politicians do it all the time and are quite good at it but unfortunately Mr. Moore is no politician and he is better at hypocrisy than he is at explaining it away. He's like the big goofy kid we all knew in school who didn't fit in but was always hanging around trying to be cool and who would say almost anything to get accepted.

Mr. Moore lecturing the world at an Occupy event

It appears, however, that his search for acceptance  is wearing a tad thin and increasingly people are finding rants against wealth and privilege are a bit precious coming from someone worth more than $50 million.

Now he is being heckled at the same assemblies where he was once treated as a star. There were still many who welcomed him with the same reverence for celebrity that they reserve for any famous person but it was different this time and it appears that bloom is falling off the Moore rose.

I have no issue with Mr. Moore’s success, his wealth or even his political views. He’s entitled to them all. My issue, as always, is hypocrisy. I get tired of celebrities treating serious issues like trivial items on their daily agenda, dropping by to voice a poorly-formed opinion and then moving on for lunch at the latest trendy bistro or the next media interview.

We see it all the time. Celebrities who protest oil and gas exploration who are driven to the demonstration in their gas-guzzling SUVs or who show up for a photo op for the latest march against poverty and then whisk off back to the mansion for dinner with more of the rich and famous. Often, these celebrities come without much  knowledge of the issue or having made any real effort to get informed beyond a CNN news clip. It's all about the appearance of social relevance than an actual commitment to it.

It serves no useful purpose other than to muddy the water and make finding consensus and resolution of issues more challenging. Celebrities, like other leaders in academia, business, politics and the media have great privilege and influence. They have the right to both hold and voice their opinions but with their privileged lifestyle also comes great responsibility to be informed and not to misuse their celebrity for their own self-aggrandizement or other personal benefit.

The penalty is often a fall from grace in a society that eats its heroes almost as fast as it creates them. Mr. Moore, in his desperate search to be part of something, should remember that for the future.

RELATED POSTS

Criticizing The Society That Made You A Success
http://bearsrant.blogspot.ca/2012/01/those-who-have-succeeded-have.html

Michael Moore On Video Calling Older Americans Racists
http://bearsrant.blogspot.ca/2012/01/michael-moore-on-video-calling-older.html

© 2012 Maggie's Bear

all rights reserved

The content of this article is the sole property of Maggie's Bear but a link to it may be shared by those who think it may be of interest to others

Images Of Occupy

If a picture really is worth a thousand words, here's a few thousand words about the Occupy protest movement.

When you can't voice your objections, crap on them I guess.

OWS new office opened within two days of eviction from Zuccoti Park. They look more corporate every day.

An example of some of the extremists flocking to Occupy protest which also drew support from Neo-Nazis

OWS poster rejecting criticism of their violation of city statutes

honest, the brick just slipped out of my hand

Just a peaceful day at home

Getting into the Halloween spirit of things

This pretty much sums up what the feeling is in Occupy and how unfocused the entire movement is.

This is where we end up when the naive run the streets

Why I Continue To Oppose Occupy

On Friday, I wrote a post called, “Where’s The Outrage?” and it didn’t take long for that post to generate a significant amount of outrage. The post was about children who were being harassed, threatened or otherwise put in harm’s way as a result of the Occupy protest.
 

My point was simple. There had been a significant level of public outrage over the child sex-abuse scandal at Penn State University but almost none over what was happening to children in Occupy camps. That’s changed.

Many people have written to tell me that they are outraged by what has happened and want Occupy camps shut down as a result.

Occupy supporters have written to accuse me of being a biased right-wing conservative, challenge my sources, attack me personally, deny that children are threatened and to rationalize that while children have been harmed or threatened it’s not as important as the bigger crimes of corporations.

It is bizarre to say the least.

I don’t care who it is or what the cause, no child should be subjected to physical, sexual or verbal abuse by anyone and that includes the police, Occupy or any other group or individual. I am outraged by it and even more outraged by the absolute unwillingness of anyone within the Occupy protest to step up, acknowledge that it as happened and put correcting it on their agenda.

OWS spent hours last night debating whether or not to spend money to buy tickets for a delegation to go to Egypt but not one word was spoken about how some of their protesters harassed children on the way to school last Tuesday.

This is a group that criticizes the morality of others.

This isn’t about poverty or politics or even about who’s right or who’s wrong when it comes to the issues we are all facing in this world. It’s about morality and legality. It’s about a protest movement so insecure; it lacks the courage to stand up and admit when it makes a mistake and then set about fixing that mistake. It’s about a protest movement so lost in its own self-importance that it only cares about its cause.

In response to this, I have had Occupy supporters write and tell me that "sacrifices have to be made for the greater good" and "you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs." Occupy talks about doing all of this for 'the people' but when it comes to individual people, they ignore or deny or rationlaize what their protest is doing and has done to them. It’s small wonder that the majority of the 99% do not support Occupy or their tactics.

The simple truth is that too many people, including children, have been harmed. Small businesses have been threatened. Cities have been vandalized. Low wage earners have lost jobs. People have been exposed to lice, scabies and even tuberculosis. Women, some minors, have been raped; people have been assaulted, robbed and threatened. Seven people have died. And all of this has happened because of Occupy.

The cost measures close to $50 million so far and continues to climb.

Few of us challenge the right to protest. We challenge what Occupy has become and its version of protest. It is a cause without an objective. It is a protest with no solutions and a movement without the morality to be offended by injury to the most vulnerable around it.

Idealism is all well and good but when it is not supported by real and practical action, it is useless. Idealism without true morality is immoral and self-serving.

My opposition to Occupy is not a left vs. right issue, it isn’t a 1% vs. 99% issue and it isn’t about the right to protest vs. suppression of protest. My opposition is based solely on the principle that you can’t fight injustice by being unjust and any movement that ignores, denies or rationalizes those it hurts is no better than those it claims hurts others.

It is the hypocrisy of the Occupy protest I oppose. It is the lack of living the morality they preach that I oppose and it is the mindless waste of energy and the cost to our cities that I oppose.

When it’s all said and done, it is self-righteous rationalization instead of righteousness that I oppose. Because of that, Occupy is no longer about issues, it has made itself an issue and unfortunately, not an issue of change for the better.

LINKS

YouTube video of Occupy Protesters Use Children As Human Shields
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIuHyDQzjxk

Video Of Occupy Portland Telling Protesters Not To Report Witnessed Sexual Assaults To Police
http://ironicsurrealism.com/2011/11/11/occupyportland-if-you-witness-sexual-assault-%E2%80%9Cnobody-should-contact-the-police%E2%80%9D/

OWS  Frighten School Children During National Day of Action With Chants And Taunts

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/11/17/ows-protesters-chant-follow-those-kids-as-small-children-try-to-go-to-school-on-wall-street/#.TsW3b9av2TQ.twitter

The Occupy Rap Sheet: 302 crimes and incidents to date

http://biggovernment.com/jjmnolte/2011/10/28/occupywallstreet-the-rap-sheet-so-far/

Article By Huffington Post: Occupy Does Not Have The Support Of The Majority Of The 99%

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/18/poll-tea-party-occupy-movement_n_1100344.html?&ncid=edlinkusaolp00000008

Man Arrested In Occupy Philly For Sexual Assault

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/crime&id=8429956

© 2011 Maggie's Bear
all rights reserved

The content of this article is the sole property of Maggie's Bear but a link to it may be shared by those who think it may be of interest to others

It's Time To Organize The Real 99% and End This Occupy Farce

Every day, I see tweets from the Occupy protesters.

Most of those tweets are self-congradulatory or more inaccurate whining about the injustices of the world but some are organizational. It isn't just rhetoric and allowing crime in their movement that Occupy has become accomplished at. They use social media to motivate each other and to organize. It's time that those of us who are opposed to what this madness has done to our cities, do the same thing.

I see tweets every day from people across North America who are opposed to Occupy. I see tweets about crime in their camps. I see tweets about how frustrated people are and I see tweets about the inaction of many of our mayors.

We can't rely on our mayors. Too many of them are caught like a deer in the headlights so I'm afraid it is going to be up to us.

It's time to use social media to spread the word that we are fed up with Occupy and want it gone. If you agree, then all you have to do is retweet every message you see on Twitter that opposes Occupy or brings to light one more of Occupy's little hypocrisy's or crime in any of the tent cities that are left. Reply to every OWS message and tell them you are fed up. Be polite but be firm. Let's overwhelm them with the knowledge that they don't represent or speak for us! Retweet to your mayor and city councillors. Let them know constantly how frustrated we all are. 

It is time for us to stop being individual voices in the wilderness and start being one very loud voice. If we cooperate wie with each other, we can make enough noise to expose and then drown out the nonsense coming from Occupy. If we cooperate, our mayors may finally become more afraid of us than of the handful of protesters that have them waffling in indecision.

Want to end this Occupy farce? Join the real 99%. Use Twitter to take back our streets and our cities. If we don't step up and get in the game, Occupy wins by default because we couldn't be bothered to dress for the game.

It isn't up to our mayor or Occupy how this ends. It's us up to us, the real 99%.If you are tired of the filth in their camps, the crime, the disruption, the violence and the vandalism Occupy has caused, don't retreat....RETWEET!

© 2011 Maggie's Bear
all rights reserved

The content of this article is the sole property of Maggie's Bear but a link to it may be shared by those who think it may be of interest to others