Me King

If I were king of the world, torture would be routine. Why? Because some people deserve it, dammit.

NPR ran a story this evening about the shortage of flu shots in this country. Health organizations are asking that only those individuals who are high-risk (infants between 6 and 23 weeks old and the elderly) receive the vaccine. What pisses me off? Because of the shortage, some of these bastards are gouging the prices for the shot. If there is a Hell, surely there is a special place there for these individuals.

Nothing is too harsh a punishment for those taking advantage of the weak. For greed, no less. Off with their heads (after a couple weeks in the dungeon)!

The prison just outside my hometown had a riot about 15 years ago. A guard and about 7 inmates were killed. There was national news coverage. The general store down the road made a killing themselves. Three dollars for a can of coke!

If anyone can tell me how I can be King of the World, please let me know. I think I'd be good at it.

WHAT SUCKS TODAY?

Remember when Ross Perot talked about the great sucking sound caused by jobs leaving the U.S.? He was the only one with the balls to say it. Everybody else was like, "Don't be ridiculous; NAFTA will be good for the economy."

Fast forward ten years. The great sucking sound has been termed "outsourcing." High tech jobs, paying upwards of $50/hr. are being shipped overseas. Bush's philosophy: "Jobs is jobs." So stop whining just because your company relocated to India; there's a McDonald's hiring just down the road.

The upside to this is that we are the wealthiest nation on the planet by far. Outsourcing balances this a bit, and improves our standing in the global market. This balance has to occur sometime. Outsourcing just speeds it along.

The downside lies in the fact that the motivation for outsourcing is greed. Companies who outsource don't give a damn about balance or our standing in the global market. They care only about the bottom line. What with tax breaks and cheap overseas labor, soon companies will have to outsource just to stay competitive.

Americans honestly do not care about outsourcing. Most of us only hear about it, tell ourselves it's bad, then go on with our lives. If we did care about it, the solution would be simple. Boycott.

Think about it. Being the wealthiest nation on the planet means we consume. A lot. We support outsourcing when we buy from companies who outsource. Our ability to purchase from whom we choose is one of the few powers we have left, albeit a potent one. We piss and moan about how Corporate America pulls our strings, without acknowledging that we are the air inside the corporate balloon. Remove ourselves, problem solved.

We look to government for answers, when the power is already ours. Until we claim this power as our own, I say we deserve whatever we get. Now, go turn them burgers!