Our kind federal government is going to give you back $600, hell, maybe even more. And they want you to go go out and spend it. Go on. Spend it on something that makes you feel real good. I till kick the economy into high gear.
Me, I've got my eye on an All Clad dutch oven, costs about $500 new. It'll be great for all that nutritious food I'm cooking at home now that I've read the "Omnivores Dilemma." It will make my my organic chickens taste more organic; my braised grass-fed beef taste more grass fed. It will help jumpstart the economy. What a great way to contribute, because I really want this pot. I really do. The reviews say it cooks like no other. It's magic.
And I really want to help. I wanna feel good about being American again. So why do I feel empty when I think about being American? Why do I feel like a piece of shit? Why do I want to use that pot to cook my sorrows away? How come, if I want to make America better, all that's being asked of me is to spend?
A few days ago, we passed by the National Guard facilities in South Portland, ME. I'd gone down to Williams Sonoma to look at the pot, and it's on the way. Out front, there was a big sign, "If not you, then who?" Reminded me of the signs out front of the evangelical church back home. And like a vision from above, I knew. Our federal government does know how to ask us to sacrifice, it just refuses to ask. Because if they don't ask, if they pretend it's not needed, If they don't disturb us too much, of the young just sit still a few days longer, they can take a little bit more to fill their emptiness. They can buy our complicity a few more days while they try and steal a bit more of the future away from our children.
If the rest of us are gonna get back some money -- it's a rebate, we've got it coming to us -- to spend now, and you know what? it's another part of the national debt that those young Americans are being asked to pay down the road. But just mabye it will jump the economy enough so that our theft of their future won't be noticed for a few more days.
It's no wonder Obama is pulling in the young. My oldest son was born in 1986. All his life, there's been a Clinton or a Bush, and a war between the parties in this country. All his adult years have been cursed with real war a loss of personal freedom. Last night, during the SOTU, my son wanted to know why Telcoms need immunity of Bush doesn't; didn't he break the law, too?
Young people want to know this, because there's growing pressure on them to sacrifice. Their colleges are crawling with recruiters. There are the ads, the mailings. All those young men had to register for the draft; the government knows where they are. And those young people know the fruits of their labors have been spent in the war that's killing their friends. They know they'll spend their days toiling to pay off our debt we're making and paying for the thousands of lives we're wasting. They know they're getting shitty healthcare, and that frequently they'll get a pill they don't need instead of care they do. So they know all about sacrafice. They just didn't get the chance to say if they'd make a sacrifice or not, so they kinda remind me of those folks in Boston who dumped tea in the harbor. Cause they're old enough to dump some tea of their own now. And 40-something Mom's like me, we'll egg 'em on every step of the way.
So go on, take your $600, or maybe it will just be $500 because the Senate is trying to be prudent. Already they're taking it away from us. But there'll be something. So take it, and go buy your own pot of happiness. Don't donate it to Obama, or use it to pay down some of your credit-card debt. That's not in keeping with the spirit of the "rebate," it's not patriotic.
But no matter what you do, don't expect it to erase the shame you may feel about the state of our union.
I want to be American again. I want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. I want green energy. I want responsible government. I want gender and race to really be behind us. I want peace. I want freedom from fear and and poverty. I want a future filled with hope.
Bu maybe we're not Americans any more, we're consumers in the global marketplace. We're not different then the microbes at the sewage treatment plant, taking our place in the stream of stuff without question. We're not producers anymore, we're consumers. After all, when it comes to consumption, if not you, then who?