Remade In America

 What offends me about Trump, Theil, the Mercers- whatever billionaire pricks are involved- is the majority of Americans just want- and deserve- to live the American dream, even if it is an illusion. The audacity of these pricks is obscene. The illusion of the American dream is pretty damn nice! It's also available to pretty much everyone. Your mileage may vary, of course. 

You should be wary of anyone who tells you how to live, particularly if you didn't ask. Cut your parents some slack because it is actually their job to raise you, at least for the first 18 years of your existence here. They may get it wrong, but they are mom and dad and they are at least trying. Beyond mom and dad though, advice should be taken with a grain of salt. Advice, whether solicited or not, is usually delivered without caveat and based upon the giver's life experiences and (possibly) their expectations for you. An example here; A police officer has just pulled you over. He's interrupted your daily routine with his flashing lights, badge and gun, but suddenly he's your buddy and legal advisor. He thinks you should let him search your vehicle in case there's anything in there you don't want him to know about. If there isn't, you can go on your merry way with probably just the ticket he pulled you over for. 

Well, never take legal advice from someone whose job it is to arrest you. Cops are car salesmen, and their pitch might as well be "Come on! Work with me! What's it going to take to get you in the back of my squad car?!" Cops come from the general population and that general population is not at all versed in the law. They are not your friend.

Neither is any billionaire who, because of wealth, has lots of free time on his hands to social engineer the lives of millions of people he doesn't know or care about. The acquiring of wealth is often a product of birth and or luck. It isn't necessarily skill. Donald Trump is the personification of the adage I often heard in the restaurant business about the secret to making a small fortune in the restaurant business. Start out with a large fortune. It's generally accepted knowledge that he was gifted $400 million from his father. He went on to bankruptcy at least six times over the decades after that. Not a good track record. 

But even other billionaires who indeed may have pulled themselves up by their bootstraps are generally not good at giving advice. In 1967's "The Graduate", Benjamin Braddock received advice for his future in the single word, "plastics". Good advice then, I suppose. But today that advice might be "credit default swaps". What are those? I have no fucking idea! But some people make money off them. Not real practical advice then for the average Joe or Jane.

This isn't about getting rich though. This is about living your life as you choose to live it, hopefully without the parameters that others set for you beyond the common scope of the law. These are the social engineers I referred to earlier. I'm guessing that their success is the selling point and that you are the target audience. You and 340 million other Americans. Well, that's a lot of folks to be giving similar advice to! Sounds a little like communism, a word that has been bandied about so much that most people who use it have not a fucking clue about how they are misusing it. It has become sort of a catchall for "liberalism" somehow, just like "woke" has become a prejorative. How anyone can be so successful yet so fucking stupid is beyond me. Who in their right mind sets out to destroy a system that made them successful, and trade it in for what is essentially socially engineered communism with a Christian religion flavoring added to it? People with too much time and money on their hands! This is not productive thinking and it is horrible advice for so many people. It's dumber than Scientology!

That is what they are doing though. Erasing damn near 250 years of interesting American experience and slapping a "NEW & IMPROVED!" label on it as if it were toothpaste. There is no 'good' rhyme or reason for this. Though revolution is generally a good idea, this maga/Trump plan is the first in the history of the world to effectively say: "Too many people have it too good and we must stop that, and get back to the basics, for the good of our wealthiest citizens!" The plutocracy should never lead a proper revolution. They can't survive without the proletariat. 

Jesus F Christ. Only in America.