Mariner’s Choice
Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and the spectacular, sunny, cool island of Nantucket! Great to be with you on this Sunday morning, the 11th day of March, 2012, a noted beautiful day on Cape, Cotuit to be precise, ‘where the ocean meets the wood’, as you look up at “Mariner’s Lodge”, a structure that has seen it’s fair share of the deep, rich history this great nation should feel confident about, over the many moons of it’s existence, dating all the way back to the days of Revolution, British war ships combing the shores. Yes sir, we all remember when Paul Revere, 67 miles to the north in the town of Boston, was a ‘ridin’ around like a crazy person, firin’ off those warning shots (to the British?) as he rode on through the streets of ‘bean town’, yes in-deedy, he be a reloadin’ while still on ye ole’ pony, bringin’ liberty and justice to all?’ (credit the historic musings of FOX NEWS political commentator Sarah Palin)… That’s right–New England in the year 2012, a place that still harbors those imaginations and old world shadows that do indeed hang heavy in the air. The game goes on. With the political season, much like the season of spring, well under way, the rhetoric and horse$hit is getting deeper by the day. We see our pal Mitt becoming southern, cheesy bread? and all, stating ‘I don’t know what is happening to me’, and I must say, neither do we. I think back to Detroit, having lived there in the late 80’s, and once attending a few Lion’s football games, in then Pontiac Michigan. It was a giant inflatable stadium that seemed could never be truly filled, as the Lion’s were such as horrible NFL team back then, begging the question, does anybody else see this as a real, honest to goodness attempt on behalf of the .001 percent, plutocratic ‘visionaries’ , to hijack our democracy for good? Mitt’s little gathering in the new Lion’s stadium recently, intended to be filled to the rim with 65,000 adoring fans?, left no doubt his audience (that numbered a few thousand, looking very lonely indeed in that massive stadium empty of seats/soul(s), is perhaps only 1 percent of the electorate, those truly interested in getting him elected as President of the United States, for they have some skin in the game. If, God Forbid, Mitt is elected, that 1 percent of US will see their taxes plummet, thus increasing their disposable income by hundreds if not hundreds upon hundreds of billions of dollars, as the bought and sold congress continues granting special favors to the multinational conglomerations, run by those .001 percenters, such as Koch Industries or Exxon-Mobile (whose net worth is more than the entire country of Sweden), being able to manipulate, control and make laws in their favor, continuing the gravy train (corporate welfare included) and this never ending boom and bust cycle (if you take into account the banking industry, the insurance industry, the coal industry, the ‘natural gas’ industry, the pharmaceutical industry…) that keeps the working poor down, paid slave wages, while those on top continue to prosper, and when they go bust, know they can always come back to daddy (The Federal Reserve) and get a bail out, like GE did in 2008 during the meltdown, gaining access to cheap FED cash, quickly, with ‘4G speed’, turning tricks and speculating on risky ventures all over again, again knowing they have an insurance policy steeped in the mantra of ‘too big to fail’… David Stockton, former Treasury Secretary under then President Ronald Reagan, appeared on the epic Bill Moyers’ new PBS show, a true MUST SEA, who spoke to this truism at length recently (please, Google Bill Moyers/PBS–”Crony Captitalism”, s1, ep.8), arguing that this cycle of bubbles will go on unabated. The bottom 99 percent will continue taking the brunt of the reckless and selfish behavior of ‘those with the gold making the rules’ (the antithesis of the true GOLDEN RULE), as this is no longer a democracy now is it?’, that is until “…WE, as a nation, take money OUT of politics, by way of a Constitutional amendment declaring that corporations cannot give money as if they were actually human. Further, Glass-Steagall (passed in the 1930’s to keep investment banks separate from commercial banks) must be re-instated, for if we do not, the speculation (causing, by way of Goldman Sachs, gas prices to rise by at least 50 percent across the board) on Wall Street will go on and on and on, with few at the top, the insiders’ making the money, gaining the system with no real risk, ripping off consumers at the pump every day, while the rest of the nation starves, leading, again, perhaps only ten years off, of another, much worse, financial bubble bursting, creating a temporary chaos that does indeed bring the change needed to RIGHT this ship–a ship built on the principals of masons, masons like Benjamin Franklin, one of our greatest forefathers, who knew a thing or two about navigating the treacherous waters of the New England coast as well as the politics of the day, that day not being that much different than it is in the year of 2012, a year that offers up subtle tyrannies, that come in many different forms (can someone say ‘payday loans’ at 440 percent, nothing more than legalized vicious loan sharks that prey on the poor and the vulnerable, of which there are more by the day in this great land), none so glaringly obvious than what we see every day in congress, one of the three branches of government that is barraged with a 10 to 1 (special interest/big money lobbyists to members of congress) ratio of circling sharks, sharks in $5000 suits giving out tickets to the next Mavericks game…beats Mac and Cheese does it not? Depends on why you are in Washington D.C. in the first place now doesn’t it? Have a wonderful day folks and please say a prayer for peace in the Middle East, be it Iran, Syria, Israel or Palestine. Compromise is not always a dirty word. PRESERVE THE WILDERNESS! Peace~M
