We're all members of the mushroom club

I worked for five years for a employer that was so horrible that the middle managers displayed a mushroom on their desks to signify their membership in the Mushroom Club. They were kept in the dark and feed nothing but manure.  I continued to work there because they had convinced me that it was the same everywhere.  I finally came out of the dark when I found a job where managements philosophy was to share the wealth.  If the employees did well they would make sure the managers did well and met all goals.  The first company changed its name, was bought out, downsized and sold again, it is now just a shell of what it could have been.  The second company was the fastest growing in its industry and when it was bought out by the giant in the world, the lowliest employee came away with thousands of dollars and hundreds were turned into millionaires.  The United States faces similar choices today with some presidential candidates saying how awful things are without offering any real solutions (like Nixon’s secret plan to end the Vietnam War) and other candidates saying “That’s the way things are. We have to be pragmatic”.  It appears that Goldman Sachs will continue to run the country when one likely president is married to a Goldman Sachs banker and another has been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for a speech.  Meanwhile the heirs of George Wallace’s troglodytes are hogging all the headlines in an effort to keep our eyes off the real problems in the country.  If we are fearful and angry we don’t think rationally about the problems and simply try to place blame and pursue personal attacks.

I am angry about government bureaucracies whose primary purpose is self preservation rather than what you read in the mission statements.  The arrogance of many of these bureaucracies has lead them to ignoring warnings about both the Challenger disaster and 911.  Both could have been prevented.  It includes the BLM interpreting the laws that govern them according to their wishes.  The Veterans Administration is more concerned about their bonuses than serving Veterans.  We’ve given guns to drug dealers in Mexico. If we enforced existing laws, illegal immigrants wouldn’t have jobs.  The SEC has handed over much of their watchdog responsibilities to a group of brokerage firms and exchanges that came up with a name that makes you think they are a government operation, Financial Industry Regulatory Agency!

I am angry that the health coverage debate is run by America’s Health Insurance Plans Association, the gun debate is run by the NRA, and the financial regulation is run by the bankers.   Their crimes are paid for by the shareholders, while the culprits continue with million dollar plus salaries.   I’m astounded that the Pharmaceutical industry is so brazen that they are advertising opiate constipation relief now that they’ve got enough of us turned into junkies.

 I’m angry at the Media that is much more concerned with losing all the money that derives from campaign contributions, that they refuse to cover campaign finance reform.  The traditional media has learned about ‘click bait’ from the internet and now is more concerned with name calling and scandal than what the candidates are actually saying and proposing.  They claim that  to be fair and unbiased they have to report lies that are said by the candidates without any reference to the facts.

Just like the bureaucracies the people in power are much more concerned in retaining and gaining more power than they are in serving their constituencies.  In order to be reelected our representatives have to spend considerable time raising money, and we all know it’s easier to get a few big contributions than a lot of small ones.  They are also governed by the knowledge that if they vote against some lobby’s