I've been
looking around lately, and I have been struck by how much our country
has declined.
As I said, I've
spent plenty of time in the Third World, and know what it looks like.
I know the
society, the atmosphere, the laws...the aura.
And it is to my
sad judgment that, recently, America is coming to resemble a Third
World nation.
Delineated
below are the reasons why:
RAW SEWAGE
The Third World
smells.
Recently I have
been picking up on a very familiar Third World smell...that of raw
sewage.
Our sewer
systems seem to be in such disrepair that you can actually smell the
stuff in the open air.
One particular
part of town has been so bad for so long that the smell of raw sewage
has become an accepted fact
ROTTEN ROADS
Hey, the
axle-breaking pot holes of the third world have come home to roost in
the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Have you seen
the state of our roads lately?
Its getting to
the point that driving on some of these things make you wonder about
your suspension.
A lot of times
I am driving and the road is so badly maintained I think something is
wrong with my car.
The state of a
bumpy secondary highway not too long ago, brought a lot of
flashbacks.
ROAD BLOCKS
You just can't
do Third World without coming across some type of roadblock or
another.
Well, the home
of the brave has become the land of the roadblock.
The sense of
being temporarily detained by ignorant-looking, brutal, arrogant and
sadistic 'military police' is a familiar experience.
Dejavu all over
again when I have to stop at these random checkpoints and be asked
where I am going and why while some ape in a uniform looks over my
vehicle with high suspicion.
BAD TEETH
If there is one
thing that is prevalent in the Third World, its bad teeth.
Why American
teeth have deteriorated to the state they are in at the present is
beyond me.
I mean, this is
the land of Crest and Colgate.
Is there no
more money to take care of your teeth, fellow Americans?
I have seen
chick with some nice frontal teeth and an attractive balckness at
both corners.
I have seen
cracked, yellow, stained, missing, twisted, messed up teeth on so
many Americans (many of them hard working) that I am starting to
seriously wonder if we can afford dental care.
Hard fact: many
of my working poor associates have complained to me that they cannot
afford to have their teeth fixed.
GOVERNMENT
BILLBOARDS
You don't see
more billboards celebrating the government than in the Third World.
It could just
be the face of the Imperious leader, or a reminder about what your
supposed to be doing, or an outright gloat about how good things are
and what a good job the government is doing – for example, “peace
and prosperity” or “always forward, always progress.”
Right here in
America I am starting to see more and more billboards....about
government.
Maybe its a
Homeland Security reminder to “say something” when you “see
something.”
Or maybe its a
recruitment for jail guards or police positions of one sort or
another.
Sometimes its
an outright threat, reminding you to use your seatbelt, not exceed
the speed limit or smoke pot.
UNIFORMS
The Third World
has more uniforms per square mile than anywhere else.
And the
uniforms look like it belongs on a colonel or something, complete
with lapels, fruit salad, spaghetti and whatever else you can throw
on it.
Whether your
the mailman, the police, an inspector or a tram operator, you are
guarantees a ritzy looking uniform if you work for the government.
The country
might be falling apart, but the smart uniforms remain as a reminder
of whose in charge and how official those in charge really are.
You don't need
me to mention the uniforms are making an appearance right here in
America.
There are so
many uniforms and so many 'agencies' issuing so many uniforms that is
is hard to keep up.
Homeland
Security, Border Patrol, ICE, NTSB, FBI, Sheriff, Police, Public
Safety, US Marshalls, Army, National Guard, Postal Service, Traffic
Control, Animal Control, IRS, CPS, Forest Rangers, Park Services all
seem to have their own 'colonel' uniforms...many of them with an
intimidating semi-
automatic
strapped to the side.
Sometimes I
don't even know who these people are parading around in their circus
uniforms.
Recently I have
been seeing a lot of black uniforms.
This I have not
really seen in the Third World (they try to keep their uniforms
festive, with different tinges of blue, green, white or tan), so its
an American original...
...or maybe not
so original.
You see, the
black uniform is proper of fascist regimes like those of Franco,
Mussolini and Hitler.
In that sense,
America has acquired a refreshing variety of uniforms in the fascist
historical mold.
THUGGISH POLICE
The police in
the Third World are thugs, if not outright criminals.
In the Third
World, the population lives in fear of the police, and for good
reason.
In the Third
World, the police have carte blanche to do whatever they want with
you.
When
encountering the police in the Third World you don't know if your
going to leave with a friendly goodbye, a broken nose, a broken arm,
if you're going to spend a week in prison or if you're going to be
leaving at all because you end up DEAD.
Sound familiar?
The increasing
brutality of police right here in American is not just becoming
noticeable to fellow Americans, but is gaining headlines all over the
world.
That's right,
people in England, the Netherlands and Germany get a kick out of
reading 'the latest American slaughtered loser' in their newspapers.
Like in the
Third World, the police here are becoming a sort of funky god you
have to kneel before – representatives of the dictatorship, not the
people - sneering, menacing, arrogant, brutal enforcers who no court
will hold into account.
DARKLY LIT /
LOW A/C BUILDINGS
Notice the
temperature in many businesses and government offices lately (not to
mention the smell).
All too
familiar.
The Third World
government offices are all ill-lit and badly air conditioned or
heated.
In addition,
you find most of them in the darndest of places (at the corner of
some decrepit relic – in the tenth floor of some half-completed sky
scraper – in someone's house – at a strip mall).
And speaking of
strip malls...that's exactly where the department of Motor Vehicles
sent me to get my tags re-issued.
That's right.
The government
is so broke now that it is outsourcing its bureaucracy to strip
malls.
To Americans,
that might be an embarrassing novelty, to me it's old Third World
hat.
The same
phenomenon is spreading to our franchise stores.
Was the
temperature comfortable in your last visit to the supermarket?
How did that
visit to the doctor or lawyer go at your friendly neighborhood strip
mall?
STUFF BREAKS
In the Third
World stuff breaks all the time.
A week doesn't
pass where you have a collapsing bridge or overpass, a derailed
train, a ruptured water main, ripped electrical cables, flooding,
contaminated water, backed up or ruptured sewers.
Sound familiar?
That's right.
The US
Government itself has said that a main threat to the safety of the
country is a rotting infrastructure.
It's promising
to do something at some time, but no promises so far.
Meanwhile you
keep hearing about ruptured water mains, collapsing bridges, derailed
trains, failing dikes, flooding, power failures, etc, etc ,etc.
In case you
haven't noticed, our infrastructure is regularly breaking and nothing
is reliable...and there is no money to fix it because we are so broke
and our money is so mis-spent (just like the Third World) that there
is not enough of it just to keep things running at home.
POOR TEACHERS
In the Third
World, teaching is the next best profession to begging.
Teachers are
considered humble, miserable, impoverished auxiliary workers.
They are paid
next to nothing and can't really make living, just managing to scrape
by somehow.
The same is
happening here.
Teachers in
America seem embarrassed to admit what they do for a living.
Teachers are
regularly treated like trash by the parents, the school
administrators and the students.
The teaching
profession is becoming so bad that there now seems to be teachers
shortages because no one wants to work for the untenable pay they are
offering.
NO ACCOUNT
TRAGEDIES
Yup.
Massive and
stupid tragedies are common place in the Third World.
Like a bus full
of passengers going off a cliff.
Or a ferry
capsizing.
Or a
supermarket burning down.
Or a bridge
full of pedestrians or cars collapsing.
Or a building
full of employees collapsing.
Or a factory
burning down.
Or contaminated
water causing mass deaths.
Or a factory or
plant blowing up somewhere.
Or some mine
collapsing.
Or nebulous
interest dumping toxic waste by the ton along inhabited rivers,
streams, farmland and even urban areas.
Cancer clusters
are another phenomenon.
Hey,
everybody's getting cancer, what's happening?
I don't know,
could it be the secret radioactive waste dump discovered in the
jungle a few years back?
Could it be the
unregulated amounts of chlorine, fluorine and other chemicals dumped
by the municipality in the water?
Could it just
be the unsafe food and medicine you are consuming?
I can already
tell this is all starting to sound terribly familiar to you.
How about that
West Virginia mining accident...where the authorities just decided to
GIVE UP ON THE MINERS because it was too difficult and expensive to
get to them?
How Third
World.
Trapped miners
are simply given up on in the Third World – out of sight, out of
mind (Chile actually embarrassed us by going to all that expense to
take their miners out!)
A couple of
years ago, a millionaire who was the first man to sail around the
world in a balloon or something disappeared in the Rocky Mountains
aboard his private plane.
The authorities
searched for a while, then just announced the guy was probably dead
and went home!
Forget what
happened, forget the corpse, forget the millionaire (who might have
survived), forget the whole thing!
Reminds me of a
ferry accident that happened in Third World land, where they just let
the corpses float downriver (they were unrecognizable anyway – the
fish had gotten to them – so screw it).
Down here in
Arizona, we have people searching for the Lost Dutchman's Mine.
Not long ago,
three guys from Utah went hiking in the Superstition Mountains here
and disappeared.
The local
Sheriff's Office launched a short search, found nothing and said
screw it, they're probably already dead. Nobody else searched either.
Screw them.
Another Third
World flashback.
The body of
dude who has been run over sitting in the middle of the road like a
squashed dog, with nobody giving it much heed.
Or how about
those Yarnell Hotshots firefighters?
19 Firefighters
burned to a crisp. Now those are Third World numbers right there.
And, of course
(like in the Third World), no one is responsible.
The equipment
they had, pathetic. The supervision and planning, nonexistent. Their
cries for help, ignored. Compensation? The authorities are now saying
they owe the widows NOTHING.
Now THAT is
very Third World.
Death without
compensation or explanation.
Did that doctor
leave you blind or crippled on the operating table or did your
husband die at the factory, or did a truck run over your kid....you
don't get SQUAT.
How long before
we make stuff like that our policy?
And I don't
have to get into our derailed trains, our collapsing bridges and
overpasses (or bridges that have been shut down because they are no
longer usable).
Another Third
World flashback: an entire airliner full of passengers that crashed
into the mountains...was just left there by the authorities because
crash site was too high.
...just like we
left those West Virginia miners down there, the Utah hikers out there
or that millionare pilot up there.
Flashback to
America: mass contamination of our aquifers through fracking.
Right across my
street is an ex-nuclear waste site the government has 'no record' of
(apartments have now been build on that site)
This sits right
across a 'superfund' ex-toxic waste site which now sports a high
school.
This type of
concealed ambient contamination happens all the time...in the Third
World.
Are all those
cancer clusters really a surprise, Arizona?
FILTH
If you visit
any city in the Third World, the first thing you will notice is its
filth.
Did you notice
the filthy state of our cities lately?
No need to
mention Detroit.
But a friend on
a recent visit to San Francisco was in shock at all the vagrants and
trash...and the predominant smell of urine that contaminated that
city.
Never mind Los
Angeles.
Trash seems to
be a simple part of the scenery in many of our cities (just like it
is in the Third World) along with the smell of urine or feces or
unidentifiable chemical smells.
In my own city,
those garbage cans they keep a bus stops are overflowing with
trash...some sections of the city have solved that unsightly problem
by simply getting rid of them.\
Filth trash and
not enough funds to pick it up.
HOMELESS
BEGGARS
A very
depressing aspect of the Third World is the amount of homeless
beggars (many of them children) who are roaming the streets.
What a
coincidence that even in this regard, we are competing with the Third
World atmosphere as our streets are filled with the homeless and we
imitate the shanty towns of the Third World with our own ten cities
of the homeless.
Anywhere you
look in America now, you can't help but see homeless beggars walking
the streets: single men, couples and even children.
DEBT AND
BANKRUPTCY
Just like any
banana republic, America has sunk itself in unpayable debt by
irrepsonsible printing too much of its currency.
Bankruptcy and
'lack of funds' is chronic in the Third World (mostly because all the
funds and the loans have been stolen).
How similar to
the American scenario where entire cities are going bankrupt and are
no longer able to function.
Nations the
world over are treating the dollar like they would treat a Third
World peso.
Many are
refusing to accept the dollar as payment.
INFLATION
Inflation is
the eternal plague of the Third World.
No matter what
they try to do, they can't seem to stabilize the value of their coin.
Check out our
prices lately?
How stable do
they seem now?
The dollar is
losing all its value while government subsidies try to keep the price
of food down.
Once the dollar
finally collapses (just like any Third World fiat currency) you'll
sights you've never thought you'd see.
Like stock
people upping the price of groceries every morning.
Or people
lining up to trade their money for some other currency so that they
don't lose all their savings.
The inevitable
will not take long.
The government
will declare a NEW currency to replace the dollar and force everybody
to use it, complete with accompanying price controls.
So yeah, with
my experience, I have the very unique ability to see what America is
turning into.
Other Americans
just see America turning into something else a seedier, uglier,
dinkier something else.
Me, I have
enough experience to say that America is turning into a Third World
nation.
