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Before America, Britannia ruled until the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour in 1941. It was then that the Americans entered the war and the tide turned. The real cost to the British wasn’t money, it was the power they held as the leader of the free world, and to the Americans went the crown. Since then, the US has enjoyed a 60 plus year run as King. I believe that it’s quickly drawing to a close.

9/11 marked the first time that a terrorist organization had made a strike on America’s home soil. It went to the core of the people and altered their psyche permanently. They became a nation playing perpetual defense, spending away their fortunes chasing the elusive ghost of Bin Laden and  hell bent on destroying the threat of terrorism wherever it might be. The problem, much like the race between Roger Bannister and John Landy, was that they looked the wrong way and the world passed them by. The sheer cost of these battles, and the unmitigated greed in the halls of her corporate giants have stripped America of her clothes, leaving her naked and exposed.

The thing that makes America great is not her military might, nor her financial influence; it’s the strength and resolve of her people. But for many, their backs have been broken. The financial tsunami that has engulfed this country for the past eighteen months is slowly sapping it’s great strength; the greed and corruption of corporate America is stealing her pride and and leaving the American people disillusioned and bitter. Between the stupidity of W and the senseless war in Iraq, they have become distrustful and suspicious of their Government’s motives. 

Barrack Obama, the first black president in US history, has a job of epic proportions ahead of him. He has inherited a country in financial, spiritual and moral bankruptcy. HIs dreams are big and his vision is wide… but is it enough? Will America rally one more time and pick herself up by the bootstraps, or will she finally succumb to the fate that all empires ultimately die from.  

Time will tell.

Day after day we are slowly being filled with a chronic sense of foreboding. The terrorists, the psychopaths, the CEOs, the hedge fund managers, our neighbors, organized crime, gangs, the polar ice cap, the atmosphere… When’s it all going to come down? When will be victimized next, who will be to blame?

So step back and consider for a moment that our greatest sources of information are in competition with one another for your attention. Their advertisers want your dollars. How do they deliver? By making sure that you are glued to your TV – how do they do that? Scare the hell out of you. When did news become a spectator sport? When did the networks learn that they could control us and get us to stay in front of out TVs and computers simply by talking about the same thing over and over. Bringing in so called experts, talking to the victims/perpetrators relatives and neighbors, their fellow inhabitants?

Let’s be honest, this isn’t about information, it’s about money. Advertisers are willing to pay big for exposure to their demographic. we are no longer the customer, we are the prospective consumer, the advertiser is the customer.So this week, let’s try something different, shall we…

Let’s put down our newspapers, turn off CNN, FOX, CBC, NBC, ABC, let’s stop the email updates from MSNBC and Bloomberg. Let’s take a holiday from the media machine for just one week. Will you survive; will the world stop; will we perish? I don’t know, but for one week you might get you life back. You might not be afraid.

Ignorance may not prove to be bliss in the end, but it beats being manipulated by those whose job it is to report the facts. Hello Winston Smith.

See you next week, enjoy your holiday.

Billie