Changes

This New Year started on a very somber note. David Bowie and now Alan Rickman died. Shapeshifters both of them, different and alike. Amazing, wonderful artists. People are reeling, sad and bereft. We are left thinking the world has lost immense talent. The thing about artists and I think Bowie proved this, is you work until your dying day, you never run out of ideas, you are never bored or boring. They left the world a better place because they were here. We feel that loss. I didn't want to start this post without acknowledging the work they did and the influence they had on so many of us. With this in mind, I will get into the landscape of America and it's politics. It's going to take a lot of creativity to get us out of the mess that we're in.
I know one thing that really disturbed me when I started on this blogging journey, was that no matter how I voted or how much research I did or the people I talked to, nothing made much sense. I always came away wondering why the people I voted for never made government better, my life never improved after I pressed those buttons in the voting booth. One of the hardest things for me to accept was this;
The Deep State.
I could never wrap my head around the fact that the Pentagon was never audited, that we spent so much money on the military and wars, wars that we don't even win, failure after failure we continue to waste precious lives and our entire economy to enrich others and still we continue to vote thinking something will change and it never does.
Now, there are a lot of people still hoping that Bernie Saunders will make a difference. I hope they are right, but I doubt it. Our government was highjacked a long time ago. We have been lied to and we have been deceived.
It makes me really angry.
One thing I know is that since the "Great Recession" I have watched so many of my friends and neighbors, coworkers suffer. They work harder and longer. They pay more for healthcare and higher copays trying to stay healthy. They scrimp and save but they can't get ahead. I see more empty houses, not less. I see people without jobs, living with their grandparents, doubled up. I live in the epicenter of a heroin crises, what I have been told is that things are getting better, but the message doesn't seem to have taken hold.
What I see is ongoing contraction, not expansion. Whatever the mainstream media reports, isn't real. Which is why I no longer have a TV. There's no way I am going to pay to be lied to. I can get that for free.
If any of you have been watching these insane political debates and not come away shaking your heads at the nonsense of Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, as if they are going to make any Americans lives better when they vote for them, I have no understanding of how that equation makes any sense. Yet, I have spoken to many people who are all in with Donald Trump. He IS a corporation, since our government is run by corporations, what could be better?
What we need is a change agent. What I liked about David Bowie was how he could turn everything on it's head, he made androgyny cool, he was constantly reinventing himself. His music kept changing and evolving.
What we need now is to reinvent our political system and turn into a system that works for the people. Our government is broken. It relies on the status quo. It's not going to change, no matter how you vote. We need to stop relying on these weird "values" that leaves everyone behind, while the few get ahead. What we need is to utilize our own creativity. People understand that there is something very wrong going on, they are slowly waking up. Change will happen, What we need is a change agent. We have that power. We can change this.