Conditioning

[Flaptail]

We are being conditioned. Not unlike a monkey who gets zapped whenever he makes the wrong move in response to stimuli. Take oil for instance. Gas prices rise and we bitch, but not for long. We get complacent that it's only temporary, it will go down we say to ourselves and it does eventually but not down to where it was before it went up the time before and the time before that. Little increases that are disguised in bigger ones. We find relief in the fact that it is now 2.15 or so a gallon but the feds say it's only temporary and it will go down. Down to what? It goes to 1.89 and we collectively sigh in relief. Sorry folks, I don't find that relieving at all. I did not find 1.69 a relief. Up 20 down 10. Little by little, two points up one back then repeat. It's a contra dance for Christ sake and everyone just goes along with it.

Cars, insurance, electricity, prescription drugs, food and housing. I am sending my kid to a college that costs 44 grand a year! I am a Facilities manager for three towns and a school district. Our salaries don't go up but 2.0 to 2.3% a year. My facilities maintenance costs average 2.5 to 5% annually. I walk the college and say to myself I know what it should cost per square foot to clean, maintain, heat, keep the lights on, water, custodians, ground keepers, equipment so where is the rest going? You pay to apply, you pay for trancripts of SAT's, AP's to be sent (10.00 per test score per school) you pay to reserve your space. It never ends.

We have brave men and women putting thier lives on the line everyday in a war in Iraq. For what? And at a cost of 4 billion per month! We did the same in Viet Nam, for what? So you could go to Old Navy and buy tee shirts pants and jackets made there, thats for what. We have been conditioned by our government that this is similar to the domino theory of communism in the 60's.
Viet Nam was only seen as a war against communism by ouur side, the North Vietnamese knew it was a civil war and we stuck our nose in it. They didn't want anything to do with China or Russia after it was over. They only saw them as a vendor for weapons. Now we see Iraq as the domino in the muslim scourge that wants to take over the middle east. HA! Except for the common trait of believing in Islam, they all hate each other and don't trust each other as well. We are in the middle of another civil war now, we are not seen as liberators anymore, but meddlers. If the %$%$%$%$es and the Sunnis want to kill each other that' their business. They have been at it for a thousand years now and we won't change it. We don't understand thier culture and shouldn't try to inflict ours on them.

Most of them are poor and uneducated and some are doomed to be meat puppets for self absorbed fanatics, unfortunately we can't ever hope to errdicate that faction. There have always been people like that and there will always be more. Look at the right wing ultra-conservative christian fundamentalist preachers on tv. Jimmy Swaggert preaching thast those who don't believe, line for line the writings of the bible are doomed to hells fire and are wicked people. The hooker screwing, aduterous lying bastard is conditioning a bunch of meat puppet americans to his way of thinking. Send me money and God will award you riches. Bull%$%$%$%$.

We are being conditioned, no doubt about it. By corporate america, OPEC, fundamentalist christians and our own government. Original thought will some day be looked at as an affront to our way of life. 1984 here we come.