
It’s that time of year again, dear worst-reader. Travel time. Destination: India. Egypt. Ocean City, MD. All before xmas. Which reminds me of that movie Network when the guy says “We’re as mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore”? Boy was he wrong! No one is mad and everyone is gonna take it. Reason? There is nothing we can do. Well, there was something we could have done but since that boat has already sailed, this is where we’re at. I’m referring, of course, to the ramifications of thirty-plus years of heeding the call of political conservatism. Inaction, btw, is also heeding the call. I know. I know. I rant and rave about this krapp way too much. But seriously. You wanna know what ails everything? Political conservatism is what ails everything. It is that simple. I’m not talkin’ right or left or republican or democrat. I’m talking about the fact that we missed the chance to allow some hippies to run the frickin’ show. And not only that, but through the lightening bolt of Zeus, or something similar, some of those really cool hippies were turned into conservatives. (Can you say Steve Jobs?) Nomatter. At the least, political conservatism has made things very, very complex. With that in mind, how do we know that conservatism is the real problem? Again. It’s simple. Just look at how corporate #americant operates. How it’s managed? Who manages (and works for) it? How has it become part of the political process? Etc. All one has to do is look at the recent diesel emissions BS. Then there’s the too big to fail banking industry. And let’s not forget the airline industry. What a crock of krapp these “managers” are, eh! I mean, if anything represents the ills (and ails) of political conservatism and it’s negative after-effects on society, then it has to be the airline industry. What have they been doing over the years–other than consolidating into a monopoly? Cheaper fairs? Not really. Pay extra for luggage? But of course. Oh, you have to pay extra for peanuts, too. You want pepper in that tomato juice you just paid five dollars for? Those little pepper condiment bags are gonna cost someday, too.
Now that they are making profits like never before, gotten rid of most of their rivals, what do they come up with? But of course. New & improved seating arrangements. (Sarcasm off.) The joke (for moi) is that I did some consulting work for Lufthansa once where I got the opportunity to attend a trade fair. I think it was in Frankfurt in ’97. At that fair an airline seat maker was showing off a new invention and, of course, an improved profit-maker for configuring economy class seating on an airliner. And what did they come up with? That’s right. It’s easy. You just turn sheep into cattle. Of course, that was a long time ago. I can even remember the remarks of some of the corporates around me. They were joking that upright, stand-up, vertical seating would never work on airlines because people can’t puke standing up. It will also cause dizziness and undo stress on passengers. But then there was that one corporatists who always cuts to the chase. But it will be profitable, he said. Yeah. That it will be.
Good luck suckers. Consume to survive. Rant on. -tommi
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