A Country Gets the Leaders It Deserves

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An unfunny editorial: A country gets the leaders it deserves

There is an old saying that “a country gets the leaders it deserves.” So what does that say about the United States and the choices it has made of late?

a country gets the leaders it deservesIt says that we are now a superficial, gullible people, recognizing only projected and imagined qualities in a person. We are so in need of a hero in a land where self-interest is the strongest passion that we imagine heroes where there is really only mundaneness.

Americans today want illusion — the illusion of security, the illusion of safety, the illusion of plenty, the illusion of super heroes to help them keep these things, then lastly they claim the illusion of freedom, something that we have actually sacrificed to have our security. We want a hero to safeguard these securities, even if that hero is only a play actor spouting lines that he or she knows will strike a chord in the listeners.

The founding fathers knew it took courage, inventiveness and togetherness to gain their freedoms. Americans today want their mind dulling TV and their body decaying convenience foods and to have the people in the poor part of town go fight their wars and do their dirty work for them. This is true for those who imitate our founding fathers as well; those who parade around claiming to be such great patriots because of their right wing leanings and their greed and ego based mentalities inspire them to imagine that they are cut of the same cloth. Their are closer to fascism than the freedoms the originals aspired to.

What we have gotten for our efforts is an illusionist to give us the mirage of security. A man who makes his living from gambling establishments that use the illusion of wealth to lure suckers into his establishments. The gambling houses are palace-like with chandeliers and extravagant settings. Colored and pulsating lights hypnotize those who enter into thinking the palace will share its wealth with them. They gladly put their dollars and their coins down thinking it will grow of its own accord into riches. But this is all fantasy- the design of the gambling house is for the owner to get wealthy from their money, not the other way around. And he does.

The person the American people have chosen is a master charlatan. He knows how to make others believe in the spells he offers. He offers protection, wealth and promises that things will be better.

They will be.

For him.

His ideal is the satisfaction of ego from his newly acquired status that he bought and paid for. That and the maintaining of his wealth are what is really important for him. He can get this through herding sheep. He can get this from having alienated followers who only understand themselves and no one else. These followers, once they have the power he gives them will in turn alienate those who are not like them. It is a viscous spiral downward. And it has already started.

His only true patriotism is to the American dollar with its picture of the eagle on it.

The Republicans today are for the most part interested in power (and power alone) through finances and control and religion. They like to have religious leaders on their side because they know how to fiddle with peoples’ heads and already have massive numbers of followers under their thumb through mental and emotional control. The Democrats, fortunately a bit looser with the reins, still rely on using popular themes and emotional hooks as well to retain and get followers. They are pretty much mush-brained when to comes down to a lot of things, whereas too many of the right wingers have their narrow ideas entombed in the concrete of their thoughts and in the name of all things materialistic.

We have become a sedated people, one that depends on outside substances to make it through life. Now drugs are necessary ingredients in our bloodstreams both recreationally and medically. The drugged mind is today considered the normal mind. Few there are who are not dependent on their prescription drugs, their cocaine, their sodas, their heroin, their coffee, alcohol or other such artificial substances to get the energy they need to get through the day. The cumulative result of all these foreign ingredients circulating around our blood systems is a general spongy mindedness which cannot tell fact from fiction, especially when spouted by verbally talented politicians and preachers.

So many Americans are really fascist in their attitudes. They whoop and holler about their freedoms, but in their everyday actions they are restrictive and domineering. We are largely a selfish people, caring only about ourselves and the rest of the world can go to hell. We have pretensions of being high minded, but that mindedness doesn’t rise much above our immediate needs and wants.

There is perhaps a good reason that we have the elected (or, in one particular case, ‘selected’) officials that we have. That reason is that they are a reflection of what we are.

Roger Freed
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