SUPPLEMENTAL BILLIONS

Again, not special, right? After all, we are beaten over the head so consistently with the word when hearing about government and big business/finance it has essentially lost all meaning. But sit back and consider it quietly for a moment–let it sink in a bit.

One billion. That’s 1,000 million.

Just think of what you might be able to accomplish, not just on a personal level, but beyond if you had just one of those millions. Half of one of those millions. Hell, 1/10 of one of those millions. Even with our ridiculously devalued dollar, just 10K out of one of those 1,000 millions would be a nice financial shot in the arm (or a downright windfall) for a good many people.

Just one of those billions could give 100,000 people 10K. I know whole families that are forced to scratch by on barely more than that over the course of an entire year, and that’s just speaking in the context of this country–it doesn’t even begin to take into account the masses of unbelievably poor throughout the world that make our poor look positively wealthy.

George and Co. want 100 of those ‘1,000 milllions’ to continue the prosecution of adventurous wars abroad based on outright lies — an “enterprise” that is accomplishing the polar opposite of the above, and that’s just the supplemental.

And the new congressional leadership (remember, these are the folks who were going to save us from King George and the Nasties) wrings their hands, crying empty platitudes about “harms way” or terror threats to the Homeland and Pals while they ostensibly try and summon the courage to stand up and do the bidding of the Americans that put them there. Americans who are themselves being weighted down by an accelerated tyranny also largely ignored and catered to by the same.

Those who would write off the above as overly simplistic and therefore invalid miss my point. I do not think that there are no real problems in the world or that the world is not a very large and complicated place. I am not foolish enough to think that, with a proverbial snap of the fingers, we can suddenly have a world where everyone is swathed in the finest silks, eats filet mignon for every meal, and never loses their erection.

It is meant to highlight a measure of the true gravity of surrounding events that we have been trained to think of insignificant because we are meant to ascribe to the notion that such things are commonplace, and should be allowed to continue as such.

Most of us like to wonder what we would do with cash should we ever be “lucky” enough to win the lottery or the Mega Millions Jackpot on the Wheel of Fortune slots (my personal guilty pleasure during Vegas vacations). Taking a bit of time pondering the depths of billions (and further, trillions) now has me thinking about what better things we might be wondering were lottery aspirations not an issue.