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Over the past few years, my fellow DUers have been more than kind in their response to my rants. Well, I thought I’d optimistically look to the future with this one:
THE RANT I’M DYIN’ TO WRITE
By Nancy Greggs
I am so pissed-off right now, I could spit! After filing my taxes under the New Tax Equalization Law (the one that reversed the tax cuts to top one percent earners and lowered the tax burden on the middle class), I was sent a refund check for all of the taxes I paid in the last year. This morning, I received a notice that this amount was miscalculated, and I owe the US government 19 cents!
Nineteen cents! It cost them MORE than that for the Goddamned stamp on the letter. What kind of wasteful use of our tax dollars is that, I ask you? I guess that’s why we now have a surplus in the billions, thanks to this kind of tacky nit-picking over a few pennies. But honestly, you’d think they could have let nineteen cents slide.
As you can probably surmise from my vitriolic tone, that’s not all that’s got me going. I guess you’ve all read about this investigation into the fact that THREE of our fellow citizens were denied their right to vote in last November’s election. Didn’t we put an end to all of this with the passing of the TTVS (Totally Transparent Voting System) Act? Yeah, I know. It turns out that these three people accidentally voted in the wrong precinct, but is there NO justice? Jeez, it reminds me of the days before Diebold machines were outlawed. Give me a break!
But wait, there’s MORE! I’m watching the TV news last night and all I got was news, news, news – you know, what they call ‘substantial’ stuff. Not word one about the Brad Pitt-Angelina Jolie divorce, the rumors about an alleged ‘runaway bride’, or how an eating disorder may totally ruin my life. (I have to give them their props, however, on their coverage of the nation-wide celebrations commemorating the anniversary of a certain administration’s convictions on crimes against humanity. And the fireworks display in D.C. was, I have to admit, a real show-stopper.)
But back to my bitchin’. As if my day wasn’t going badly enough, I had to deal with my neighbor who still insists that his job is being outsourced, and wants to sue his employer under the American Jobs Protection Act. I tried to explain to this idiot that transferring his job from Manhattan to Long Island is not considered ‘outsourcing’, but he wouldn’t listen. Besides, the company gave him another position in town, with the legally-required raise to compensate for the inconvenience, but he’s still carrying on about getting a lawyer, blah, blah, blah. He’ll never admit it (few of them do nowadays) but I suspect he was once a card-carrying Republican, before the party had to disband after the corruption trials sent most of their top people to the Big House to serve 25-to-life.
I don’t agree with the policies of our new opposition party, but at least they’re honest. Thing is, this cretin neighbor of mine has the nicest husband you’d ever want to meet. How they’ve managed to stay married is totally beyond me.
As if the aforementioned wasn’t enough, I pass a jobless person – yes, a JOBLESS person! – on the street, begging for change. Are you kiddin’ me? There hasn’t been an unemployed person in the entire country for years now. So I yelled, “Hey, get off your ass and work!” And he’s got the nerve to tell me there’s no way he’s working for twenty bucks-an-hour minimum wage, when all that will buy in today’s economy is a small two-bedroom house, and why should he work all year for some corporation that only has to give him ten week’s paid vacation a year?
Jesus H. Christ, I could tell this guy stories about being down-and-out, but some people never learn. Jobless? These days, that’s about as likely to happen as being homeless. And when was the last time you saw a HOMELESS person in this country, I ask you? ‘Nuff said.
Add to all of this the fact that I’ve got my oldest kid on my back about helping her to pay back her Federally-funded student loan, which requires her to repay .01 cent on every dollar the government spent putting her through medical school. She keeps yammering on about what happens if she isn’t paid in full for her services – yeah, like THAT’S going to happen under the Universal Health Care Act. “So what if the government goes bankrupt and doesn’t reimburse me one hundred percent,” she says. Sure, okay. With the surpluses the government has coming out of its ears, that’s a real possibility, right.
I figured I’d calm my nerves with a nice, long drive – which has become a real pleasure again, what with all the smog and pollution gone and you can actually SEE more than two hundred feet in front of your windshield – when I pass an old derelict GAS STATION right there on the side of the highway. The damned thing’s been out of business like forever, so why are those rusted piece-of-crap gas pumps allowed to be there, like some kind of horrible eyesore? Besides, is whoever OWNS them just too Goddamned lazy to haul them over to Antiques Roadshow, where these things go for thousands of bucks at the ‘American Oddities’ table? Go figure!
Honestly, people, there was a time when I could REALLY RANT about the stuff going on in the Good Ol’ US of A, but I guess my time has come and gone. Peace in the world, hunger a thing of the past, all diseases known to man now under control or totally curable – there’s just no place anymore for people like me. And truth be told, I guess that’s what really has me on a tangent.
On top of everything else, I don’t know why I’m even bothering to type this little rant to post on DemocraticUnderground, of all places. There was a time when people logged-on to actually COMPLAIN about the stuff that was going on in our country. But that was back in the day, before everything was just so hunky-dory you can’t get up a head of steam about any of the trivial CRAPOLA we’ve been left with to open our big mouths about!
Well, I am just so pissed-off at this point, the only thing that’s going to make me feel better is a nice, long vacation. So I booked a week in New Orleans, since I haven’t been there since it’s been totally restored to its former glory. Maybe a week of jazz-‘n-juleps will calm me down.
There’s always the possibility that as I drive past picturesque towns, bustling cities full of people on their way to good-paying jobs, through the newly-planted forests and around pristine lakes and rivers, I’ll find something to really RANT ABOUT again.
Nah, I doubt it.
Oh, well. I guess I’ll just have to learn the accept things as they are.
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