We the Sheeple…or

Warning: Rant ahead…

“The strongest continuous thread in America's political tradition is skepticism about government.” ~ George Will 

For me there is no longer a right or a left in government. There is only pro human/humane and anti human/humane. With the latter in the majority.
 The oppressiveness of the climate today is astounding to me.

Keep our country divided. Keep people fighting for individual interest by attacking one another. Keep our people in debt. Let us have the following:

The privileged vs. the not so privileged.
Majority vs. Minority
Religion vs. Religion vs. Non-religion

People are fighting the minimum wage increase, instead of fighting for it across the board. How ironic. One cannot live on minimum wage, so go get an education they say. So we got an education to get more than a minimum wage job. Now we have a mortgage size student loan at an interest rate higher than a bank. We are brainwashed in this country to believe we are lucky to have a minimum wage job…or two, because no one can live on one. Be thankful you at least have that, they say. The minimum wage today does not keep up with inflation.  Up to 1996 the minimum wage was equal to inflation with $4.75 equaling $4.75 and todays $7.25 equaling $4.82 (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0774473.html). The minimum wage average has decreased in value 12.1% from 1967 to 2011(http://stateofworkingamerica.org/chart/swa-wages-table-4-39-minimum-wage-1960-2011/).

So the government needs its money, so let us have the sheeple fight each other. Then we can continue to pull the wool over their eyes.

My Personal View of Our Helping System Today

Veritably, this is my sentiment on any area pervasively intertwined with or reliant on government. Thus, my belief is that this country is pathologically motivated, our modern culture  indoctrinating us to surrender our health, inner wisdom, our homage to the earth and our sanity, to the corporate conglomerate we naively call a democracy.We take no responsibility for what happens to us once we step into a medical facility, blindly handing over our power and trust to a medical professional, themselves only a cog in the machine of corporate capitalism. 

    Our cultural model is to medicate and label the majority of the population to tolerate living in a toxic society. If in doubt, remember insurance companies and government agencies require a mental disorder diagnosis for payment of services. Additionally, big pharmaceutical companies own our medical system and profit from the distribution of the plethora of drugs for all that ails us. To further this imposition, there must be specific treatment plans with specific goals to follow the “fix” for the diagnosis in the event of an audit. Bureaucratic protocol becomes the priority in a paper work catch up game that requires increased hours, inhibiting the imagination and direction the therapist may need or want to go. Consequently, it has been surreptitiously suggested altering clinical notes in lieu of the therapy that is being practiced. 

    Perhaps we need to question, where the labor laws are for our counseling system. Credential bias continues to loom large as an economic and occupational threat to members of the counseling profession. A graduate degree and professional license should offer more income potential, not wages akin to a GED. A graduate program requires at least two years of sacrifice, another two years paid supervision or clinical wages, add a bachelors degree for a chance at a masters, and of course the undeniable hard work. Let us not forget an unpaid internship, a part-time job, and a full-time course load. I will be making mortgage payments on my graduate and undergraduate school loans, with a career that pays less than your average bartender. My concern is if this will eventually undermine the morale of all of us who belong to this honorable and much needed profession. 

     Our system needs to be remedied for the sake of our humanity and our planet. By virtue of our societal structure, people need our services. Hence our culture is inundated with an array of therapies, from talk therapy to biofeedback to mindfulness walks in nature. Hundreds upon hundreds of helping professionals are at our disposal. I appreciate the expanse of originality and uniqueness tailored to alleviating the egocentric angst we live today. My contribution to the healing of spiritual brokenness must be on a personal level and I am grateful for the access to the path I have chosen.  Aside from my obvious cynicism above, I am experiencing everyday the goodness in people, finding more hopeful connections than ever before. When Carl Rogers is looking at the world, it is with pessimism, but when he sees people, he sees them with optimism (1951). My conditional view of the world has yet to overshadow my unconditional positive regard for the person. 

For the People: The Government Misnomer

 "Oil prices are up because of rising demand from China and other emerging economies, and more recently because of war scares in the Middle East; these forces easily outweigh any downward pressure on prices from rising U.S. production. And the same thing would happen if Republicans got their way and oil companies were set free to drill freely in the Gulf of Mexico and punch holes in the tundra: the effect on prices at the pump would be negligible." - Paul Krugman, New York Times

My concern in this country is the lack of variety of news information and sources to the general public. 


Long before the Soviet Union broke up, a group of Russian writers touring the United States were astonished to find, after reading the newspapers and watching television, that almost all the opinions on all the vital issues were the same. "In our country," said one of them, "to get that result we have a dictatorship. We imprison people. We tear out their fingernails. Here you have none of that. How do you do it? What's the secret?"
The secret is a form of censorship more insidious than a totalitarian state could ever hope to achieve.

The next up and coming generation of people is only going to know one kind of politics: divide and conquer. This mind set has seeped into so many other facets of our lives. This is the true trickle down effect. It it the right against the left. It is win/lose and doormat the average american. This makes for a very depressing society to live in. The rich hate the poor and vise versa.The welfare recipient (for whatever reason) is now considered the bottom feeder of society. People with a large amount of money are revered, envied and considered the only ones with morals. The poor are to be shunned at whatever cost to this country. While destruction of the middle class is top priority What about the middle class person who is no longer middle class and is expected to be happy and relieved they have two jobs to keep afloat instead of being paid what they are worth in one?
The slow brain washing in this country is insidious. The corporate agenda was at least hidden in past years...the destruction, greed and powerful influence they had in our government was not as blatant as today. There is no longer a reason for a corporation to hide their behavior or motives. Out right lying has become sport in today's media and anyone who can do it better and more often gets to define the truth as we know it. Today the teachers, firefighters and police are bankrupting the country. The school system is failing us, the poor are bankrupting us, the person with a pre existing condition