At a time when people are feeling powerless and hopeless, I hope you’ve noticed some things happening around us.  We have had three very meaningful events unfolding recently that hold a bit of hope, give us a reason to raise an eyebrow and say, “Hmmmm.”

Let’s think about how powerless we all feel against the elite, wealthy and powerful companies who seem determined to bleed us dry of not only our resources, but also our joie de vivre.  It feels like we had the boot of Covid on our throats and it never really lifted.  Life has been quite difficult; it has emitted a feeling of uncertainty, a shifting of solidness, even fear.  People don’t laugh anymore.  Everyone’s angry, on the edge of combustion, all the time.

Well well well.  It seems like the population at large do have a rudder; we do have a hand on the wheel.  Think about CNN, think about Budweiser and now…think about Fox News.  It has been simple, really.  We just took our attention and our money to another place.  We watched CNN crumble before our eyes, once we got tired of being lied to and fed a version of information that wasn’t right, didn’t resonate with the truth, and eventually sought to make the middle-of-the-road, grassroots people feel stupid.  We’re not stupid.  We were smart enough to select another source of ‘news’.  We don’t like being pushed THAT hard.  Let me be clear: I think we accept far too much blatant manipulation.  But it would appear there’s a limit after all, which, dare I say, gives me hope.

Then there’s Bud Light.  One voice, one person, inexperienced with real life, decided what that brand should represent, or ’embrace’, whatever you want to call it.  She dissed the base of the brand by asking whether we thought she hadn’t thought about losing that demographic and how it wouldn’t matter.  Ha!  I laughed at that.  Oh boy, did I laugh.  And almost instantly, that product couldn’t be given away.  Hard working people, people who don’t want others’ ideology shoved into their eyeballs, turned around, took their wallets, and bought a different product.   Suddenly we saw the horses, the cowboys, the sweeping landscapes.  Yeah, show them some pictures and they’ll swallow the pill, accept the indoctrination.  But wait!  Where are they going???  Then, let’s give the morons free product; that’ll bring them (their money) back.  Nope.  It went elsewhere.  I’m thinking Miller, but I don’t drink beer so what do I know.  I just know that even free beer stayed in the cooler.   It would appear there’s a limit.

Watch out now; this stuff catches on.  People have FINALLY figured out that these corporations need US, we the people, our money, and without it, they crumble to their knees.  What???  CNN???  Oh yeah, big, powerful CNN.  Oh they try firing some of the loudest voices (biggest mouths), or they cut prices, or they ‘change the programming’. But here’s the thing:  We watch.  Especially these days, we watch where our MONEY goes.  And more and more, we’re tired of being poked in the eye with the sharp stick of something that makes our senses cry out in discomfort, saying, “What the hell is going on?!?!”  

Oh I’m hearing that question every day, many times a day.  I say it myself.  But here’s a little side whisper for you.  I quit CNN many YEARS ago, missing only the financial programming.  But they were speaking a language that crucified MY ears many years ago.  And I know, I am mainstream.  Where I go, working people usually go as well, unless they are afraid, never brave.  They are the ones most easily manipulated with fear, a favorite spice stirred into the fare they feed us.  But what I think, I always hear others speak.  So with my experience and my data gathering penchant, I have learned that my views are pretty common, very popular, very mainstream.  

There’s Fox News.  Because of, and mainly because of, what they did to Tucker Carlson, man was there a mass exodus.  Including me.  Look, I was seeing the cargo ship turning a while ago, so my viewership had diminished anyway, but now?  No more Fox of any ilk for me, and remember…I am mainstream.  We are watching the leviathan stumble, hearing the harsh sound of metal bending, ripping and collapsing.  I, for one, won’t be sad to see it fall. I do have sympathy for some of the other big voices there whose income will dwindle away.  But what Fox did was wrong, stifling the voices considered when the Constitution was written.  How many speeches, how many soliloquies, how many shouts and whines do you think I have listened to that went against my grain, while I understood the right for those noises to be made?  A lot, my friends, a lot.  But I just changed the channel.  I didn’t have a screaming meltdown.  But wait, this is a wealthy giant!  Well the bigger they are, the harder they fall.  

Bottom line is this: We are not powerless.  We have had enough of being poked in the eye and brutally shoved into the corner by unintelligent, inexperienced people with money, who bought power.  Have you noticed how many people are not going to doctors anymore?  Why?  They have lost trust because we were shoved into a corner by the government and pharmaceutical companies, manipulated and strong-armed (well not me and not some others, but most).  Mainstream folks don’t respond well to strong arm tactics.  Doctors are leaving the profession by the thousands.  Why?  Because, as one said, “There should be no politics in treating patients.”  And yet there were politicians with zero science experience, and exceptional monetary incentive, telling doctors HOW TO TREAT PATIENTS.   I can’t say that without raising my voice.  OMG imagine Kamala telling MY doctor how to treat me.  well, that wouldn’t work because I don’t go to the doctor.  

Maybe health ‘care’, now health ‘business’ needs to take a look at what is happening to the other three giants I mentioned.  Here’s a question:  How long do you think the drug companies can direct your life if you just stop taking drugs for every change of wind direction?  That’s a question I’ve asked for decades.  We actually listen to JINGLES about drugs, of which the side effects of many, is DEATH.  Sorry, that’s just stupid.  STUPID.  Yet we robot walk to the doctor and ask for the drug that says K is for Kidney.  Oh my god kill me now.  And then I say maybe this is natural selection.  Sorry not sorry.  People are so afraid they’re killing themselves trying to live a terribly unhealthy life and still want to live forever.  Yeah, that’s natural selection.  We get what we accept and/or deserve.

So look around you.  Look at CNN.  Look at Bud Light.  Look at Fox News.  And remember your own power as a consumer.  And take that to the polls with you if you’re tired of having that sharp stick shoved in your eyeballs.