Welcome to the Third World: America by Jim Horn

Family Security Matters ^ | 4 March 2008 | Jim Horn

[K-oneTexas]

Published: March 4, 2008

Welcome to the Third World: America

Jim Horn

 

When I was a boy growing up in a middle class blue collar neighborhood in the 1950s Minneapolis, I discovered pizza, a new cultural import from Italy.

 

There weren’t many imports around then. All of my neighbors worked, most in making things, a lot of which were exported.  Aside from modified pizzas, the only other imports around were an occasional Volvo, a VW, one guy who drove a Messerschmitt, and cheap Japanese made trinkets and toys intermingled with French souvenirs, and Norwegian skis. Nearly everything was American made, and it was readily available to hard working Americans.

 

America was vibrant. We kids could go out at dawn and play until dusk unmonitored with little risk from predators. My teachers exercised corporal measures towards classroom miscreants. I did learn – I didn’t like the alternative – lumps on my head. If I complained at home, I just got whupped for acting up at school. My teachers were trusted – because they were trustworthy.  They were honored and respected

 

America had won the Second World War. America had stopped the march of communism in Korea. With American support, the Greeks had beaten back the Communists, over there.

 

I graduated from high school in 1960 and went out into the world. I had a job the next day. There was no putzing around in and out of college for a half-dozen years. Many years have since passed. Our educational, religious, business (including unions), and political leaders have successfully dumbed down my wonderful America. They have created some of the greatest levels of institutionalized ineptitude, corruption, crime, and greed on earth. Real jobs have been exported. The once vibrant factories are relics. I am hard pressed to find Made in America products on the shelves.

 

President Truman retired to his modest Kansas home, and Ike retired to a small farm – neither of them terribly enriched by their stay in the White House. They were honorable and highly respected men.

 

Things have changed.  t now costs a quarter of a billion dollars to buy – yes, to purchase “election” to the office of the Presidency where the pay is only a few thousand dollars a week, but present-day presidents retire as multi-millionaires – if they weren’t rich coming in. Rich guys like Bush retire as billionaires.

 

Sixty-five, I have never drawn a day of unemployment pay. I work in a hardware store and I see daily proof that America is increasingly a third world banana republic trundling merrily along towards total social, economic, and moral bankruptcy. Thirty percent of my customers are illiterate and they ain’t all Mexicans. They can’t read size charts or identifying labels, so they have to rip packages open to feel and compare, or to steal the contents.

 

Politically, we are nearly hopelessly corrupted where, as voters, we now choose as president not the best candidate but the one least likely to cause too much pain, a charade.

 

As a boy, my icons were great men, real men: Edison, Einstein, Ford, Truman, Eisenhower, Rockefeller, DuPont, Audie Murphy, and others, men who got things – good things done. Other great names were John Wayne, Patton, Rocky Grazziano, and Gregory Peck. Elvis (who didn’t shirk the draft), Monroe, Piaff, Sinatra, Costello. Now, the big names are an inarticulate President, dysfunctional drug besotted underpants-less bimbos in Hollywood, an ex President who can’t keep it in his pants, ignoramus America hate-spewing actors, and rapacious investors more adept at pillaging than creating.

 

As a newbie third world banana republic, we are increasingly experiencing limitations in our consumer choices as nearly everything is made elsewhere (except for our big SUVs). Yeah, we produce most of our own food, but Americans aren’t doing all of that – in America. Regularly, Americans are poisoned by bad food that our government agencies in charge of food safety can’t or won’t police. We are more and more at the mercy of foreign producers who now determine when or what we can have or cannot have, whether it contains dangerous toxins or not, is safe or not, well engineered or not, and whether or not they need to establish levels of quality control.  WE HAVE NO CHOICE! We are getting what we want: cheap, increasingly dangerous and often unreliable goods.

 

People frequently come to the store where I work seeking a replacement hardware item (for something old, or cheap, or poorly made), and I am increasingly compelled to tell them that they can’t have it, because it isn’t made anymore, or that’s all there is available. Or, they perhaps bought something recently that doesn’t quite match (patina, texture, etc) what they bought three months ago – because quality control is lacking in the factory where it was made. They don’t like to hear that. They are unaccustomed to being told that it’s not available. They don’t want to hear that the worker in that faraway place earns about $3 per day, has no benefits, or may even be a prisoner compelled to work ten hours just for a bowl of rice. When some customers become adamant about getting action or service regarding their poorly made product, I suggest that they contact the factory bosses and I then give them the phone number for the Chinese, Mexican, or Indonesian Embassy. I tell them to explain their problem to the person who answers the phone, and I send them off.

 

We are increasingly at the mercy of others who are NOT merciful:

• Foreigners are buying our banks because our own American financial managers and government officials were so stupid and/or corrupt that they let our financial house crumble. 
• Some Muslim foreigners are starting to impose rules that favor preferred customers with low interest rates while we ignorant, feckless third world American bumpkins are compelled to pay higher rates. It’s called Islamic halal banking, in accordance with Moslem Shari’a rules. Our elected and appointed officials are allowing this to happen, right under our noses.
• If we falter on a credit card payment with just one card, all of the credit card bankers gang up and nail us for 29.9+% interest rates. That’s usury pure and simple, but our politicians are so busy collecting campaign donations from those credit card companies, they let this usury abuse continue. They even removed usury laws to permit this abuse of us Americans to continue right here, in our new banana republic.

 

In light of this, it is no wonder that the occupants of the jobs responsible to protect Americans have approval ratings at an all time low. I just hope that, come November, we citizens have the guts to follow through on our disgust and kick out all those who have contributed to our sad state of affairs. They have helped mightily to destroy America as we knew it, and their carelessness and voracious self-interest has to end.

 

#  #

 

FamilySecurityMatters.org  Contributing Editor Jim Horn is a retired Foreign Service Officer who has served internationally for more than twenty-five years as a U.S. diplomat.  He has enjoyed diverse assignments as a visa officer, an administrator, a security officer, and as an official in counter terrorism.

 

© 2003-2008 FamilySecurityMatters.org All Rights Reserved

[K-oneTexas]

Now is the time to work toward building the future ... not waiting for the collapse and then rebuild.

[Obadiah]

Now, the big names are an inarticulate President,...

Personally, I think this is a cheap easy and shot at Bush, but maybe he's talking about Truman here.

[rabscuttle385]

If we falter on a credit card payment with just one card, all of the credit card bankers gang up and nail us for 29.9+% interest rates. That’s usury pure and simple, but our politicians are so busy collecting campaign donations from those credit card companies, they let this usury abuse continue.

They don't stop the practice because they are too right at the forefront, leading the charge themselves. What do you suppose happens when you fail to cough up money to the IRS or another government agency?

When some customers become adamant about getting action or service regarding their poorly made product, I suggest that they contact the factory bosses and I then give them the phone number for the Chinese, Mexican, or Indonesian Embassy. I tell them to explain their problem to the person who answers the phone, and I send them off.

If they bought the product from you, give them names and numbers for the U.S. distributors who imported the product in question.

I graduated from high school in 1960 and went out into the world. I had a job the next day. There was no putzing around in and out of college for a half-dozen years.

The author must have been white. Neither 1960 nor 2008 were perfect, but some of the shenanigans going on in 2008 are definitely worth putting an end to.

I just hope that, come November, we citizens have the guts to follow through on our disgust and kick out all those who have contributed to our sad state of affairs. They have helped mightily to destroy America as we knew it, and their carelessness and voracious self-interest has to end.

That goes for all of you rabid "you're a traitor if you don't vote for McCain" McCainiacs. Just say no to McCain: he's part of the establishment that is destroying these United States.

[xtinct]

I, too, recall the good old days when housing, gas, food, and everything else was much less expensive and American made.

Corrupt politicians, bank managers, American CEOs, etc. should be hung on the highest tree for the state that America has become.

Start with the Carter Administration/Congress who let the foreign auto makers in here... then move to Ted Kennedy who was instrumental in allowing illegal immigrants into the country (Do you know that Americans are paying for elderly Russians, Irish, Mexicans, Muslims and Asians who never worked a day in this country?)... then move to the nitwits who pay our farmers not to produce, then nail the Clintons for NAFTA, etc., etc., etc. It's all about individual greed with these people without considering the ramifications of their actions on everyday Joe's and Jane's.

[illiac]

“I discovered pizza, a new cultural import from Italy.”

As I recall (mind getting older, here), pizza was not an Italian creation......

[11x62]

Not many VWs in the 1950s either.

[paul51]

I just hope that, come November, we citizens have the guts to follow through on our disgust and kick out all those who have contributed to our sad state of affairs. They have helped mightily to destroy America as we knew it, and their carelessness and voracious self-interest has to end

1.Most of them don't have to worry about an election each cycle.2.the potential replacements are as corrupt as the originals.

[Codeflier]

I submit to you that housing, food, gas, etc. are a lower percentage of income now than they were in 1960.

[the gillman@blacklagoon.com]

” I just hope that, come November, we citizens have the guts to follow through on our disgust and kick out all those who have contributed to our sad state of affairs. They have helped mightily to destroy America as we knew it, and their carelessness and voracious self-interest has to end.”

How you going to do that?

If you vote, the only choices are enemies of the Republic.
One may argue uselessly, their degree of animosity to the nation, but they are all enemies.

[calex59]

Hear, hear. I feel exactly the same way and for the same reasons. I am 66 and have led a life very similar to the authors. Out of school at 17, into the army for a few years, out and into a job(working in the lumber industry, which is all but gone now)and eventually retirement. Our country can still be saved but it is rapidly growing too late. Start voting your convictions and forget about the lesser of two evils. Never vote for an evil. Write in candidates and vote for conservative congressmen and senators, get the liberals out of our schools, government and news media. Give America back to Americans. BTW, anyone who thinks that sending our jobs to other countries benefits America simply has rocks in their head. I don’t care what BS numbers they try to produce to prove it, they are fools, trying to fool the rest of us.

[calex59]

I submit to you that housing, food, gas, etc. are a lower percentage of income now than they were in 1960.

[mnehring]

When did Conservatives become such whiny little b***es who let what happens in DC run our lives. We are Conservatives, we believe in the individual over the system. If you don't like Made in China toys, don't buy them. Don't rally for the government to make more regulations. If you don't like Saudi companies investing in US banks, bank at a local, US owned bank. If you don't like Japanese cars (albeit most are made in the States) don't buy one. If you don't like illegal immigration, stop doing business with those who hire illegals.

When did we lose our identity as the individual over the system?

What happened to the scariest words in the world (according to Reagan)- I'm from the Government and I'm here to help. It seems we now are just whining that someone from the Government isn't speaking those words on the issue we want, not that they are speaking those words in the first place.

Jim Horn's article expresses what I see as the very problem we are facing, and it is not the content of his article but Horn's attitude. He, like liberals, is still looking to government to fix our problems. He is telling the individual that the system is the solution.

[Codeflier]

Good post...

[mnehring]

As a boy, my icons were great men, real men: Edison, Einstein, Ford, Truman, Eisenhower, Rockefeller, DuPont, Audie Murphy, and others, men who got things – good things done. Other great names were John Wayne, Patton, Rocky Grazziano, and Gregory Peck. Elvis (who didn’t shirk the draft), Monroe, Piaff, Sinatra, Costello. Now, the big names are an inarticulate President, dysfunctional drug besotted underpants-less bimbos in Hollywood, an ex President who can’t keep it in his pants, ignoramus America hate-spewing actors, and rapacious investors more adept at pillaging than creating.

I swear, we need a new category, whineCon. We the people chose who our icons are. Just as he seems to reinforce the choice our icons are underwear-less bimbos, he could also have chosen the CEO of the world's largest company who started in his parent's garage with a couple of thousand dollars or the hero mom who pulls her kid out of a fire. I guess Mr. whineCon Horn wants the government to regulate who are icons are now?

Maybe if we spent more time creating the world we want around us instead of complaining about the government, we wouldn't have the problems we do.

[mnehring]

Thanks.
I’m getting real tired of whineCons who forgot the power of the individual.

[grey_whiskers]

Jim Horn's article expresses what I see as the very problem we are facing, and it is not the content of his article but Horn's attitude. He, like liberals, is still looking to government to fix our problems. He is telling the individual that the system is the solution.

The goverment is holding down the middle class for the gang rape of America's culture and self-reliance. He's saying the government should have *fought off* the rapists instead.

Cheers!

[mnehring]

The problem he is looking to the government to fix the problem. The government that let this happen in the first place is the government we created through our votes and our removal of self responsibility, expecting lawmakers to fix problems. We need to return to Conservative and reject the whineCons.

[grey_whiskers]

The government that let this happen in the first place is the government we created through our votes

Not entirely...recall that Bush (41) ran as the heir to Reagan's policies and then veered "moderate" as hard as possible as soon as elected. Wouldn't even hold the line on taxes.

If he had been a true conservative we would've polished off liberalism in this country for at least a generation.

And then he punted during the election to throw things to Bubba.

Now, as far as the DEMS go, I agree with your analysis wholeheartedly.

Cheers!