Tag: bureaucracy

Does Every Country Have To Have A War On Terror?

by rhealitycheck

In my personal opinion the “War on Terror” in the United States was possibly one of the stupidest things I had ever heard of. And now to hear things like that coming out of India. To hear about how the Mumbai bombings were India’s 9/11. Well, frankly, they were not. The circumstances were entirely different and certainly the impetus behind it were not even close to being the same. Surely there are radicals everywhere but a War on Terror and “trying to keep the country safe” by essentially creating hysteria within the people is dumb. I know that may be a bit much to take for some people but let’s face it how much has this “War on Terror” really done for us? We (the US) are successfully in the middle of two miserably failing wars and on the brink of starting something up with Pakistan that I have no doubt will be equally as ineffective if we try that route. These wars have caused the rest of the world to lose almost all their respect for us, if it weren’t for the fact that world has simply become too globally intertwined I do believe most of it would have turned it’s back on the mighty US a long time ago. In the modern world that is not possible so they simply whisper behind our backs about what fools we are.

This brings me to India. Now why on earth would anyone want to follow such a failing model? I recently read a beautiful article by Arundhati Roy on her thoughts about the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. It is truly a well thought out and eloquent piece on the complications of naming the Mumbai bombings “India’s 9/11”. And if anyone needs some historical background on the complexities of India it also illuminates many of the reasons why it can never be “India’s 9/11”. It saddens me to think that such a great democracy is leaning towards becoming a police state.

And I find it atrocious that we only seem to be able to blame Muslims for acts of terror. Wake up, world, there are terrorists of every nationality, religion, race, ethnicity, you name it there is probably one out there. The scale may be different in what they have been able to accomplish but they are out there. I do not think any people should be persecuted simply because of their beliefs. Perhaps we should try to understand the context, understand why they are so angry and try to fix the problem diplomatically instead of by creating more war, more terror, more hurt, more pain and more anger. Perhaps creating a little understanding might be a better way than to keep on increasing radical beliefs.

Is America Becoming Socialist?

by rhealitycheck

Because that’s certainly what it feels like at least from *all* the socialized losses that we seem to be picking up these days. What I want to know is where are the benefits for the majority of Americans? Surely there has to be something more in it for the average person to be picking up over a trillion dollars worth of bad business. At the rate that we are handing out money to corporations I really do hope that someone is going to be held accountable because I find it absolutely unacceptable that there are many executives that have truly made a giant mess of things and yet are still being paid in the millions.

Perhaps I just don’t understand capitalism but I was always under the impression that should you run your business poorly, it will go under and you will “lose your shirt”, but clearly we no longer believe in that. As it is being proven by the fact that we are now bailing out the automakers along with Wall St. Who else are we going to take on as charity cases? I’m just waiting for the next shoe to drop. For all these years we have criticized and absolutely down-played the need for any socialist tendencies, yet now, now we are essentially taking from the poor and giving handouts to the rich who have managed to mismanage their money. (Sure, I know I’m exaggerating a bit but if you really do take an overly simplistic view that is exactly what is going on.)

So I hope that the new administration does not forget that this is not a socialist country. And until the base standard of living can come up to some sort of reasonable standard, such as universal health care and an appropriate minimum wage and appropriate taxes on the wealthy to compensate for such things, I would hope that the government can control themselves as to just how sorry they feel for those poor, poor corporations that have managed to go astray.

Incompetence in the Workplace

by rhealitycheck

<vent> Sometimes I just don’t understand how I make it through the work day. Now while there are lots of very intelligent hard-working people that I happen to interact with there are also many many many others that buy into the corporate bureaucracy that allows them to essentially do nothing and blame you for not following procedure. While I am a strong believer in procedures and having structure I also think there are special circumstances and there are times when procedure be damned and you just need to get something done. *sigh* As much as I love corporate life there are times when I really just want to walk out the door and never come back… that’s a lie. I would totally go back… but I frequently do want to walk out the door and have a little space from it all. </vent>