Money Is Power

Here's how the system works.

Money is power.
People with money are people with power.
People with power like to have power.  In fact, many powerful people want even more power.
Rich people, or powerful people, will use their money and power to take as much money and power from the less fortunate as is possible.
Powerful people have control over the mainstream media.
Powerful people use the mainstream media to fool people.
Powerful people use the mainstream media to fool you into believing that they are on your side, when in reality, they are trying to take things from you.
Powerful people try to take your money and power.
Powerful people have the power to afford health care.
Powerful people enjoy their power to afford health care.
Powerful people don't want you to have increased access to affordable health care because they fear that they will, in turn, lose some of their access to it.
Powerful people want you to be on their side.
Powerful people want to fool you into joining them in opposing your access to affordable health care.
Powerful people will fabricate arguments for why Obamacare is bad, so that you will join them in stifling your own access to good health.
Health is good.
Health keeps you free from pain and death.
You should want your own health.
Powerful people want you to forget your own health, so that they can have health.
Powerful people will lie to you so that you will believe them when they say that improved health care for all citizens is bad.
Powerful people want all the healthcare and they don't care if you have it.
Powerful people became powerful through making money.
Money is made through businesses that produce goods and services, which are consumed.
Powerful people like it when we consume their goods and services because it's what gives them money, and therefore, power.
Christmas is a holiday when people purchase gifts for people we love, whether these loved ones need the gifts or not.
Purchasing gifts is a form of consuming.
Powerful people like Christmas.
Powerful people have the most control over the mainstream media, from news outlets to advertisements.
Christmas commercials can be viewed for at least 6 weeks out of each year.
Powerful people like Christmas.
Powerful people also enjoy any other holiday that promotes extraneous consumption, such as Valentine's Day, Thanksgiving, Mother's Day, and Father's Day.
Veteran's Day and Memorial Day don't explicitly feature a gift-giving mechanism or the purchasing of particular food items.
We don't hear much from the mainstream media about Memorial Day or Veteran's Day.
Powerful people become powerful through producing goods and services.
The manufacturing of many goods involves the involuntary production of byproducts that make the air and water less healthy to consume.
Powerful people will do anything for more money and power.
People who breathe air don't like it when their air has toxic chemicals in it.
People who drink water don't like it when their water has toxic chemicals in it.
Toxic chemicals have adverse effects on public health.
Toxic chemicals affect the climate of the entire earth.
The processes that gave the powerful people their power are the same processes that make people less healthy.
Powerful people want you to agree with their agenda of making more money and becoming more powerful.
Powerful people want you to be complacent with their processes of producing more goods, even when they adversely affect your health and change the climate.
Powerful people have discovered that they can fool you into believing that the world's climate and the people's health are not at risk.
Powerful people will try to convince you that their industry and manufacturing aren't to blame for the earth's decline in health and stability.
Powerful people want more power.
Powerful people want to fool you into rallying to their cause, which is to have them gain more power.
Powerful people like to have control over the media so they can confuse you into believing that they're on your side.
Powerful people want you to believe that they're on your side so that you will let them have their way.
Powerful people don't want a free, open internet because that limits their ability to use the media to their disposal, so they can trick you into giving them more power.
Powerful people see the internet as a thing they can exploit so that they can accumulate more money and power.
Powerful people want the internet to be theirs.
Powerful people want you to give them more money before they will let you use their internet.
Powerful people want to control the content you see on the internet, so they can extend the reach of the messages they use to entice you into giving them more money and power (commonly known as advertisements).
Powerful people want to use the internet to influence you into giving them more money and power.
Powerful people want you to be okay with that.
Powerful people want you to be okay with ruining the air you breathe.
Powerful people want you to be okay with ruining the water you drink.
Powerful people want you to be okay with a life without access to healthcare.
Powerful people want as much power as you will let them have.

Think about it...it's not the caring people who want to mislead you.  It's not the poor people who can mislead you--they can't afford to.  If anyone is trying to mislead you, it's the ones who have the power to do it!

The Short List

This past week has bitch-slapped me multiple times with moments of clarity resonating on a common theme.  That theme, or lesson, is all about learning those people who actually support and love you.

It's one thing for people to say they will have your back; it's another thing entirely to verify the truth in such claims.  And if you ever wondered about who would come to your rescue, the only practical way to find out is to encounter peril that leaves you in need of rescue.  Obviously, we all try to avoid dire situations, so these times of need, when you learn who your real friends are, come few and far between.  But the silver lining to every perilous situation comes to us as a moment of clarity, during which we see for ourselves who proved themselves as your real support network.

You can't always tell when a person will follow through, but you learn who's full of shit soon enough.  Some people claim that they will come to your rescue and have your back, but you can't always take them at their word.  True friends will show their true friendship through actions, and others will make claims of being your friends, when in reality, they're only hangout buddies.  Perhaps the greatest milestone in your quest through maturity is gaining the ability to discern true friends from hangout buddies.  The difference between the two can be observed only through your friends' actions.  A true friend is a friend who acts to hold you up and save you from a bad situation.  A hangout buddy will accompany you to parties, but will only see you as a source of a good time.  A hangout buddy will drop the ball.  A hangout buddy isn't really a friend.  But again, you don't know the hangout buddies from the real friends until the shit hits the fan.

To me, true adulthood is reached when a person realizes both the physical need to take care of oneself, and the responsibility to help a friend or family member in times of loss and suffering.  If you, without anyone's help, cannot consistently keep yourself in good health, you aren't actually an adult.  You might be 60 years old, but if you had never learned to live self-sufficiently, you never became an adult.  If you don't have other people in your life to whom you'd devote your strength, stamina, and humanity, you aren't an adult.  But be careful.  While it's important to ensure that you aren't the only person on your list of beneficiaries, it's also important to ensure your list of friends isn't too long.  This brings us to the namesake of this blog:  the short list.

There are only certain people who deserve to receive the care you have to give, and it's hard to distinguish which ones are entitled to it.  The simplest way to filter out the people you shouldn't care for is to ask the question, "would this person do the same for me?"  Some people will just take and take and take, and they're veritable black holes who will suck out the life you have to give.  Caring for people like this will be a continuous cycle that drains you, making for an unhealthy lifestyle.  Cutting toxic people out of your life isn't just healthy-- it's essential.  But don't be too choosy, because remember, everyone has their flaws.

I know better than ever who belongs on my short list of actual, real, helpful friends.  I have friends that are willing to actually work to improve my happiness when I'm in a time of need.  Again, part of being an adult is accepting that you are the only one who is ultimately responsible for your own happiness, health, and overall success, but everyone has times when things go wrong and help is required.  It's hard to be thankful for your support network if you never see it in action, and I got to see some of that action this week.  It just reminds me that my friends really are always there to help me.  These are the friends I keep on my short list.

Thank you to my brother, my mom, Mel, Kumar, Macy, Vandy, Joy, Andrew, and all my real friends.