Dear America,

The Middle

and in the middle of a storm...

America has always been about the middle -- as it is the very root of our success; anyone could make it here, no matter how poor, no matter what ethnicity, no matter what floats your boat; America, by definition, was the place where people flocked to -- if not lucky enough to be born here -- to make something of yourself, to be somebody.

In our deepest part of our heart, we knew we could overcome whatever challenges life may bring, pursuing our dreams, making a little happiness, and making a name for ones self; just having the dream itself, all on it's lonesome, is enough to buoy us into stardom, fame, riches, creating franchises worth millions and millions of franchises, or simply growing up to be a preacher, a teacher, a candlestick maker -- opportunity surrounds us, makes us, feeds us, and sustains us from sunrise to sunset.

Hard to keep that up when in fact we are being drowned in debt and long term deficits, no matter how much money we make; the pressure alone is enough to suffocate us.

And hard to believe, that we are living in an age when just popping our eyes open in the morning costs us, and dearly (even tugboats do that).

But if the last couple of years have taught us anything, two-thirds of our federal budget -- not to mention whatever our state and local municipalities need  -- is shaved off the top just to cover for our entitlement programs...Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid...while we add a tanker under Obama-Care shortly; oh looky there, the "Affordable Care Act" is painted on the stern, so sweet...

Sure, the top 1% of income earners in America covers forty percent of the federal budget -- the top 10% covers 68% -- the bottom 50% of all wage earners in America pays for merely 3% of the income taxes.

But you know that feeling when you get punched in the stomach...or perhaps that sinking feeling that we have bitten off more than we can chew...

...likewise for those of us somewhere in the middle;  it is the MIDDLE, our middle class, that takes the hardest hit, by simply doing what it does best no less, sustaining the principles and values and foundation for which this country was made year in and year out.

In my era, most of us didn't dream of becoming part of the uber-wealthy (say it like you have attitude) -- or even being on TV, living the dream in front of millions of Americans, characterized by such iconic memories as the Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family, The Cosby's...or... even on the family friendly variety types, like Sonny and Cher, Flip Wilson, and The Carol Burnett Show  -- we just wanted to slowly and surely grow up...throwing in too many lemonade stands to count, riding our bikes, playing hide and go seek, listening to Elton John, going to ballet lessons, filling up with a boatload of good, clean fun; we really weren't in a hurry about any of it, unlike most kids today.

We just wanted to go to school, get good grades, get a good paying job, and one day settle down; the dream was fairly simple:  make a decent living, make a family of our own, say our prayers, treat each other with kindness and charity, give back to those in need, and have the ability to pay for things -- especially our own Ding Dongs, and as many as we wanted -- comfortably and joyfully,  all the while building a life and lineage that would one day live on without us.

We wake up now and know that our new budget -- outside of our neat and tidy home sweet home -- is 3.73 Trillion Dollars...our total debt to the world, our world, is going to be 15 Trillion in a blink of an eye.


so, call me funny, but perhaps what is raging inside most of us, loving life in middle america right now -- especially on the heels of our budgetary woes across the board and taking into account Wisconsin's class warfare with a twist, as it's all tucked in under a single class, that would be, The Middle -- is heartbreak; our dream has punched back in ways we never thought possible; and we didn't even see it coming (were we a wee bit distracted by the school of dolphins... or was it canoodling with our first mate below deck...no matter, we are in the thick of it now).

While you know, it's really strange, cuz the great majority of us agree on so many things -- and what I mean by that is, I am referring to a regular go-to percentage point -- nearly 2/3rds of us agree on things relating to our border issues, abortion, growing threat of radical Islamic extremism, "the mosque" in NY, the need to live within our means and cut spending...we are a country who has settled into the position of just right of center on most everything under the sun.

Strikingly different are the views of the mainstream media, taking their cues directly from the administration, who cling to the left brain take with chills up and down their leg without thinking twice about it; don't they dislike being straddled with unsustainable debt as much as the next guy?  don't they take issue with a government legislating what we eat and how much?  don't they have a problem with Sharia law coming to a theater near you as much as you and me?

From Bill Maher (saying this out loud mind you): "I think he's a centrist the way he's a Christian."

And to think, he was speaking to his people from his left wing soapbox about the president.

First, how in the world can he say it and nobody think anything of it -- where are his liberal counterparts screaming and yelling at him like he's some kind of fanatically charged racist, a Nazi, war monger, 'teabagger', or just another white guy with something up his you-know-what?  Where are the unbiased journalists with a spine to call their own?

But hey, if Bill Maher says it's true, then he must know something we don't, right?  Because, you know, he knows the difference between stupid people, like you and me, and the upper echelon of class men, falling into intellectual dynasties of the power elite, Hollywood, and anyone with a PhD (and teaching your children not to think for themselves as we speak, oh what a beautiful world it is this morning).

So, what are you saying, Bill, you mean he's really not moving towards the center?  he's really not a Christian?  say it isn't so...

So, what you are saying, Bill, he really is a radical, left wing social justice revolutionary-in-chief, Organizing for America, who is only desperately trying to appear, through the magic of TV, that he is coming to meet us in the middle -- because that's what every American really, really wants -- because that's where most of us live? 

So, what you are saying, Bill, he really is no more a Christian than his own mother, father or a duck?  that, in fact, most of middle america doesn't have this wrong?  because after twenty years of being mentored by an extremist in a robe, the great Reverend Wright, and listening to his teachings via Black Liberation Theology for nearly all of his adult life, that all that time he didn't really turn out to be a real Christian by middle america definition after all?

I must say, this is Maher at his best.

The thing is, when you factor in inflation, and the everyday off the chart stress -- the middle is being squeezed, punched, and drop kicked off the boat, with possibly only a life raft and enough provisions for maybe forty days and nights, tops.

Middle America -- the true middle -- is feeling a heartbreak like no other; for while we witness these conditions facing all of us, and our neighbor, today -- at the same time, we are acutely aware of the macro-changes against our dear America; we are watching, aboard a rocky stormy sea, the very foundation we all grew up with -- with love and devotion and awe -- be torn to smithereens.

The winds of fundamental transformation have sent us all afloat, aboard our teeny tiny little barges to nowhere -- and it's tearing us apart; instead of all of us working together to keep the sails high and tight, with the rudder holding according to plan, and the wheel following our true north and beyond our wildest dreams, guarding our most precious cargo, we have let it all go into the hands of pirates (and all too recently know how real and ugly that can be, mighty quick-- as our hearts go out to the families touched by the tragedy off the coast of Somalia).

We are so far off course, it scares the living, breathing daylights out of us and we don't even know where to turn first.

We are so far from home, we have such a long way to go to make things right, the magnitude of our own demise haunts us at night, much less are we getting a wink of sleep.

We must prevail, however;  we made this mess -- we are the ones who got us here in the first place -- surely, we can get ourselves out of it, through it, and over it.

But the worst thing we can do, is listen to those who wish to do America harm by continuing to go down this path of resistance to the very things that have made us good; we must link our individual buoy's to nowhere together, you know, the same ones especially designed to separate and divide, by color, by creed, by class, or by union, and say enough is enough; even some of G's left-wing haters agree with me on this one, 'we have to get through this together', united in a common purpose, fully armed with respect, civility, and sense of calm and compassion in a storm.  What we cannot do, is allow for the middle to beat up the other middle, and so on and so on or we will sink.

"In Wisconsin and Ohio, 

they have decided 

there can no longer be two classes of citizens: 

one that receives the rich health and pension benefits, 

and the rest who are left to pay for them. 

These ideas are not red or blue. 

They are the black and white of truth." 

Gov. Chris Christie 

The left, generally speaking, would like nothing better than for us to drift further and further apart, with the more we yell and scream at it the wiser; as if begging us on to eat our own in desperation, reducing it to a nothing more than a method of survival. hardly.

But we know better; flailing about, screaming our hearts out, altogether 'losing it' for a lack of better words, none of it will get us back any faster.

In order to move forward with our convictions intact and our fundamentals in stow, it will take a concerted effort to say the least -- as already, the liberal machine has a fleet in motion, fully and financially organized, to do nothing more than battle against the true American tide.  From the left's perspective, falling into deeper, richer chaos, is good -- for it follows the charter of never letting a crisis go to waste -- while it makes way for smooth sailing, elevating the prevailing winds of change.

This is go time; picture any challenge from The Biggest Loser, and double it, quadruple it, no, I got it,  trupple it (yeah, I just made up...on behalf of the trillions of 'ruples' and ripples we gotta go).

I want our children, and our children's children, to still have an United States of America to call home; this is the time to protect it, enrich it, lift it up from it's lowest point and anchor her into a safe harbor;  America needs TLC -- no doubt, with a little elbow grease and some love, she will be as good as new -- but, to put it bluntly, we kinda have to start over;

and far be it for me to say it was our fundamentals that put a gigantic hole at the bottom of this baby -- our problems began when we started the slow and steady usurping of our our principles, the wear and tear over time and travels, the onslaught of heavy duty attack against everything of value, like our religion, and our patriotism, and our dedication to the markers of our birth -- things like, our Declaration of Independence and our nation's Constitution. And now is the time to get back to basics and bring it all home.

The helm, God love her, has allowed for the waywardness of man to rule the high seas -- leading the way for too long, in all the wrong directions -- and this has made all the difference; and it just needs to stop,  now.

Make it a Good Day, G