To be alive today is challenging. To be conscious or ‘woke’ is even dangerous. Chaos and confusion abound. Truth is an endangered concept. Lies are simply “alternative facts.” The so-called mainstream media have abandoned factual reporting for personal opinions. As my daughter remarked: “Except for local news stations, mainstream media has become an extension of the popular talk show, The View. Opinions and hottest takes now masquerade as deeply researched facts. Viewers mistakenly confuse the passion behind these opinions with fact-based takes. Put another way, news reporting has moved from unbiased journalistic objectivity to pure entertainment and echo chambers. Leading this shift towards entertainment are the politicians.

I recall an adage out of Chicago politics that declared, “Politics is show business for ugly people.” The current crop of political leaders treats the electorate as a captive viewing audience. We voters are now viewed as spectators versus participants in our own government. Fact is that our Republic demands that We The People are participants — not just an audience to manipulate. Sure, every 2 or 4 years we are given the opportunity to elect someone to misrepresent us. While on the surface our democratic processes appear to be holding together, the reality is that politicians don’t give a rat’s tush about us — until it’s time to beg for our vote. Like the Entertainment industry, politics is supported by sponsors who pay handsome sums of money to keep the show running. In politics, these sponsors /executive producers are billionaires who shovel millions of dollars into campaigns that protect their wealth and power.

These uber-wealthy oligarchs have ripped the veil off our long-held belief “that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.” To these billionaires, the only role ‘the people’ can play is as consumers of their products, projects or as fawning fans of their ostentatious wealth. What these money-grubbing addicts don’t realize is obvious — that the more resources that they commandeer and put in their pockets, the less we commoners have to spend on their overpriced products and services. What they don’t realize is that once they have taken all the money, there’s nothing much left for us to spend and feed their voracious money-loving appetites. So, what these oligarchs do is direct their political flunkies to periodically give us a meager tax break.

No tax on tips? What an insult. Yet, we lap it up. These paltry government handouts cannot offset the spiraling daily cost of living. Here’s the reality. The rich keep getting richer and the working class keeps getting poorer. What kind of world are we living in today? Ten percent of the population controls 90 percent of the total wealth. These oligarchs have all the folding money while we fight each other over the couch change. They use our tax dollars as their own private piggy bank [pun intended]. What can and should we do to slow down if not stop this mugging of us, the people. Bear with me as I submit some steps we can take to slow down if not stop this mugging of us the people. So, here goes:

1. Stop trying to emulate the uber-wealthy by spending money on so-called prestige items to impress.
2. Consistently harass your elected officials and hold them accountable via calls, letters and town halls during the off-season of campaigning.
3. Peacefully protest bad actors and policy by way of public demonstrations.
4. Keep receipts of what they promised during campaigning versus what they did or didn’t do while serving. Use the internet and create an electronic folder of their votes and commentary.
5. Avoid the ideological traps that turn into echo chambers where all our biases are reinforced.
6. Stop trying to convert and/or save people on both the extreme left and right who have drunk the MAGA Kool aide or refuse to listen. It’s too late.
7. Think for yourself. Don’t let the smooth-talking heads on cable news think for you.
8. Expose /eliminate the Dark Money campaign contributions that allow business tycoons to hide their true political leanings from consumers of their products/services. Corporations are not people!
9. Stop falling for the ‘click baits’ headlines that pull us into unsubstantiated gossip and conspiracy theories.
10. Finally, protect your mental and physical health by laughing at the silliness and immaturity of the so-called political elites. Remember that emotional disease leads to physical disease.

In closing, the world won’t stop and we can’t get off. So, let’s strap on our fighting gear and engage the situation with both faith and hope. We may not be able to get over this, but we can and must surely get through this dystopian period.