Yes, now that I am bankrupt, I thank the God who made me that he made me poor and saved me from the terrible torture of being rich.
I know that sounds like a joke. But I am serious. In this world where you have to be willing to climb over the bodies and crushed hopes and dreams of your fellow human beings in order to be rich, I would prefer to be on the side of the downtrodden with a clean conscience and an empty wallet.
I have a castle of my own, but it isn’t very large.
I am actually a bit miffed after this last week. The swimming pool that has given me ulcers from significant financial reversals all summer is still not removed. I keep having to pay more and more. I had to declare bankruptcy because my credit rating was degrading and all insurance companies and mortgage companies punish that crime by charging you more money. The city is pushing hard to get the pool removed, but on Friday their city inspector failed to inspect the pool which must happen before the demolition can begin on Monday. In fact, the inspector never showed his face or called to explain why. But the city did not fail to contact the bank that holds our mortgage lien to make them reconsider the value of our property and the payments we are required to make. Chapter 13 bankruptcy doesn’t protect you from such things as that, by the way. In fact, it doesn’t help protect you from debt. I still have to repay everything I owe Bank of America and the other credit card banks I owe money to. The only thing it does do is stop the snowball of finance charges from rolling further down the mountain, and then it reorganizes my finances with outside guidance to guarantee the banks get paid off. That is because, even though I had to pay lots of money to the lawyer, and will have to pay more before we’re done, taking care of the banks’ needs is the first priority. So, I am on my own with the city and their demands and their bullying to make certain their demands are met too. It is probably a good thing that I have decided to become a nudist. After all, there will be no money left for clothes.
You will have to forgive me for beginning to think dark thoughts about rich people. One way or another, the wealthy minority are to blame for most of what’s wrong with my life. Congress right now is trying again with the Graham-Cassidy Bill to make certain that my next health reversal kills me. It is very important to them that Obamacare is repealed. And why would that be? Is is it because Obamacare works because it takes more in taxes away from one per centers, and the Republican-controlled Congress wants to give that all back to the rich folks? They need the extra millions more than I need to keep living, right?
I am tired of fighting over numbers in bank statements and credit card bills. I am poor. I have paid an awful lot of money to get to that point. I will be satisfied to defend my tiny kingdom to the death as the orcs of wealth-acquisitions overwhelm me. After all, I have a certain satisfaction with how I have lived my life, and no matter how badly it ends, that satisfaction cannot be taken away from me.
Catch a Falling Star 
Liars Run the Animal Farm
Napoleon the PIG.
Napoleon the Pig makes himself ruler of the Animal Farm in Orwell’s 1945 book by lying about Snowball, his rival Pig, and blaming the destructive acts of the former human Farmer Jones on poor Snowball. He is driven away from the farm by the farm dogs whom Napoleon has taught to think since they were puppies. This, even though Snowball was actually the hero of the animal rebellion that drove the humans away. Collusion? Perhaps. But definitely a lie. And the PIG Napoleon, once in power begins to keep all improvements to living conditions for the PIGs. Other animals, he says, are happier with a simpler, hard-working life. The PIGs begin to dress like men and walk upright and wear long red ties.
Keith Olbermann in the video is very much like Benjamin the Donkey, who is cynical and skeptical about Napoleon’s methods. He also reads as well as any Pig. When Boxer the workhorse is wounded defending the farm against neighboring farmers who attack and destroy the windmill, he shrugs off the the wound and works at rebuilding the windmill until he collapses. Then Napoleon declares Boxer will only get better if he’s taken to the vet’s animal hospital. But he calls the Knacker (the man who renders dead horses into glue) to take Boxer away. Benjamin calls him out. He points out that it says “Knacker” on the van that takes Boxer away, not “veterinarian”. He points out that Russian Facebook trolls used targeted troll-posts to help get Napoleon his position of power. But Napoleon gets away with his lies. Boxer apparently dies in the so-called animal hospital.
Now, I am not sure which tiny animal on the farm Robert Reich is like, but he is pointing out in this video that once the PIGS got themselves into power on the animal farm, they lie in order to get their agenda operating, enriching all PIGs (or is that GOPs?) and their political donors. They are doing it all by LYING. Pigs lie. We should have learned that lesson by now. They don’t care who dies and gets rendered into glue.
In 1945 Orwell intended Napoleon to be a satire of Joseph Stalin in communist Russia. But I truly believe, as we are living on the Animal Farm now as the hard-working farm animals, that he has a bad wig on his head with whippy straw-yellow hair, and a distinctly orange face, with the same little piggy eyes he always had. And he is in power because he tells lies. And what’s worse, he gets away with the lies. As long as the PIGs are in power, controlling both houses of congress and the Supreme Court, he will not lose his lying grip on the farm. We are all doomed to continue being hard-working animals who eventually get rendered into glue.
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Tagged as Animal Farm, George Orwell, GOP, lying, Napoleon, PIGs, Trump