AGEISM AS BILL MAHER SO RIGHTLY CALLED IT

                            AGEISM AS BILL MAHER SO RIGHTLY CALLED IT

     In some places in this massively dysfunctional world, we are living longer and longer. There should have been preparation for this thunderous phenomenon yet here we are still working, some at minimum wage. At the same time, there are hundreds of thousands of young people who cannot find jobs and if they do find them, they, also, are working at minimum wage.
     Perhaps, someone should have advised them that there is only one Bill Gates. The young have flooded the job market and there's only one thing that happens when there are too many people searching for the same job. Cheap wages or the classic line, "You have to know someone".
    Job security? Not even in temp work. The Middle Class is destroyed.
    However, there are some bastions of job security. The Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States can sit there until we cannot determine if they are alive or dead or mummified, appointed for life.
   We are supposedly a democracy but we are not. What we are is a republic, that is, the majority rules and the majority has massive amounts of money to buy anyone and anything.
    And, speaking of bought and sold, there's Congress. With a few exceptions, I cannot remember such ineptitude. It is deliberate and hateful. Such machinations would astonish even Andrew Jackson, our first dictator, not Barack Obama.
   You see a dictator is a leader who has control of everything. And not even FDR accomplished that trick. Andrew Jackson, however, did. He got rid of his Vice President, John C. Calhoun, he controlled Congress, and appointed Roger Taney as Chief Justice. That last historic note happened when John Marshall died. That is, the great John Marshall.
    Jackson so hated the Cherokee Nation that he supported their removal from their lands. They fought the case twice before the Supreme Court. First, they lost. Second time around, they won. When Jackson was informed he said, "Mr. Marshall has made his decision. Now, who's going to enforce it?" Justice Marshall died and there are those who say that at his funeral, the Liberty Bell cracked. (Not too certain about the bell but it makes a great anecdote.)
   Jackson ordered the troops to Georgia and the Cherokee were taken from their homes with just the clothes on their backs and marched to Oklahoma. Hundreds and hundreds died and many were not even allowed to bury their dead children where they fell. Even Sam Houston could not believe Jackson's Executive Order and Davy Crockett would leave for the west and, ultimately, die at the Alamo.
   In American History, there is only one era named for a president and it really isn't a compliment. Want to guess? It's the Age of Jackson. I had an entire graduate course on Jackson and it was fascinating. Incidentally, the Cherokee Nation is still with us.
   Now, to return to Ageism. If we live, we will grow old. And there is one person in the Senate who is a senior citizen, independent and brilliant. Senator Bernie Sanders hails from Vermont and whenever he speaks, I still have hope for this country.
   Now, to return to the young, you have to take to the streets. Above all, you have to vote, vote, vote in every town, county, state and federal election.
   As for our President, may he grab his pen and sign the Executive Orders that could counter the deliberate and massively financed hate that is ripping this nation to pieces. Let us all heed the words of Leonard Cohen.

      Ring the bell that still can ring
        Forget your perfect offering
     There is a crack in everything
      That's how the light gets in........

 And me, I think the Liberty Bell can still bellow and proclaim the meaning of the name she was given.