Celebrities and Politicians are both a bunch of clueless folks

Celebrities, Politicians, big business Tycoons and Athletes are groups of people, in my opinion, who are so out of touch with what it is like to be a normal person scratching for living, trying to make a mortgage payment, raising children on not enough money, dealing with crap from big companies and general all around life itself, that it ain’t even funny. Yeah, I know. Pretty generalist and generally a bold statement to make and someone somewhere will say “You can make any kind of general statement and it fits because it is so general.”Yeah, I know that too. So what?

The news is full of all kinds of things being reported on that , to me, just indicate how out of touch these people really are. I’ll just give 4 examples even though there are literally hundreds more and dozens of goofy stories to consider. Let’s talk about Sean Penn, Dick Cheney, Bill Gates and Tiger Woods. I picked these names because they are topical , but you could really pick any one of hundreds of them and it would still apply. One is from Entertainment, one from Politics, one from Business, one from Sports and they are all so far out of touch with reality that it is comical. These people have no clue and haven’t had for a number of years how hard life really is.

· Sean Penn is a decent actor. I have watched most of his work, although I could care less about his politics, I have enjoyed some but not all of his acting. That’s normal I think. The thing that makes me lump him in this category of out of touch with normal is his ability to adopt a cause that has so called worldwide proportions to it, all the while ignoring what goes on in his own backyard. He has adopted a philanthropic strategy of helping the poor by taking direct action. Good for him. He delivered antibiotics to Haitian doctors to help with the sick and injured. Good for him. He helped rescue people in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina, Good for him again. He has basically done nothing to help the poor , homeless and downtrodden where he lives at though. He lives in Marin county, across the Golden Gate from San Francisco in California. He played a great Harvey Milk in the movie, yet has basically done nothing to help people where he lives. Either it is not important enough because it doesn’t take a plane ride to do it, or maybe he is just unaware of the issues? Quite possibly , the PR value is not enough to drive across town and help where he lives. Who knows? When is the last time you read about him helping people anywhere in America though, that had nothing to do with natural tragedies or did not have an immense PR value? Don’t get me wrong, I am sure they appreciated the medicine in Haiti. I wonder though if the homeless in his own city would appreciate a meal just as much? If you are hungry in Haiti, he might help you, however starving in San Francisco is another story altogether.

· Dick Cheney is one old tough S.O.B. of a politician who runs off at the mouth and is an attack dog for the extreme right. If you are a liberal he is a right wing wacko nut job, If you are a conservative he is the voice of reason and the voice of what is the matter with America. Truth is he is just another politician, who is being used by one group as a mouthpiece to attack another group, and he carries no baggage for the Republicans because they can always say “Hey, we do not control Dick Cheney, he is retired for crying out loud.” The concept is called “plausible deniability”. You think he knows how much a gallon of milk costs? He has aides, secretaries, multiple offices, staff, secret service agents, handlers, publicists, and airplanes at his immediate disposal. When was the last time you think he wrote a check to pay for the mortgage on his home? How can you seriously think this guy and his opinions carry any weight for normal people when I’ll bet he hasn’t even taken the trash out in his own house for 35 years? The only people he is relevant to are other politicians. Not to you and me and certainly not to the average American.

Bill Gates made his money the old fashioned way. He printed it. The company he ran for 25 years , (you know who), has never released a single piece of software in their history that was fully finished , 100 % complete and was ready to go out of the box. What he did better than anybody else was get his stuff on the shelves and make killer deals to have his stuff as the one you would see on computers, first, before anybody else did. He never met a good idea he couldn’t copy, imitate, buy or steal. If you were a competitor he either imitated your work , bought your company and closed you down, or bought your company and renamed it after his brand. Now that he has a “zabagillion” dollars, he runs a foundation that is trying to help to solve some of the more weighty issues of our time. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation does wonderful work all over the World. I have no dispute with that. It does great work, is a wonderful idea and is about time somebody with the money spent it doing things like this for folks who otherwise would not be able to make it without his help. I wonder what they are doing outside his own household in King County Washington? According to endhomeless.org there are about 24,000 homeless people in the state, and more than 11 % of the population is below the Federal poverty level. Most of their work in the USA though is in helping schools and in funds for Libraries. I’m homeless and I’m hungry, but I can read, thanks to him? Seems ridiculous to me. Their office is in Seattle WA. I am sure they do great things, however do you think he tries to figure out how to get kids back and forth from daycare and be able to work enough to pay the light bill?

· And finally Tiger Woods. Great golfer, great athlete. Can’t keep it in his pants, and screws more than a hardware store full of screwdrivers, but has all kinds of good works going on too. I’ll not say too much about him except to say, I’ll watch him play golf, and at the same time, whatever his other issues are they are his problems, not mine, and he is not a role model for me or for anyone I know. He is just a professional golfer and nothing more. Athletes in general make more money than they should in my opinion and I have never tried to model my life after an image created by some schmuck in a PR firm have you? He’s trying to keep his marriage together? Boo frickin hoo. Try working two jobs, paying a mortgage, raising 5 kids and have your wife work like a maniac on a different shift than you do just to make sure the lights stay on. So stupid its funny and you want me to care about his love life?

Here is what I think they should have to do. Come and spend one week in my shoes, or your shoes. Call it a special service requirement in order to be a rich clueless moron. Let’s say if your net worth is more than 5 million dollars, you have to do this or you forfeit your entire fortune and we give it to somebody else. I’ll bet you anything if all these rich clowns had to see what it is really like, they would do more to help what is right in front of them instead of hiding behind a PR firm or a foundation or a political party or a bunch of lawyers. Leave behind the aides and cars and Black American Express cards and just come and hang out with real people facing real problems. In order to be called a celebrity or be voted in office, don’t let one of these guys or people like them say stupid things like “We should all volunteer to serve America” unless one of the putzs has spent some time lately (or yearly) with real people. See how real people deal with real problems in the real world, when there is no plane, no lawyer, no accountant, no checkbook and no servant to do all the work. Maybe then they would appreciate what it means to be alive anywhere in today’s’ society. If they did, I wouldn’t feel so blasé` about how meaningless their problems really are and they could go on helping people in lower Gryzbeckia solve their zinc deficiency or some other such nonsense.

It will never happen because it is too much to ask and is way too radical a thought to ask rich people to spend 5 days managing their own life, but hey, If I am supposed to worry about somebody shaving their hair off, or whether some guy with a butt load of money is spending it correctly or whether some rich athlete is banging a hooker every night, then they can see what it takes to sell enough candy and have enough carwashes in order for my kid to be able to be on the cheerleading squad.

Seems like fair requirement if you ask me.

Thankx for reading my rant !

bigmike

Visit my blog online at http://bigmikerant.blogspot.com/

I encourage you to leave your own comments or reactions to my rants (even if you don't agree with me) in the comments section on each post.

Join my facebook group "We are all tired of Bickering Politicians" at

http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=292482513888.

We would love to have your voice added to the noise !!