In an exercise of irony only available in a country which declared all men equal if they are white, the present regime has made clear cheating your fellow man is the ultimate expression of freedom (please see Executive Order 13957). But hey, in the good ‘ol USA we’re freedom loving capitalists and damn proud of it. You wanna smoke cigarettes, knock yourself out. Wanna drink pancreas pummeling, liver lesioning levels of sugar and/or alcohol every day? Hey, it’s a free country. Wanna live forever? Send us some money and we’ll put in a good word with God. NBN believes firmly in our inalienable rights to do stupid stuff. What we question is the right of others to deceive you into doing so in order to profit grotesquely in the process. That’s not capitalism, that’s cheating and as we now suffer under the leadership of a man who has made a career of same, NBN felt it might help folks if we singled out a few examples of the price we will pay to make America not-so great again.
A Word From Our Sponsor
What’s not to love with the entirely 21st century phenomenon of binge-watching really pricey productions of subscription TV programs like Stranger Things, MadMen, Peaky Blinders and House of Cards. No commercials, amazing costumes, decent script writing, 21st century special effect and lots and lots of cigarettes. Watching for hours a day people we admire smoking cigarettes? Haven’t we seen this movie before? Tobacco use in entertainment “bottomed out” in the 1980s and is now back to 1960s levels. Back then cigarettes were everywhere, most notably in movies. Lung cancer went from a rare cancer to the most common. Why? Was it to make the story characters we’re watching on film more believable or heroic? Or was it to make money for those underwriting the production by addicting to their products those looking for a happy ending? Tobacco companies say they aren’t financing the sudden popularity of cigarettes in binge-watching entertainment today. Wouldn’t it be nice if, instead of simply trusting those willing to kill customers to make a profit, the entertainment industry was compelled to reveal who their underwriters are? Then again, if we can’t get our public officials to reveal who they owe money to, how will Hollywood?
Freedumb
Nothing is more American than Coca Cola and Pepsi. At least that’s what Coke and Pepsi have spent 120 years and something north of $1 trillion getting you to believe. Thanks to their hard work and sacrifice average Americans today annually drink 44 gallons of soda containing 10 pounds of addictive sweeteners that fast-tract diabetes. Diabetes has increased 3-fold since 1990. That was about the time 7-11 and Coca Cola teamed up to introduced half-gallon, to-go soda cups and self-serve fountains. Slumping sales for both businesses got a sudden jolt as did the nation’s five-to-15 year- old age group and a variety of peripheral businesses. An entire diabetes publishing industry was born while sales of diabetes products and services skyrocketed, mostly notably to people receiving public healthcare assistance. So, who can blame these businesses for freaking out when former NY City Mayor Mike Bloomberg proposed banning sales of these portable cisterns of soda. Hey Mike, get with the program. Restricting commerce in lethal products reverberates throughout the economy. It’s bad for business and that’s not how we make America great again.
God and Greed
How is it possible untold millions of believers in the world’s most widely practiced religion are following leaders preaching precepts antithetical to its namesake. How is it possible a handful of bloodthirsty fanatics have rebranded the second most popular religion on earth, one whose very name means peace and submission, as a force determined to kill, conquer, or enslave nonbelievers? How is it possible a tiny, ancient religion which provided the ideological underpinnings for the other two is now goading them into an Armageddon it forecast while greedily gobbling up lands all three lay claim to? NBN has a theory: Science. Today, we have credible science seriously studying the prospect of eternal life, the very same promise these and other religions made to billions of believers before us who lived and died according to their dictates. Talk about disruptive technology. The sad part is there are millions of us alive today who clearly won’t see science deliver on its promise, so we cling to the age-old promises made by these religions. Sadder still is these once-wonderful philosophies, which rested firmly on foundations of common sense and kindness which got us to this amazing time in human history, are being devoured by greedy, power-crazed individuals taking advantage of an aging population of increasingly desperate inhabitants.
Diogenes and Deception
Cheating sounds like such a little thing. Like telling a little white lie. Not when that cheating and those lies wheedle their way into dearly defended freedoms like self-defense, family, religion, racism, and making a living, to name a few. That’s where cheating and lying get personal, profitable and potentially apocalyptic. Those kinds of lies and that kind of cheating are not little or white. They have another name: “The Big Lie.” Telling The Big Lie on just one of these hot button issues got a sociopath elected chancellor of a down-trodden, war-torn country 80 years ago, killing 60 million in the process. Imagine telling The Big Lie on all these issues to the world’s wealthiest and most powerful populace. Our president is now taking cheating and lying to a level unseen in American history by wiping out the very concept of history. Why think about yesterday and tomorrow? Right now, is all that matters. And maybe he’s right. Discerning cheating from bending the rules, and truth from lying, is like searching for black and white in the grayness of degrees of honesty. The last guy to try that lived in a clay jar a few thousand years ago. So why bother? To which NBN says: Why not?