So the Crazed American just put the finishing touches on a large Expo my company had a presence at. I was the first one there and the last one out. Good times. Being there I was stuck by a few things.
1) You can sell sand to an Arab, snow to an Eskimo, as long as the price is right.
2) Depending on the industry, business is booming, even in this nasty time.
3) if you are not selling product, you are charging too much. Period. If a reduced cost doesn't cover your expenses, you, my friend are doing it wrong.
4) Inventory that sits on your shelves in your brand new warehouse costs you money - EVERY SINGLE DAY. You shelter it, you heat it, you cool it, you provide it internet access. If it sits, it's shit - shit that can make you sick. Get rid of it. Take it to an Expo and blast it out at below cost, then sit back and reap the marketing rewards.
5) Ten years after the worst attack on America by a foreign power in history (worst actual attack still goes to POTCS and GEN Lee's little enthusiastic romp through rural America during the 1860's), and three (four - ten?) wars all of which are still on going - America is unchanged.
I am stymied by the citizens of this land that I love. Brave young men and women died - correction: are dying - to protect our way of life. Yet most of us go about our business on a day to day basis without a care in the world. We are more concerned with the minutae of our daily lives, than with the course of giants and empires. Most of us couldn't care less about the fate of nations, and the strife in distant lands that resounds about this little world of ours.
So it should be and so it always has been. I do not bring this up to cast aspersions on my fellow Americans. I am just perplexed. We love to beat upon our chests with tears in our eyes one day a year and remember how we were wronged. But on 12 September it all goes back to SSDD (Same Shit - Different Day). What have we learned?
We learned that collective memory is damn short. We learned (again) that the US government is inept (by design, by the way - thank G--). We learned that humans are savage, nasty brutes who will allow great and terrible things to be committed with our money and in our name. We learned that the greatest military force on the earth is comprised of a few beasts, but overwhelmingly by strong, brave and intelligent men and women, who do their jobs and follow their orders.
Lest you come to believe that the Crazed American is getting a tad confused in his old age, at once praising our nation, and then in the next breath predicting it's doom, fear not. My love of country is not beholden to a love of the system that governs it. I love the ideas that our country was founded on. I do not idolize and worship those who came up with the ideas either. They were men, not gods. Flawed, vain, lecherous, weak. But they were smart and did the best they could. Today their framework, is commanded by smart, capable men. Not gods, as some would like us to believe. They are fallable as well.
On this anniversary of a very nasty set of behavior (which cost the terrorists apparently $400,000 and us $5,000,000,000,000 and counting), what have we learned?
The Crazed Americans Lessons Learned (11 SEP 11)
1) Some people do bad things.
2) Some people who do bad things simply need killing.
3) Firepower - if it ain't working, you're not using enough
4) Freedom ain't easy or free, or guaranteed, except by your creator. It is up to the individual to guard his or her freedom at every turn. Freedom can be lost through not paying attention.
5) Freedom means freedom for everyone, in a truly free society there can be no protected classes, only free sovereign people with a motivated self interest to stay free.
6) The only one responsible for you is you and those you love and love you.
7) Be prepared, be responsible, be honorable, be accountable. The only thing that you leave behind is the memory of you in the lives of those you touched. Make it count.
8) Execute, be decisive.
Those are mine, what say you?
Crazed American, out.
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