Purchasing Our Own Demise.

Sometimes I would like to say screw the internet. Yes it's great for communication with people far away and commerce for finding those rare items or those thing only available from a vendor hundreds or even thousands of miles away. But it's not just killing the small local merchants who depend on walk in traffic, it's isolating us from our immediate neighborhoods and businesses.

I can't be the only one who wants to pick up and feel and examine an item before I buy it. Plus I like the ability and satisfaction of not only going to a store and getting what I want today but also of building relationships with small vendors with whom I share an interest.

For example over the last couple of years every single hobby shop in my city has closed its doors. Sure there are still places like Michael's and Hobby Lobby that are glorified big box stores that carry either a very limited selection or none of those particular items you're​ looking for because there is no volume or limited demand so they don't meet their precious dollars of return per square foot of space requirements. They have no interest in getting to know their customers. Their attitude is buy what we offer at price we ask or get lost.

Looking for some specialty items and having an immediate need I was forced to go to a shop some twenty miles away and in a different State. When I got there the first thing I did was congratulate The owner on having the only traditional hobby shop left any where around the area. He replied, "Thank you, but to be completely honest with you we're barely hanging on." I could see the sadness and despair in his eyes as we discussed the plight of the small business owner.

The small niche markets are being, have been, all but destroyed, along with the true diversity of interests that make up communities large and small. So the next time you need something that doesn't have to be purchased from across the country and via the Internet seek out your local specialty vendors. Get to know them and let them get to know you. It's good for your community and the human spirit. Keep your money circulating locally as much as possible.

After all just how much more of your hard earned money does Jeff Bezos need? At this point he is no longer building commerce and sure ad hell isn't building communities. His buying influence and power over people. He already owns the Washington Post and it's affiliated news outlets whose despicable opinions and bogus journalism I needn't elucidate here. Now he is seeking to take his billions and create a bank where he will use the fractional reserve process to suck even more wealth, power and the human spirit out of the economy and the American people.

Fuck Bezos and the fascist corporatists like him. True diversity is within communities, their varied economic interests and social and political interactions and opinions and should not have anything to do with the color of their skin or what God they pray to or who they sleep with.

Yes we need banks and a central government capable of defending the nation and our individual rights. But not when those banks either own the processes of economic interaction at even the smallest level and the politicians that operate the levers of governmental power.

Both are a betrayal of what " We The People" means and why the founders put it large bold letters in the Preamble to the Constitution. It is the very concept the corporatists and the politicians they own, be they call themselves Democrats or neocon Republicans, want to destroy first and foremost. Think otherwise at your own peril.