Fuck you, Jay Leno

The first part of this horrifically long post is the forwarded email I got from a relative, with something Jay Leno wrote. The second part is the response I bravely fired off to every single person on the distribution list. Comments welcome.

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Jay Leno wrote this; it's the Jay Leno we don't often see....

"The other day I was reading Newsweek magazine and came across some poll data I found rather hard to believe. It must be true, given the source, right?

The Newsweek poll alleges that 67 percent of Americans are unhappy with the direction the country is headed, and 69 percent of the country is unhappy with the performance of the President. In essence, 2/3's of the citizenry just isn't happy and want a change.

So being the knuckle dragger I am, I started thinking, ''What are we so unhappy about?''

Is it that we have electricity and running water 24 hours a day,7 days a week?

Is our unhappiness the result of having air conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter?

Could it be that 95.4 percent of these unhappy folks have a job?

Maybe it is the ability to walk into a grocery store at anytime, and see more food in moments than Darfur has seen in the last year?

Maybe it is the ability to drive from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean without having to present identification papers as we move through each state?

Or possibly the hundreds of clean and safe motels we would find along the way that can provide temporary shelter?

I guess having thousands of restaurants with varying cuisine from around the world is just not good enough.

Or could it be that when we wreck our car, emergency workers show up and provide services to help all, and even send a helicopter to take you to the hospital.

Perhaps you are one of the 70 percent of Americans who own a home. You may be upset with knowing that in the unfortunate case of a fire, a group of trained firefighters will appear in moments and use top-notch equipment to extinguish the flames, thus saving you, your family and your belongings.

Or if, while at home watching one of your many flat screen TVs, a burglar or prowler or intrudes, an officer equipped with a gun and a bullet-proof vest will come to defend you and your family against attack or loss.

This, all in the backdrop of a neighborhood free of bombs or militias raping and pillaging the residents. Neighborhoods where 90 percent of teenagers own cell phones and computers.

How about the complete religious, social and political freedoms we enjoy that are the envy of everyone in the world?

Maybe that is what has 67 percent of you folks unhappy. Fact is, we are the largest group of ungrateful, spoiled brats the world has ever seen. No wonder the world loves the U.S., yet has a great disdain for its citizens. They see us for what we are. The most blessed people in the world who do nothing but complain about what we don't have, and what we hate about the country instead of thanking the good Lord we live here.

I know, I know. What about the President who took us into war and has no plan to get us out? The President who has a measly 31 percent approval rating? Is this the same President who guided the nation in the dark days after 9/11? The President that cut taxes to bring an economy out of recession? Could this be the same guy who has been called every name in the book for succeeding in keeping all the spoiled ungrateful brats safe from terrorist attacks? The Commander-In Chief of an all-volunteer army that is out there defending you and me? Did you hear how bad the President is on the news or talk show? Did this news affect you so much, make you so unhappy you couldn't take a look around for yourself and see all the good things and be glad?

Think about it... are you upset at the President because he actually caused you personal pain OR is it because the "Media" told you he was failing to kiss your sorry ungrateful behind every day?

Make no mistake about it. The troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have volunteered to serve, and in many cases may have died for your freedom. There is currently no draft in this country. They didn't have to go. They are able to refuse to go and end up with either a ''general'' discharge, an ''other than honorable'' discharge or, worst case scenario, a ''dishonorable'' discharge after a few days in the brig.

So why then the flat-out discontentment in the minds of 69 percent of Americans? Say what you want, but I blame it on the media. If it bleeds, it leads; and they specialize in bad news. Everybody will watch a car crash with blood and guts. How many will watch kids selling lemonade at the corner? The media knows this and media outlets are for-profit corporations. They offer what sells, and when criticized, try to defend their actions by "justifying" them in one way or another. Just ask why they tried to allow a murderer like O.J. Simpson to write a book about "how he didn't kill his wife, but if he did he would have done it this way"...Insane!

Stop buying the negativism you are fed everyday by the media. Shut off the TV, burn Newsweek, and use the New York Times for the bottom of your bird cage. Then start being grateful for all we have as a country. There is exponentially more good than bad. We are among the most blessed people on Earth, and should thank God several times a day, or at least be thankful and appreciative.

With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, "Are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?"

Jay Leno 2007 Please keep this in circulation. There are so many people that need to read this and grasp the truth of it all.

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Oh yeah. This is great. Especially coming from a guy who will never ever have to worry about that "24-hours-a-day power and water" getting cut off because he had to choose between paying the bill or feeding his kids... America is absolutely tits-and-ass for the 10% of the population that possesses 90% of the money. The rest of us watch oil prices reaching record highs and stay awake at night wondering how we will buy gas for our financed vehicles to get us to the pitifully low-paying jobs that 80% of us are forced to take.

Don't get me wrong, I salute the volunteer forces fighting the foreign war - none of the economic crisis is actually their fault. They're doing what's right and they deserve to be called heroes, but excuse me, they should have never been placed in the position of HAVING to volunteer. Are we all just forgetting, or are we choosing to overlook, that George Bush made up an excuse to invade Iraq ("The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." --George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, Jan. 28, 2003, making a claim that administration officials knew at the time to be false) and how many innocent Iraqi children and non-combantant civilians have died right alongside our valiant soldiers because of it?

Bush was great right after 9/11. All the politicians and leaders were great. I give them full credit for leading the nation through terror and crisis. But after the furor died down, their decisions regarding the response of the military and the search for the terrorist groups behind the attacks was downright irresponsible, completely motivated by greed and political gain. Some of us refuse to see that. There are others that are sick of being blinded, however.

I can support the troops without supporting the war. I can honor the soldiers, and feel pride and fear for them, without honoring their Commander-in-Chief.

We live in the greatest, richest and most willfully-blind nation in the world. We won't let ourselves see what's actually happening outside of our own sheltered little lives. It's not paradise revisited for everyone. All of the amenities are there for those who can afford it, but it gets rubbed in the face of the powerless working-poor who cannot. The media IS behind much of the selfish, greedy attitude of much of the nation - I ask you, however, who Jay Leno works for, and who has made him the coddled multi-millionaire that he is. NBC. One of the greatest drama-queen networks in existence. So who is he to talk?

I love America. Nowhere else would I be able to rant like this. But I hate the politicians who smile and tell us everything is peachy while reaching behind us and either stealing our wallets or just flat-out shafting us. ("You work three jobs? ... Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that." --George W. Bush, to a divorced mother of three, Omaha, Nebraska, Feb. 4, 2005 ) So I vote, which is all I can do to try and change things. And I work, and watch my family fall farther and farther behind. Inside, I burn with helpless rage as the people around me spend frivolous amounts of money on stupid things I will never be able to afford, like those flat-screen TVs Leno mentioned, or those big SUVs that suck down all the gas I likewise can't afford. All I want is winter clothes for my kids. Screw TVs and new computers and cell phones and iPods. I want the basics - I work my ass off and have to choose between the power bill and a coat for my son, the car insurance or food for a week.

Jay Leno can go bugger himself. After he spends months working his ass off in an average, low-level office job only to discover he's going to be evicted right after Thanksgiving because he can't pay the rent; only after he has to stand back and look at those expensive restaurants, fancy hotels, and bountiful stores brimming with holiday treats and realize that all of that is for the elite, living a life called the "American Dream" but which will never be more than just that for your family; only then will I listen to what he has to say about America being a bunch of spoiled brats. Who is he to talk about GOD in the Pledge of Allegiance? He who has dozens of vehicles worth millions of dollars that he just prances around and looks at?? Yeah, God's been great to him.

I don't want hand-outs - I want it to stop being so god-damned one-sided. And I want the rich to stop telling us all how thankful we should be, when they've never had to skip a meal so their kids would have enough to eat the next day. Don't tell me how wrong it is to be ungrateful when all those men and women are over there dying for our freedom. They're not - they're dying for a political agenda not even THEY understand, in the name of IRAQ'S freedom, which the Iraqis never even asked for. War has never been as black-and-white as "take down Bad Guy A, Liberate Country B, go home victorious." No one wins a war - least of all the innocents who shed their blood and die and watch their children die in the name of someone else's idea of freedom.

If all Americans rejoiced in their freedom and danced around praising one God for all of our blessings, even the homeless children and imprisoned convicts, guess what - the soldiers would STILL be over in Iraq, fighting, dying, being forced to kill, and dreaming of home. They aren't fighting to protect our freedom - because Iraq was never threatening our freedom. The Taliban, and al-Qaeda, located in Afghanistan and headed by the likes of Osama bin Laden, were threatening the freedom of the world. Bush went after Saddam. He got him. But he destroyed Iraq's infrastructure in the meantime, and now we're stuck there in a country that is much worse off than it was before we even arrived.

Go ahead and argue with me - there's always going to be disagreement. Another great thing about America, we're each entitled to our own opinions, and I'm voicing mine, though I am not trying to change anyone's mind. We can all believe what we will. I personally encourage that.

Just remember, George W. Bush is the very one who said, "There ought to be limits to freedom," encouraging his staff's attempt to shut down a politically-biased comedy website (The Onion, to be specific - look it up). How long before the government actually has that power? To limit our freedoms? Think about that next time you're singing the praises of a President who believes this country would run great under a dictatorship... so long as he was the dictator. ("If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator." --Washington, D.C., Dec. 19, 2000)