by John Weber

Created on: March 09, 2009   Last Updated: June 29, 2009

I've got a problem and you've got to help me. It's a matter of life and death.

My father died 7 years ago from a heart attack. That's the simple explanation. The truth, however, like most things human, is a little more complex. The reality is he died from stress, stress brought on by an addiction to politics and economics, mainlined from his dealer, the omnipresent media.

From the day he retired he spent most of his time either phoning his broker, glued to the television news or stooped over the stock market pages, trying to determine the next political decision, the next consumer trend that would turn his market long shots into some windfall reality. The windfall never came of course, but that wasn't the point. He was an addict. Addicted to what I was never quite sure but win or lose, the next day you could bet he'd be at it again; wired to the world that killed him. No Country for Old Men.

I think of my dad a lot these days, hooked as I am to the YouTube universe, tuning in daily to the headlines and sound bites that for better or worse, accurately define our world. I realize too, that after listening to heretofore unheard-of prophets like Peter Schiff and Ron Paul, Gerald Celente and Jim Rogers, that my head's long been buried in the sand; no doubt avoiding that same drug addiction that did in my father; an addiction to issues perhaps beyond my understanding and certainly beyond my control.

For, despite all the incoming information, despite my growing awareness of world issues and arguments, one thing remains clear: the more I learn the less I truly understand. Government bailouts, the stimulus package, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; nothing's simple, except for the simple-minded.

I used to be one of them. No grey areas, just black or white, my way or the highway, until I became a high school teacher and realized you can't make anyone do anything they don't want to do. More prisons and police won't stop the drug trade; more soldiers won't quash an insurgency. Smarter people than I am must have figured that out, but still, guns keep on firing. Why? Well, FedSpending.org, says the reason's simple.

Smarter people than I am want them to.

The website, with a mandate for improving government accountability, reports that more than a quarter of senators and congressmen have invested at least $196 billion of their own money in companies that do business with the Department of Defense, profiting from the war in Iraq. Forget all you've heard about freedom, terrorism and

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