Truthy Slips

Romney was making a speech in Illinois and I think the truth finally came out when he was quoting Obama.

"We are inventors, we are builders, we are makers of things. We are Thomas Edison, we are the Wright Brothers, we're Bill Gates, we are steal jobs...wait, I missed that, we are Steve Jobs. That's who we are. That's who we need to be right now. That's true. But the problem is: he's still Barack Obama."

Steal jobs. This coming from a vulture capitalist.

Damn Queer-o-sexuals and their Rights

So, it seems that some people have been on me to update, noting (rightly) that I haven't updated since November.

So, here I am again, not even sure why I took such a long break after all the crap that I've seen to annoy the piss out of me. I think today, I am gonna talk about marriage.

No, I am not going to talk about "gay marriage" because same sex couples don't send out invitations to their "gay marriage" and they don't say their gay vows at the gay altar and then have a gay wedding reception. They get married. End of story.

Is it a civil right? Yes, I do believe it is in much the same way that interracial marriages are a civil right. I hear people saying it isn't like interracial, surprisingly quite often coming from African Americans themselves. To anyone who says that I have but one thing to say:

You have no idea what you're talking about.

You don't think it's a civil right to be able to marry the person you love? Seriously? You don't believe it's a civil right to be able to raise a family with the person you're in a committed relationship with? If you think that, you're a moron; plain and simple.

The Cusp of Revolution

As I sit here, I am reading an article about city officials jumping to use the deaths at or near Occupy Wall Street encampments as scapegoats to dismantle the camps even though, in the case of the shooting as opposed to the suicide, the people involved in the violence weren't linked to OWS at all. And while the suicide was tragic, explain to me why one man's suicide should mean dozens (if not hundreds) of other people should suddenly lose their right to protest?

As I read more, I also find that the common theme behind these evictions is the police have constantly been threatening arrests. And you know what I've noticed? Those threats mean dick to the protestors. Yes, they'll be arrested, but all the police will be doing is demonizing themselves in the public eye while they give the protestors a bed and a hot meal before releasing them to return to the damn protest.

In Portland, Oregon, just over 300 law enforcement officers from 10 different agencies were being faced down by better than 1,000 protestors. You know what this tells me? The cops should feel god damn lucky that the protestors are determined to remain peaceful because they outnumber the cops 3 to 1.

And the city governments keep paying lip service to the protestors. Here, let's see what they say, and then translate it into English:

While Adams expressed sympathy for protester goals, he said the Occupy movement needed to evolve beyond encampments "in order to get the kind of reforms we need."

Translation: You're embarrassing us and threatening our campaign donations.

In Oakland, California, the scene of previous clashes between police and demonstrators, city hall issued a third eviction notice on Sunday. It warned protesters they faced "immediate arrest" if they continued to camp out in the city's plaza and parks.

Translation: We don't like you, so we're gonna keep issuing impotent threats and preforming impotent actions because we were never told that it's a sign of insanity to keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

The city offered alternative emergency accommodation at two local area homeless shelters, and laid on a shuttle service to one that was not within walking distance of the encampments.

Translation: We're so out of touch with what you're saying that we think you're all homeless, even though more OWS protestors are employed than Teabaggers.

In St. Louis, Mayor Francis Slay has warned protesters they have to decamp but has offered to continue talks to find a permanent place for the protest.

Translation: We'll find you a place to set up, so long as it is far, far away from the public eye because, after all: out of sight, out of mind.

When the city governments, owned and operated by the status quo, are fed up and trying to force the protestors away, then the protestors are doing something right. And when you have undercover OPD shills saying the Oakland Police Department has gone too far, and comparing the government's actions to what happened in Birmingham, Alabama, then you'll come to realize, as I have, that the United States is on the cusp of Revolution. Maybe not armed, maybe peaceful, maybe the kind of Revolution that comes with a whisper and not a bang, but we are on the cusp of Revolution right now, whether those in power want to admit it or not.

Whether we push forward into a full-blown Revolution, however, is up to us. We'll have to let history be the judge of this era.

No Money to Pay the Bills

So, I took a little break from my blog because...well...I'm lazy. But, at any rate, I came back on today.

Anyway, I won't have a great deal to say today, except to point out that we're so far in the shithole as far as money goes that at least one city in Michigan can't even pay its electric bill so they've resorted to ripping out street lights.

And the Republicans still won't allow a tax increase to get through.

Valley Wall Pictorial

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, here's ten thousand worth.

Valley Wall

I was reading an article on BBC.com about Occupy Wall Street and this caught my eye:

On the US East Coast, many of those taking part in Occupy protests are preparing for an unseasonally cold storm due to hit this weekend.

As much as 10in (25cm) of snow is expected in some areas on Saturday, with between two and four inches forecast for New York City.

Protesters are raising money and floating ideas for how to cope as the temperature drops.

Suggestions reportedly include stockpiling donated coats and blankets, trying to find more secure tents and turning to possible indoor locations.

"Everyone's been calling it our Valley Forge moment," Michael McCarthy, a former Navy medic in Providence, Rhode Island, told the Associated Press news agency, referring to a harsh winter during the American War of Independence.

I had to reflect on the validity of that statement for a little while. I've been out of school for a long time now and the History Channel is more interested in informing me about UFOs in the Mona Lisa and how Hitler really worshiped the occult to spend any real time on it. I haven't been to a public school since my mid-teens, so my knowledge of the events at Valley Forge are fuzzy at best.

But there are a few things I do remember. I remember hearing about how that winter was a badly wet one and how the constant freezing and thawing of ice and snow made it hard to stay dry. I remember hearing about how the soldiers had to hurry to construct log cabins to keep from freezing to death and how frost bite was a problem even with shelter. Food was scarce and came at irregular intervals for both soldiers and their horses. I remember hearing about how disease was rampant in the camp from the close quarters and found a nice breeding ground in the soldier's dirty uniforms. They shivered and starved all through the while continuing to fight the British. These were soldiers who had so much that was asked of them that a risk of mutiny was a very real possibility. In a letter to the President of Congress, George Washington wrote in part:

"Sir: Full as I was in my representation of matters in the Commys. departmt. yesterday, fresh, and more powerful reasons oblige me to add, that I am now convinced, beyond a doubt that unless some great and capital change suddenly takes place in that line, this Army must inevitably be reduced to one or other of these three things. Starve, dissolve, or disperse, in order to obtain subsistence in the best manner they can; rest assured Sir this is not an exaggerated picture,"

Washington managed to hold his army together and with better training from Major General Baron von Steuben and better food provided by Baker General Christopher Ludwick, he was able to not only keep his army together through the winter but was able to turn back the British and win a major victory.

The problems that face the Occupy Wall Street protestors are different, but no less real and these are problems of both civilization as well as the elements. It's going to be a cold winter for them, but that is not the worst thing they face. The enemy they face is the status quo, and the operatives of the status quo won't attack them with muskets and ambushes, they're more insidious. As reported by the LATimes;

It's also clear they don't want the demonstrators to get too comfortable.

City fire and police officials on Friday confiscated gas tanks and half a dozen generators being used for electricity in the makeshift kitchen and for media equipment. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg had declared them a safety hazard. Organizers were baffled; they said fire marshals had inspected the park the day before and hadn't mentioned any violations.

"It's strange that this happens on the first really cold morning," said Bill Dobbs, a volunteer with the press operation. But rather than prompt calls for further rebellion — plans already were underway Friday for an action targeting Midtown banks — organizers said they would ask for the generators back. Several protesters said cooperating with the city at this point in the season seemed important.

OWS is facing a different war with different rules; rules set up to put the advantage to those who hold power and the only people who can hold power are those who either are members of the 1% or people who are supported by the 1%. Unlike the officials in Oakland, a lot of cities have decided to leave the protestors alone because, as the SeattlePI points out;

But other cities have rejected aggressive tactics, at least so far, some of them because they want to avoid the violence seen in Oakland or, as some have speculated, because they are expecting the protests to wither anyway with the onset of cold weather.

They know that society today is very, very different than the society that bred the soldiers who suffered through the events at Valley Forge 234 - 233 years ago. We're a society that can find relative warmth during the bitter cold and we're not used to the hardships that were so common among the American colonies. The type of common work has shifted from very labor intensive to fairly automated and repetitive. The people who have the best chance at a long campaign are the soldiers and veterans who've been trained to have the discipline needed to see themselves through the extreme weather. And, to top it off, OWS doesn't have a George Washington, Friedrich von Steuben or Christopher Ludwick to help see them through and boost their morale.

Occupy Wall Street is, indeed, facing their own Valley Forge moment; and with the absence of an inspiring figurehead the only thing the protestors can rely on to see them through is how badly they want things to change and how badly they want the status quo to fall.

But what the protestors will need to keep in mind is that, while the Continental Army had George Washington to lead them; during Valley Forge they were poorly trained to the point of being little better than the militias that supplemented them. They were citizens with muskets, but they suffered, fought and stood their ground because they believed in what they were doing.

Occupy Wall Street can do the same thing just as well.

Eight Bells and All Is Well

Harold Camping came up with a prediction that the world would end tomorrow. Well, tomorrow is yesterday and as I look out of my window, I see the world is still here and everything is just fine.

Well, Obama did sign three Free Trade deals. Maybe that's what Camping meant when he said the world would end?

Teabaggers Getting Their Lily White Panties in a Bunch

It seems now that the Teabaggers are still huffing and puffing over the Wall Street Protests. Every 'bagger from Glenn Beck to Rand Paul are swarming and eager to paint OWS as a bunch of violent, radical hippies/Commie/Nazis. And we've even got that little pinhead Eric Cantor calling the protest a "mob." I guess only the Teabaggers are allowed to protest things they view as unjust. But what I want to focus on is the vast, vast difference in how these two movements have been treated by the establishment. And there is one picture that can do that best:

Unions and Why We Need Them

Trade Guild, Collective Bargaining Association; a Union by any other name. Whatever you want to call it, we still need them even in this day and age, regardless of what anyone says.

In 1970, President Richard Nixon signed the Occupational Safety and Health Act, which led to the formation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). OSHA has been around for 41 years now and it was tasked with a simple premise; ensure health and safety rules are followed in the workplace. If businesses don't follow these rules, OSHA can seek criminal penalties against the CEO's. So how has this worked out? Frankly, it's laughable.

OSHA has come under considerable criticism for the ineffectiveness of its penalties, particularly its criminal penalties. OSHA is only able to pursue a criminal penalty when a willful violation of an OSHA standard results in the death of a worker. The maximum penalty is a misdemeanor with a maximum of 6-months in jail. In response to the criticism, OSHA, in conjunction with the Department of Justice, has pursued several high-profile criminal prosecutions for violations under the Act, and has announced a joint enforcement initiative between OSHA and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which has the ability to issue much higher fines than OSHA. Meanwhile, Congressional Democrats, labor unions and community safety and health advocates are attempting to revise the OSH Act to make it a felony with much higher penalties to commit a willful violation that results in the death of a worker. Some local prosecutors are charging company executives with manslaughter and other felonies when criminal negligence leads to the death of a worker.

During its more than 30 years of existence, OSHA has secured only 12 criminal convictions.

Some people believe that OSHA's all we need to protect worker rights. Those people are dead wrong. Others think that Unions had a place back during the Industrial Revolution, but those times are behind us so Unions are obsolete/outdated. Those people aren't just wrong, they're dangerously wrong.

Corporations are not people; they do not learn from their mistakes or feel empathy for those they wronged. They are entities with one goal: Make More Money. That is it, all things are second to the pursuit of the Almighty Dollar and they are very often run by psychopaths. If you think Unions aren't needed and that corporations have empathy then ask yourself why Dead Peasant Insurance Policies exist.

In the corporate practice dubbed "Dead Peasants" life insurance, companies wager on employees' lives, expecting to make money when they die.

And it's pervasive, said Mike Myers, an attorney who has uncovered many of these cases and helped angry relatives sue.

"Life insurance is traditionally used to guard against the death of breadwinners. This is an investment scheme," he said.

Dozens of blue chip companies have these policies, according to Myers. But only banks are forced to reveal them, and several have billions of dollars worth of policies.

"The driving force behind it is the tax deductions," he said.

In the corporate practice dubbed "Dead Peasants" life insurance, companies wager on employees' lives, expecting to make money when they die.

The life insurance policies were designed to allow companies to insure a few crucial executives. Savvy companies then realized they could also get a tax break by insuring many lower-level employees.

The financial scheme doesn't actually cost the employees anything, except, some say, their trust.

Still don't think Unions are needed in this day and age? What is the differences between these photos:








And these pictures:









Any ideas? If you said "Time and distance" then you're right. If you said "The fact that we'd NEVER let that happen here in THIS day and age like it does overseas!" then congratulations; you're dangerously wrong.

Republicans are working to weaken or abolish child labor laws in at least two states, one of which is Missouri.

Cunningham views Missouri’s laws, which limit the number of hours young people can work and ban them from working past 9 p.m., as an intrusion on parent’s rights.

Actually, they are a help to parents. Without those restrictions, you have a scenario in which Susie, 13, is working at a sub shop. She has homework and she’s supposed to get off at 8 p.m., but the shift manager needs her to stay and close up because Fred didn’t show up for work. Susie calls her mom, who protests, but the boss is adamant and Susie really wants to keep her job so mom agrees, just this once. And pretty soon “just this once” becomes the routine.

I have watched this happen with a 16-year-old, and only the labor laws keep employers from demanding unreasonable service from the under-16 workforce.

Oh, but that Missouri loony's bill is just an isolated incident, isn't it? Haha, no.

Maine State Rep. David Burns is the latest of many Republican lawmakers concerned that employers aren’t allowed to do enough to exploit child workers:

LD 1346 suggests several significant changes to Maine’s child labor law, most notably a 180-day period during which workers under age 20 would earn $5.25 an hour.

The state’s current minimum wage is $7.50 an hour.

Rep. David Burns, R-Whiting, is sponsoring the bill, which also would eliminate the maximum number of hours a minor over 16 can work during school days.

Burns’ bill is particularly insidious, because it directly encourages employers to hire children or teenagers instead of adult workers. Because workers under 20 could be paid less than adults under this GOP proposal, minimum wage workers throughout Maine would likely receive a pink slip as their twentieth birthday present so that their boss could replace them with someone younger and cheaper.

And Burns is just one of many prominent Republicans who believe that America’s robust protections against the exploitation of children are wrongheaded:

• Maine State Sen. Debra Plowman (R) introduced a separate bill that would extend the number of hours employers can require a minor to work. Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) backs this proposal.
• Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) delivered a lengthy lecture where he claimed that federal child labor laws violate the Constitution. His Republican colleagues in the Senate rewarded him with a seat on the Senate Judiciary Committee — the committee with jurisdiction over constitutional questions.
• Missouri State Sen. Jane Cunningham (R) introduced a bill which would “eliminate[] the prohibition on employment of children under age fourteen. Restrictions on the number of hours and restrictions on when a child may work during the day are also removed.”
• Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s (R) most recent brief attacking the Affordable Care Act relies heavily on a discredited Supreme Court decision striking down a federal child labor law that was overruled decades ago.
• Judges Roger Vinson and Henry Hudson, the two outlier judges who struck down the ACA, also relied heavily on this discredited anti-child labor decision in their decisions.

The only reason why these things are (mostly) in the past for the USA is because of strong Labor Unions fighting for better pay and conditions. You want to eliminate Unions? Don't be surprised to see rows of 12 year old kids working for below minimum wage in abhorrent environments.

Don't think it can happen in the USA? It can and it will without Unions.

What Color is the Sky in Your Reality?

Let's have a look here, shall we?



[Click to enlarge]

Keep this in mind, boys and girls. This is known as the Wealth Gap. Notice how the average wages started stagnating around 1980 as productivity rose sharply? Hmm...what else happened in 1980...ahh well, not important. What is important is what's happened to the richest fucks in the country.



[Click to enlarge]

See that, everyone? Notice how their income's shot up to around 23%? Why, there must be a shit-tonne of them, right?!

Hahaha, if you think that, you're an idiot.



[Click to enlarge]

See kids? In 2007, 1% of people controlled 42% is all financial wealth in the nation. And the bottom 80%? They collectively controlled 7% of the financial wealth in the country. Maybe now it'll be a little more clear as to why people are protesting on the streets. Clear to us collective 80%ers, maybe, but obviously not to that 1%. As reported in an article by the New York Times;

Publicly, bankers say they understand the anger at Wall Street — but believe they are misunderstood by the protesters camped on their doorstep.

But when they speak privately, it is often a different story.

“Most people view it as a ragtag group looking for sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll,” said one top hedge fund manager.

“It’s not a middle-class uprising,” adds another veteran bank executive. “It’s fringe groups. It’s people who have the time to do this.”

Could it be that they have time to protest because they can't find a fucking job, you fuck?

If anything, they say, people should show some gratitude.

“Who do you think pays the taxes?” said one longtime money manager. “Financial services are one of the last things we do in this country and do it well. Let’s embrace it. If you want to keep having jobs outsourced, keep attacking financial services. This is just disgruntled people.”

Gratitude? Okay, how's this: Thank you for making so many bad choices that you were on the verge of destroying the NATION'S ECONOMY so we, us lowly taxpayers, had to bail your asses out so that, in addition to not destroying America's economy (too big to fail, remember that?) you could start using that money to make proper loans again but instead used it to pad your CEO's wallets for doing such a "good job." Thank you, you ignorant, out-of-touch douchebags. Thank you so fucking much.

He added that he was disappointed that members of Congress from New York, especially Senator Charles E. Schumer and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, had not come out swinging for an industry that donates heavily to their campaigns. “They need to understand who their constituency is,” he said.

Hmm...yes...who is their constituency? 1% of the voting public, or the other 99% of the voting public?

Remember that, everyone. These people may be off in their own little world where money is dispensed on toilet paper rolls and the rivers run yellow from liquid gold; and while they have control of 42% of the wealth, they control only 1% of the vote.

Lower or Higher Standard of Living?

Shortly after I woke up I hopped onto YIM and checked my mail when I noticed one of the articles was entitled: "Unemployed seek protection against job bias". The article itself was talking about how many companies, when looking at applicants for a job opening, will automatically discard any one of them who is either unemployed or has been unemployed for longer than 6 months. This is not something that is unheard of for me, I've known for a while that this is fairly common practice and it seems to be so well known that President Obama has even included a provision in his jobs bill that would ban companies from excluding the unemployed when considering applications. But that is actually just background for the real thing I want to address in this post.

A while back I heard someone asking in confusion about the general attitudes of the common person during the Wisconsin protests; "Why" they asked, "is it that when they hear about union and government employees making X amount of money an hour and get Y days off and Z benefits that instead of demanding equal treatment by their own private sector employers they instead demand union and government employees to take cuts?"

It was a question that I couldn't answer. I puzzled over it for a long while and honestly, I could never find any answer that didn't sound like some variation of "Fuck the right wing." I didn't want another outlet for my contempt of most things conservative, I wanted a real damn answer. Eventually I gave up and put it out of my mind. Until today.

When reading the Associated Press article linked to above, I made the mistake of looking at the comments. I'd almost forgotten that YahooNews has become a bastion of right-wing knuckle draggers. As I was reading, quite a few of the comments were, surprisingly, agreeable. And then I found one from the user 1Spirit;

The point I am trying to make in my post is that we, the unemployed, are trying to hit a mercurial moving target in regards to jobs in our respective ares of expertise. Yes, we can
accept a jobs below our personal income requirements but, this only slows the ratcheting down of our standards of living. The probability of losing our homes, our marriages are only minimally diminished. Many, if not most of us, will still have thousands of dollars in student loans to pay for to which have no effective value. Collectively, this affects us all through the cascade effect.

This actually strikes me as quite a reasonable post. Why should we, the majority of America, have to sacrifice our standard of living so the richest fuckers out there can keep hoarding their cash? And why should we be excluded from employment because we can't find work in an economy where 65 year-old's are still working full time and unemployment is still hovering around 9%? And then I find some oh-so intelligent [/sarcasm] replies to this post.

Jim
Your standard of living? Are you kidding me. You are worried about the pride of losing your standard of living.Get out there and get a job and take care of your family. If they don't have a job in your area, move. You do what you have to to take care of your family you idiot. You lazy moron, get out there and go to work. Do anything you can. Businesses hire people that are willing to do what ever it takes. I delivered pizzas when I had to. My son told me the other day, Dad, you taught me a valuable lesson with that. The pride is in taking care of your family. You can't accept a job that is below your personal income requirements. You lazy sot. And your spouse buys that crap? I paid every dime of my son's tuition and housing because I worked second jobs. I had yard sales, I did what it took because that is who I am. You are part of what is wrong with this nation now, it does not meet your personal income requirements and ratchets down your standard of living. You moron. You voted for Obama didn't you.

Charles B
Took a job that pays less than 1/2 of what I was used to being paid.... it is a regular paycheck.

I then cut out completely ANY AND ALL entertainment expense. I no longer have steak for Dinner (maybe 1 X /month). There is about 50X of ground beef in the feezer, and some chicken breast.
Before I lost my job and took the new one, I hadn't had a hamburger at home in ayear.... Now it is on the table 3 of 5 nights, disguised as manwich or salsbury steak..... or tacos or what have you.

SO I stepped down on all of my standards of living to be able to SUPPORT MY FAMILY!

I have "NO" sympathy for any of you that will not take something less to delay to lowering of the standard of living. GROW UP..... HAVE PRIDE.... ANS SUPPORT YOURSELF. We went from a 4 BR 3BA home that had 4.5 acres of land to a 3 BR 2 BA home that looks like a shack.... and well... it protects us from the elements. BUT WE DID IT!

BTW; I have TWO DEGREES.... and I am working in a field that only mildly corresponds to one of them..... BUT I AM WORKING!!!!! Adapt and overcome- stop being a poor pitiful pearl that expects others to supply your life's needs. YOU ARE AN AMERICAN.... You have the opportunity to succeed and fail.... now that you have had the failure, pull up your pants get on your shoes, and get back up on that first rung and begin moving back up...... IT CAN BE DONE BY EVERYONE BUT THE ENTITLED!
Stop hating those who have made it (RIch)- Stop demanding that they pay more so that you can continue to work less....... GET UP AND REACH FOR IT.... expect many steps, expect to have to give things up, expect to have to struggle.... expect to wonder what is happening next week...... but above all do not allow the government to take away that freedom!

Kevin E
I gotta cut my standard of living! Oh noes! Really? Well here's a dose of reality for you, sometimes when times get rough you have to cut out things that aren't necessary so you make ends meet until you can afford the luxuries. That's the problem with Americans today, they can't make cuts themselves and survive without nanny government to look out for them.

Ilona
The good jobs are long gone sorry that is the reality right now, get off your high horse and work a crappy job like most everyone else does before they all disappear too. maybe good jobs will return maybe not, whining won't help

I read these and went off to get dinner started. As I was heading to the kitchen I has a eureka moment. People don't want to admit that they are being taken advantage of. To see others who are fairly well off but not in the top 5% of income earners seems to gall them. Another person who is doing fairly well off but by no means rich seems to be an insult to those who're pissed off at their crappy job but can't seem to grow the stones needed to demand better conditions.

This is the sort of thing I find to be not only really sad, but is also an insight into why people will actively vote against their own interests by, among other things, supporting union busting legislation.

One Demand

One of the biggest questions about the Occupy Wall Street is; "What is their one demand?" It seems a lot of people *coughrepublicanscough* just can't understand why all these people are pissed off enough to get out and protest, much less protest without having a specific reason in mind. But it seems to be difficult for them to understand that you can protest injustice, even if you don't know exactly what that injustice is. Only, these protestors do know what injustice they're facing; greed.

We are living in an era where the vast majority of wealth in the USA is controlled by an insultingly small number of people. Over 95% of Americans are struggling to make ends meet, many aren't. People are going to college, coming out with crushing debt and finding out that if they're lucky enough to find a job it won't likely be much better than minimum wage. And gods help them if they have to use a credit card to buy anything. In many cases people are only able to pay the minimum, but often the monthly minimum is less than the fees and interest rates so even though they're paying, they're finding their owed balance growing. But while people are being bled dry of everything they own, the banks aren't exactly crying in their beer knowing that some poor (literally) sap out there will be paying them off for the rest of their lives.

How bad does it have to get when you have lawyers telling you to just stop paying credit card companies?

The way the fees are now imposed, "people would be better off if they stopped paying" once they get in over their heads, said T. Bentley Leonard, a North Carolina bankruptcy attorney . Once you stop paying, creditors write off the debt and sell it to a debt collector. "They may harass you, but your balance doesn't keep rising. That's the irony."

Now we have an influx of people getting out of college and can only buy food on credit and they're quickly finding out they're likely worse off than if they're just stuck with a high school education; by and large the only jobs out there are low-level minimum wage jobs which they can't get hired for because they're "overqualified" and it's hard to find work in their field because they don't have enough experience. They're caught in an endless cycle of You're-Fucked.

Now add insult to injury; the wealthiest people in the country are sitting on trillions of dollars and a rich republican congressmen is whining that he only has $400K ($400,000) a year left to live on after taxes and expenses. Cry me a motherfucking river, he's got it so hard, doesn't he?

Contrast that with 13 year old Allison who's parents can't afford for her to see a doctor after showing signs of Schizophrenia and whom has been hiding her need for sleeping pills and going without enough food because she knows just how poor her family is. No kid should ever have to face that kind of reality, much less before they've finished middle school.

This is supposed to be the greatest, richest country on earth so how can we allow our kids to go hungry and without medical care?

So what is the One Demand from Occupy Wall Street? They'll release lists of their demands, but whatever it is, it will be variations on the same thing; we want economic security.

I never believed in the American Dream, but it is still shocking to see that people are perusing it overseas. In a first world nation like America, nobody should ever have to work two jobs and still have to resort to prostitution to make ends meet. No one should ever have to work 80 and 90 hours a week just to pay for their own chemotherapy.

That is the One Demand; we want this injustice to stop. How can any government leader or millionaire look at themselves in the mirror and not be horrified by what they see when things are allowed to become this bad?

Burn Bright and Flicker Out

According to The Daily Beast by way of Yahoor News, it seems that the rage that has driven the Teabaggers so far is fizzling out. This alone is enough to make me laugh, and when all is said and done, I'm not surprised. On another forum I frequent, a member there by the name of Sandman made a very concise and, to my opinion, insightful post explaining why the Tea Party as it stands now will not last. Well written as it is, I want to call attention to the third reason he gives:

Reason 3: It is a political movement based on anger.

You can get a lot of stuff done in politics when you get people pissed off at something. What you can't do is maintain that long term. Political motivation by anger is a lot like shock comedy, you have to keep topping yourself in order to keep the momentum going. What all shock comedians eventually discover, and what the Tea Party will eventually discover, is that you can't keep escalating things forever. Eventually you will get to the point where you simply can't go any further without appearing genuinely insane even to the most hardened of your followers, and the momentum falls apart.

In order to keep the anger-momentum going, the Tea Party has been reduced to incitement, exaggeration, and bald-faced lies to keep people pissed. Everything from "death-panels" to Obama "not being born in the USA" to Obama is a "socialist" to the blatant lie that Americans are being taxed to death. None of it is true, but that doesn't matter. The Tea Party "leaders" don't even care if these things are true, that's not the point. The point is that these lies can be used to keep the rank-and-file Tea Party member frothing at the mouth with righteous fury.

The Tea Party is based on anger, and while this is effective in the short-term, is impossible to maintain in the long run.

Shortly after that, another member, gyeonghwa, was kind enough to share an article he found on the New York Times.

But in fact the Tea Party is increasingly swimming against the tide of public opinion: among most Americans, even before the furor over the debt limit, its brand was becoming toxic. To embrace the Tea Party carries great political risk for Republicans, but perhaps not for the reason you might think.

Polls show that disapproval of the Tea Party is climbing. In April 2010, a New York Times/CBS News survey found that 18 percent of Americans had an unfavorable opinion of it, 21 percent had a favorable opinion and 46 percent had not heard enough. Now, 14 months later, Tea Party supporters have slipped to 20 percent, while their opponents have more than doubled, to 40 percent. Of course, politicians of all stripes are not faring well among the public these days. But in data we have recently collected, the Tea Party ranks lower than any of the 23 other groups we asked about — lower than both Republicans and Democrats. It is even less popular than much maligned groups like “atheists” and “Muslims.” Interestingly, one group that approaches it in unpopularity is the Christian Right.

More and more I am seeing signs that the Teabaggers are ringing their own death knell. They're trying to go in a direction that the majority of Americans don't want, and a lot of the people who voted for them didn't realize. But what I fear right now is the damage they'll inflict before they finally flicker and die. Do I think they're malicious? Not intentionally. Do I think they're mentally unhinged? The evidence is getting more difficult to ignore.

Consider for a moment this article from the Southern Poverty Law Center:

A new Tea Party group in Florida is boldly going where no Tea Parties have gone before – space.

Tea Party in Space, an offshoot of the South Florida Tea Party, is, of all things, pushing to end the government’s supposed monopoly on space exploration.

“Our goal is nothing less than the expansion of American civilization into the solar system,” says the group’s platform. “We must return to traditional American free-market principles to expand permanently into space.”

Tea Party in Space is complaining that, as its founder Andrew Gasser said, “NASA is being forced to fund programs that are behind schedule and ridiculously over budget.” But that’s not all. Gasser sees a great ideological principle here: “It is socialism when you have the government coming down and saying, ‘this is what we want to build, and this is how we want you to build it.’”

According to Tea Party in Space logic, the Erie Canal, Hoover Dam, our national highway system, and Mount Rushmore are all just examples of unnecessary government socialism.

Of course, Tea Party in Space has a rock-solid standard bearer, proudly noted in its “Core Values”: “I am a child of Ronald Regan [sic], Ronaldus Magnus. ”

Houston, we have a problem.

As NASA recounted in its statement in honor of Reagan’s death in 2004, “President Reagan spoke … about how the shuttles were the modern day equivalent of the Yankee Clipper ships that opened new horizons for our young nation.” In his 1984 State of the Union Address, the statement continues, Reagan “announced plans for a permanent human presence in space with the construction of a space station, and he tasked NASA to including the international community to be part of a project designed for the benefit of everyone on Earth.”

But it seems the intellectual disconnect doesn't end at the Final Frontier. Teabagger and GOP favorite (and sane person's favorite chimp) Michelle Bachmann has shown us that there is an aspect of ignorant and malicious thinking when she made it a point to block anti-gay bullying legislation for public schools in her district. The result of that? Let Mother Jones tell you:

The first was TJ. Then came Samantha, Aaron, Nick, and Kevin. Over the past two years, a total of nine teenagers have committed suicide in a Minnesota school district represented by Rep. Michele Bachmann—the latest in May—and many more students have attempted to take their lives. State public health officials have labeled the area a "suicide contagion area" because of the unusually high death rate.

Some of the victims were gay, or perceived to be by their classmates, and many were reportedly bullied. And the anti-gay activists who are some of the congresswoman's closest allies stand accused of blocking an effective response to the crisis and fostering a climate of intolerance that allowed bullying to flourish. Bachmann, meanwhile, has been uncharacteristically silent on the tragic deaths that have roiled her district—including the high school that she attended.

Bachmann, who began her political career as an education activist, has described gay rights as an "earthquake issue," and she and her allies have made public schools the front lines of their fight against the "homosexual agenda." They have opposed efforts in the state to promote tolerance for gays and lesbians in the classroom, seeing such initiatives as a way of allowing gays to recruit impressionable youths into an unhealthy and un-Christian lifestyle.

Later on, we get this:

As civil rights groups have pushed the Minnesota school district to do more to increase tolerance of LGBT students, conservative religious groups fought to keep them away from public schools. After Samantha's suicide and several others, students in Anoka-Hennepin schools participated in the Day of Silence. The event, organized by the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network, encourages kids to remain silent for the day in recognition of the effect of anti-gay bullying and harassment. In response, religious activists took up the "Day of Truth" an event championed by the "ex-gay ministry" Exodus International that's usually held the day before the Day of Silence. Students who participated were encouraged to engage their classmates in discussions of homosexuality from a Christian perspective.

Fifteen-year-old Justin Aaberg appears to have been one of the targets of this initiative. One day last year Justin came home and told his mom, Tammy, that another student had told him he would to go to hell because he was gay. "That did something to his brain," she says. He hanged himself in his bedroom last summer. Only after his suicide did Tammy learn that the Parents Action League had reportedly worked with area churches to hand out T-shirts promoting the "Day of Truth" to students at his high school (which is also Bachmann's alma mater). The students were also instructed to "preach to the gay kids," Aaberg says. (No one from the Parents Action League responded to a request for comment.)

A favorite cry of these people has been "What about the children?!" Well, the children are killing themselves because they're not accepted for who they are and you're not just doing nothing to change that, you're obstructing efforts to reach out to these kids.

These are the sorts of things I am talking about. I have no doubt that the Teabaggers will die out, likely they'll fade into a distant memory as the Baby Boomers start dying off. But I am scared, very scared, of what they will do before then.

Fight for the Future or Watch NASCAR?

The following is a repost from an entry I made on the IrregularTimes guestbook.

---

I'm quirky. I'm one of those rare and elusive creatures known to anthropologists as a Gun Toting Liberal (guntotus liberus).

Something I have wanted for years is to own an AR-15 rifle but I have never been in a financial position to acquire one of my own. Hopefully, I would be able to build one from one of the many kits available online. My financial position recently changed and I ordered a stripped AR-15 lower receiver online and then waited for the company to ship it to my local FFL dealer so I could fill out the forums and have my background checked and be all legal.

This was happening during the debt ceiling debate, during which I saw the Teabaggers on capitol hill basically taking America hostage and threatening to kill said hostage. As the days turned into weeks of this, I occasionally found myself thinking: "I better hurry up and build that AR-15 before these idiots destroy the economy and I have to end up shooting things for food."

Well, they didn't blow Uncle Sam's head off, thanks to Obama snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Not long ago, I put in an order for a full length AR-15 kit and am waiting for it to be shipped. Now, I've taken the time to look at these people, their actions, their mentality, their goals and I find myself thinking; "I better hurry up and build that AR-15 before these fuckers trigger the civil war they want so badly."

And then I remember Americans are too apathetic to actually take up arms, so I go look at what else is on TV.

Teabagger Default

I've been hearing a lot of talk about how the Teabaggers actually want the government to default on it's debts rather than raise taxes on the rich. And if they do raise taxes in one spot, they better cut them in another so government revenue stagnates. And you know what?

I hope they get the default they want. I hope the Republicans keep screaming No and the government defaults for the first time in history. And then I hope these old, wrinkly, shriveled up prunes see their social security checks stop coming, their medicare stops getting paid for, their disability checks dry up. I want to see them suddenly stripped of all these government programs they take for granted and are left flapping in the breeze by the same party they'll support until their dying, oxygen-tanked breath escapes their bearded lips as the Republican bus runs them over.

And then I'll laugh as they blame Obama.

Read My Lips! New Taxes!

So, it looks like Republican leader Boner Boehner and the rest of the Reich Wing are going to stomp their feet and hold their breath and allow the government to go into default to prove...what? That spending is out of control? That we "can't afford" new taxes? That they are somehow anything other than a hollow shell of their once touted "Fiscal Responsibility" former selves? And isn't saying that we "can't afford new taxes" like saying "I'm dying of thirst, so don't give me any water"?

It's well known that the goal in spending cuts has been knocked back from $4 Trillion to around $2 Trillion but every time the Democrats try to kick up taxes a little bit, the Republicans swell up with a Holier Than Thou morality and refuse to even consider it without more spending cuts. Now they're wanting to pick away at Medicare and Social Security.

My question is, where was this morality when funding the wars overseas came up? Those always got rubber stamps. In fact, any time the military asks for more money then it gets a rubber stamp. Hell, the Marines have asked Congress to kill development funding for the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) and when Defense Secretary Robert Gates agreed with them, the Republicans fought it. The EFV is a concept dating back to the '80's and didn't start getting underway until the '90's. It is a concept who's time has come and gone, the Military knows the EFV is something that was conceived of during the Cold War and designed when computers were in their adolescence. The simple fact is that it has no purpose on a battlefield in 2011 and if that weren't bad enough, it was projected to cost $15.9 billion dollars a unit. Why would the party of "fiscal responsibility" and "spending cuts" want to fight that cancellation?

And why are Republicans now acting like raising the debt ceiling is some kind of unthinkable notion when they voted to raise it 19 times and actually got it raised 7 times. So, who pays for Republican short-sightedness? It seems we will with yet another recession. Of course, you know what else we can do to avoid this? Eliminate the fucking tax breaks for the rich that the Republicans kicked and screamed for until they got. Without those, we wouldn't be in nearly as bad a situation as we are now. Or maybe, ya know, just returning taxes to what they were under Clinton? Or taxing luxury items, like yachts and things of that sort?

You know, I think the Republicans do, in fact, hate America.

Shallow Voting

There are a whole list of reasons to vote for or against a political candidate. For example, if they have a voting record you don't agree with, or if their ideals strike you as close to the ones you hold, or even if (and I dislike this reason) you perceive them as the lesser of two evils.

Now, while I can't say I know a whole lot about about his ideals and voting history (because I don't know of either), at this stage, I've probably found the most shallow reason ever to vote against a candidate. I am talking about Republican presidential candidate Thaddeus McCotter.



I can't bring myself to vote for a candidate who looks that much like Vladimir Putin.



I told you it was shallow, didn't I?

Florida and the 19th Amendment

Wow. Florida, thank you for making Oklahoma seem a little less fucked in the head.

According to the Angry Black Lady Chronicles via the Miami Herald, the Florida legislature introduced HB 1355. They claim it's to help strengthen election laws but if you actually care enough to take a little peek at the text of the bill, you'll find a couple of interesting tid-bits, such as:

Any voter who has moved and shows up at a polling site with evidence of the new address would also be forced to use a provisional ballot even though county elections supervisors now have access to a statewide voter database, created back in 2003, that can easily confirm a voter’s change of name or address.

Why would they have that little part in the bill if it wasn't to try and screw potential voters. This part really isn't that new, considering I believe Illinois has tried this at least once before (according to at least one bit of anecdotal evidence, I recall reading something more reliable a while back, but I can't seem to find it). Another part that is rather disturbing is:

Volunteers, who now can help resolve legal issues for individual voters at the polls, would be restricted because the bill lumps “legal advice” into the definition of solicitation and prohibits it within 100 feet of a voting line.

Cast your minds back to Florida's 2000 Elections and tell me this is a good idea. You'll get a cookie if you can do it with a straight face. But the part of this that rubs against the 19th Amendment is this:

A newly married woman wanting to vote on Election Day would no longer be allowed to show elections officials at the polls documentation with her name change to vote on that day. Instead, she would be forced to use a provisional ballot, which likely will mean that vote won’t be counted. In 2008, half the provisional ballots in Florida were thrown out, making it hard to contest.

They have singled out women for a law that restricts their ability to vote based on their gender and martial status. Don't believe me? Read the Nineteenth Amendment for yourself and paw attention to it.

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Shall not be denied or abridged. That is exactly what this law does and it is a flagrant violation of the Constitution. But, honestly, from what I have seen of the Republicans in the last two years, I can't really say I'm surprised. Their ability to piss all over the Constitution is unmatched by any other political party.

Trump's (lack of) Charity

According to an article from The Smoking Gun, Donald Trump is the most miserly billionaire. This in itself, does not surprise me, nor does it surprise me that Trump's foundation gave more money to Golf Foundations than it did to the American Cancer Society. What does surprise me is the commentators on the article, all of who see this as something positive.

Some people say that this shows that Trump is someone who will put America first over giving money to Third World countries. What it shows me is that Trump is someone who will put himself over America. It shows me that if he gets the chance, he'll do everything he can to shift the burden of the debt off of the richest of Americans and saddle the poor and the middle class with it.

But what really boggles my mind, is how these people can see the evidence laid out in front of them and still go to the voting booths come election day and vote against their own best interests.