Justice E.R.

Slavoj Zizek: 'Now the field is open'

2011-10-29T13:00:00.000-05:00

From the Middle East to the streets of London and cities across the US there is a discontent with the status quo. Whether it is with the iron grip of entrenched governments or the widening economic divide between the rich and those struggling to get by. But where are those so hungry for change heading? How profound is their long-term vision to transform society? Watch interview here

A Movement Too Big to Fail

2011-10-23T19:20:00.001-05:00

Posted on Oct 17, 2011

By Chris Hedges

There is no danger that the protesters who have occupied squares, parks and plazas across the nation in defiance of the corporate state will be co-opted by the Democratic Party or groups like MoveOn. The faux liberal reformers, whose abject failure to stand up for the rights of the poor and the working class, have signed on to this movement because they fear becoming irrelevant. Union leaders, who pull down salaries five times that of the rank and file as they bargain away rights and benefits, know the foundations are shaking. So do Democratic politicians from Barack Obama to Nancy Pelosi. So do the array of “liberal” groups and institutions, including the press, that have worked to funnel discontented voters back into the swamp of electoral politics and mocked those who called for profound structural reform. Read entire article here

Pocono Medical Center workers: 'You can keep trying, but this union will not be broken!'

2011-06-05T09:54:00.000-05:00

Workers at the Pocono Medical Center (PMC), members of SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania, are in the fight of their life to protect their union, their families and good jobs in the Poconos.

In October, a strong majority of PMC workers voted in a Federal government-supervised election to keep their union shop. One would think that the hospital would respect the workers' democratic vote and move forward toward ratification of the next contract. But instead, PMC has continued to intimidate workers and refused to settle a new contract if the workers don't deliberately weaken their own union. Read entire article here

Throw Out the Money Changers

2011-04-22T06:39:00.000-05:00

Posted on Apr 18, 2011

Oisin Prendiville (CC-BY-SA)
By Chris Hedges

These are remarks Chris Hedges made in Union Square in New York City last Friday during a protest outside a branch office of the Bank of America.

We stand today before the gates of one of our temples of finance. It is a temple where greed and profit are the highest good, where self-worth is determined by the ability to amass wealth and power at the expense of others, where laws are manipulated, rewritten and broken, where the endless treadmill of consumption defines human progress, where fraud and crimes are the tools of business.

The two most destructive forces of human nature—greed and envy—drive the financiers, the bankers, the corporate mandarins and the leaders of our two major political parties, all of whom profit from this system. They place themselves at the center of creation. They disdain or ignore the cries of those below them. They take from us our rights, our dignity and thwart our capacity for resistance. They seek to make us prisoners in our own land. They view human beings and the natural world as mere commodities to exploit until exhaustion or collapse. Human suffering, wars, climate change, poverty, it is all the price of business. Nothing is sacred. The Lord of Profit is the Lord of Death. Read entire article here.

Rep. Alan Grayson on Kent State: "They Can't Kill Us All"

2010-05-06T12:26:00.001-05:00

A Chorus of ‘I Told You So’

2010-05-05T08:23:00.001-05:00

Bill Maher’s Pro-Western Culture Speech: “It Isn’t Just Different… It’s Better”

2010-05-01T11:54:00.001-05:00

Legal Victory Raises Profile of an Atheist Group

2010-04-25T07:42:00.001-05:00

MADISON, Wis. — Annie Laurie Gaylor clicked through a flurry of e-mail messages warning her to repent or she would burn in hell.

“Herod,” one messenger called her.

Ms. Gaylor leaned back and sipped from a cup of tea, unfazed and even a bit surprised at the relative tameness of the attacks. Fresh from her latest godless triumph, she had expected more vitriol.

“It used to be a lot worse,” said Ms. Gaylor, 54, an atheist whose organization, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, recently won a suit in federal court here that declared the National Day of Prayer to be a violation of the First Amendment. “Things are changing. Society is becoming more secularized. It’s becoming acceptable to be atheist and agnostic. And there are more of us.” Read entire article here

Notice to the people who take Glenn Beck seriously

2010-04-24T19:41:00.007-05:00

You are all brainwashed morons! And you all suck!

This is bullshit: Jeff Jarvis TEDxNYED talk

2010-04-24T08:45:00.003-05:00

Corporate Grinch: GE Threatens to Kill Christmas Rather than Negotiate with Workers in Good Faith

2009-12-01T18:59:00.002-06:00

Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet at 4:27 PM on December 1, 2009.

So, it's a liberal War on Christmas, is it?

Press release:

NBC’s failure to bargain fairly with the union that represents nearly 3,000 of the network’s producers, writers and technicians has put the lighting of the world's most famous Christmas tree at serious risk. In an attempt to save the annual “Christmas in Rockefeller Center” special, the union launched a new website today – http://NBCStoleChristmas.com – that highlights the “Grinch” within NBC. Read entire article here.

If Nothing Else, Save Farming

2009-11-21T08:28:00.002-06:00

It’s probably too late to prepare for peak oil, but we can at least try to salvage food production.

By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 16th November 2009

I don’t know when global oil supplies will start to decline. I do know that another resource has already peaked and gone into freefall: the credibility of the body that’s meant to assess them. Last week two whistleblowers from the International Energy Agency alleged that it has deliberately upgraded its estimate of the world’s oil supplies in order not to frighten the markets. Three days later, a paper published by researchers at Uppsala University in Sweden showed that the IEA’s forecasts must be wrong, because it assumes a rate of extraction that appears to be impossible. The agency’s assessment of the state of global oil supplies is beginning to look as reliable as Mr Greenspan’s blandishments about the health of the financial markets. Read entire article here.

The Eviction of the Bird Lady

2009-11-15T19:19:00.002-06:00

Most of us have been exposed to the dry refrain of the repetitively chanted statistics associated with the foreclosure crisis. Here is a snapshot of the reality of the crisis that millions are currently facing.

Written by Miki Aberle

The bird lady...bless her heart. She flagged me down after I was done running - she seemed about as out of breath as I was, and when she apologized for not having on a bra in her dishevelment, I told her it was okay because I had on two (true story). This was my attempt to make her smile because I've never seen anyone look so desperately sweet; (nearly) all of her belongings were strewn throughout her front yard and driveway - all except the iron-wired bird cages and wooden perches...

Apparently Paula, whose name I later learned, was being evicted according to the man with a badge standing in the midst of this woman's shattered life. She couldn't have been under 60 years-old. Everything had to be out of the house within the next hour if she wanted a chance of keeping it. The help she had earlier said they'd be back and failed to return, so she tirelessly drug everything she could out of what used to be her home.

The PT Cruiser in the driveway was momentarily acting as shelter to four tropical birds while their dismantled cage parts were scattered in various areas of the second floor of Paula's previous dwelling. She didn't have the strength to carry them down the stairs, which is where Miki comes in.

One by one I carried cage parts and what seemed like actual trees down the stairs, pretending to care for it all like I knew Paula did; if not, this 45 minute chore could have been strategically handled in much less time, and while the man with the badge watched me struggle and told me he was "sorry but couldn't help," I knew Paula was watching me too. I didn't want her to feel like yet another person didn't respect or care about what used to be her life.

Maybe that's why she told me I was an angel and should have my wings...(apparently she's into things that fly).

After the Billionaires Plundered Alabama Town, Troops Were Called in ... Illegally

2009-10-24T12:02:00.002-05:00

By Mark Ames, AlterNet. Posted October 24, 2009

"We have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity and opportunity for all," says one Goldman Sachs adviser. But tell that to the people of Samson, Ala.

One of this year's more disturbing stories that were ignored was the illegal Army occupation of Samson, Alab., in March following a shooting spree that raged across two towns by a disgruntled worker, leaving 11 people dead. Read entire article here

Roger Eugene Ailes for President

2009-10-23T19:55:00.003-05:00

Would it be wonderful to see Roger Ailes run for president? The smell of death is all around the Republican Party. Sara Palin or Roger Ailes, what leadership! The new Wig Party begins its decent into oblivion!

President Reagan Rests in Peace ... But Will His Voo-Doo Economics Ever Die?

2009-07-31T14:39:00.002-05:00

Posted by Dave Johnson, Campaign for America's Future at 10:51 AM on July 31, 2009.

What are you going to believe, what “free market” ideologues tell you or your own lying eyes?

There are things you can see in front of your face, and then there are things that conservative “free market” ideologues tell you.

One example is when they talk about the minimum wage. (An increase in the national minimum wage goes into effect today.) Conservative “free market” ideologues tell you that raising the minimum wage “costs jobs.” They say that if employers have to pay a few cents more per hour they won’t employ as many people.

But then there is something you can see in front of your face: whenever the minimum wage is raised, things get better. Things obviously get a little better for the people who work at the minimum wage, and for their families. As this works its way up the food chain things get a little better for the people and stores these workers rent and buy from. But also, studies looking into the effect of what actually happens after the minimum wage is raised show that the net effect is no loss of jobs.

Here is why. Read entire article here!

The American Dream just turned into a Nightmare

2009-07-19T09:28:00.009-05:00

This might be news to some, but there are many who feel that there is something happening to our economy besides just the current recession. I truly think that the word depression more aptly describes our current situation. But for now I will stick to the word, recession because it is softer and more acceptable.
There is a school of thought that postulates that our economy is undergoing some sort of massive transition. Jeff Jarvis from BuzzMachine writes:

In the financial crash, we are seeing two forces at work: first, a corrupt system of unregulated leverage gone mad — virtual value (which is to say, bullshit) created in derivatives — but second, a world whose fundamental structure is changing in ways we can’t yet fully fathom.

In “What would Google Do?” Jarvis believes our pre-crash economic system will be replaced by a system based on “information and abundance.” What exactly this new economy will look like is any ones guess at this point. The fact that our technology is growing exponentially makes predictions even more difficult. Who would have thought a year ago that a mobile social networking tool (Twitter) would be relied upon by network news to transmit on the ground real time coverage of the recent elections in Iran? Our ability to deliver information is certain to grow and evolve in ways that we now cannot imagine. I carry with me everyday a device that allows me to communicate and access information that would have been just a dream just a few short years ago. What ever system replaces our pre-recession economy, it will certainly have rapid and continuous change as a part of its makeup.

In my mind, our current recession/transition is a perfect storm of events and evolution. The economy that existed before the recession was an economy stuck in the past and was perpetuated by banking/corporate/governmental control. The world and the world’s technology were changing and our pre-recession economy was not allowed to evolve in ways that would have softened the transition that we are currently going through. So when the crash of our totally antiquated and fatally flawed economic system finally happened, there was a backlog of problems, jobs and industries that had not even begun to change.

The results of this backlog are all around us today. Who would have thought whole industries would need to be severely downsized and/or restructured? The automotive and newspaper industries are the first of many to feel the searing pain of massive change. Many more industries are sure to follow.

Of course the real losers in this high stakes game that is being played out are the workers. The everyday, go to work, play by the rules workers, who for years (sometimes many years) did everything right to be employed in good paying jobs. Millions will find that the industries that they spent their lives training for or working in, no longer exist. They are as outdated as the industries and jobs that they worked in. So we have a situation where millions of workers need to be reeducated and changed to fit the jobs of an evolving new economic system. We need to provide these workers with the tools to “remake” themselves. How we do this is any ones guess? Many low skilled and already economically disadvantage workers may not be able to adapt to what is coming. We may have to accept a number of workers as “lost causes” and provide support indefinitely to them.

The highly skilled and educated among us, who now or will soon find themselves jobless are faced with the daunting challenge of “reeducating and remaking” themselves, while they attempt to downsize their lives to fit the realities of the new world. Lives that were built and then sustained by the old system are not easily changed. Everything they worked for (houses, cars, toys) was being sustained by a economic system that no longer exists. The adjustment to this reality is nothing less than a generational psychological trauma.

The American Dream just turned into a nightmare. Playing by the rules and doing what you are told no longer means a path to the white picket fence house and two cars in the garage. There will be fewer routes to guaranteed success. The future will belong to those who can adapt, reeducate and remake themselves. The future will require us to leave the past completely behind.

Bernie Sanders has a plan!

2009-07-01T21:39:00.006-05:00

With health care reform and the Employee Free Choice Act hanging in the balance, Bernie Sanders has plan!

Bernie Sanders Demands Democrats Commit to Stopping Health Care Filibuster

One of the Senate's most vocal progressives is demanding that the Democratic Party commit to voting against filibustering health care legislation now that, with the impending arrival of Al Franken, the party has 60 caucusing members.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), called on the White House and Democratic leadership in Congress to ensure that party members agree unanimously to support cloture on legislation that would revamp the nation's health care system. Democratic senators on the fence, he added, could still oppose the bill. But at the very least they should be required to let the legislation come to an up-or-down vote.

"I think that with Al Franken coming on board, you have effectively 60 Democrats in the caucus, 58 and two Independents," Sanders said in an interview with the Huffington Post. "I think the strategy should be to say, it doesn't take 60 votes to pass a piece of legislation. It takes 60 votes to stop a filibuster. I think the strategy should be that every Democrat, no matter whether or not they ultimately end up voting for the final bill, is to say we are going to vote together to stop a Republican filibuster. And if somebody who votes for that ends up saying, 'I'm not gonna vote for this bill, it's too radical, blah, blah, blah, that's fine.'" Read entire article here.

Organizing and Mobilizing with Flair

2009-06-17T18:45:00.000-05:00

For four days next week, the campus of the National Labor College (NLC) in Silver Spring, Md., will reverberate with the sounds of music, poetry and creative chants and art.

From June 20-23, some 100 union and social justice activists will participate in the annual Great Labor Arts Exchange and Conference on Creative Organizing, programs that combine union mobilization and outreach with songs, skits, art, poetry, theater, posters, cartoons and film.

For 31 years, the Great Labor Arts Exchange has celebrated the rich cultural heritage of working people and served as a forum that brings together talented labor artists, activists, cultural workers, educators and students. Read entire article here.

Don't buy Starbucks' Coffee

2009-05-19T21:03:00.005-05:00

Spilling the Beans About Starbucks' Union-Busting Tactics
by: ZP Heller

Put down that grande non-fat caramel macchiato or whatever Starbucks concoction you're drinking. Turns out the coffee giant has a nasty history of being anti-barista, anti-union, and thus anti-Employee Free Choice Act as well.

The National Labor Relations Board has repeatedly found Starbucks guilty of illegally terminating, harassing, intimidating, and discriminating against employees attempting to unionize. Late last year, a judge ruled Starbucks had committed over a dozen violations of the National Labor Relations Act at a few New York stores. Starbucks has settled five such labor disputes in the last few years in New York, Minnesota, and Michigan, spending millions on legal fees to avoid exposing their anti-worker ways. Read entire article here!

Republicans: The Indulgent Parents

2009-05-04T06:55:00.001-05:00

by Dana Houle

You've seen them. Maybe it's a friend or a sibling. Someone you see out in public. Maybe, even, you've pondered the past and recognize it might have been your parents, or maybe even you: indulgent parents. Parents who never set limits, never enforce boundaries. Parents who never tell their children no. And you know what happens. Their kids usually grow up to be monsters, or face a tough transition to adulthood, because they think everything should be handed to them on a silver platter. They can't understand why the world doesn't roll over for them the way their parents did. They often become embittered and disillusioned, and sometimes even nihilistic. And their parents often experience shame and regret, and feel like they've become hostage to the monsters they helped create.

In American politics, the spoiled children struggling to deal with a reality they don't like and didn't expect are those voters who make up the rightwing of the Republican base. The indulgent parents of American politics are the leaders, elected officials and apparatchiks of the Republican party. Read entire article here.

iPhone

2009-05-03T21:51:00.005-05:00

I have been immersed in my new device, the iphone. It represents a revolution in communication. I am still in awe of this device. Nothing on the market even comes close to doing what the iphone can do. I have also been playing with Twitter - another revolution in communication and social networking. More on this later.

Glenn Beck and the Definition of Sedition

2009-04-12T21:39:00.005-05:00

Click on the following link of Glenn Beck and think about whether the following definition applies?

Sedition is a term of law which refers to covert conduct, such as speech and organization, that is deemed by the legal authority as tending toward insurrection against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent (or resistance) to lawful authority. Sedition may include any commotion, though not aimed at direct and open violence against the laws. Seditious words in writing are seditious libel. A seditionist is one who engages in or promotes the interests of sedition.

Because sedition is typically considered a subversive act, the overt acts that may be prosecutable under sedition laws vary from one legal code to another. Where those legal codes have a traceable history, there is also a record of the change of definition for what constituted sedition at certain points in history. This overview has served to develop a sociological definition of sedition as well, within study of persecution.

The difference between sedition and treason consists primarily in the subjective ultimate object of the violation to the public peace. Sedition does not consist of levying war against a government nor of adhering to its enemies, giving enemies aid, and giving enemies comfort. Nor does it consist, in most representative democracies, of peaceful protest against a government, nor of attempting to change the government by democratic means (such as direct democracy or constitutional convention).

Put simply, sedition is the stirring up of rebellion against the government in power. Treason is the violation of allegiance to one's sovereign or state and has to do with giving aid to enemies or levying war. Sedition is more about encouraging the people to rebel, where treason is actually betraying the country. Sedition laws somewhat equate to Terrorism and Public Order laws.

Maybe we could tax Hell?

2009-03-29T17:46:00.003-05:00

There is one source of wealth in America that has too long been a sacred cow. You know those thousands of funny looking buildings that seem to occupy every other corner in many communities. They are commonly known as churches. What if we require churches to pay taxes on their income? I know I have just touched the 3rd rail of the American psyche. How dare I suggest that an organization involved in the institutionalized belief in fairy tales should have to pay taxes. What was I thinking? I hope I don’t go to Hell now? I wonder if we could tax Hell?

The Realities of Climate Change

2009-03-22T08:32:00.003-05:00

A Self-filling Prophecy
If you think preventing climate change is politically difficult, look at the political problems of adapting to it.

By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian, 16th March 2009.

Quietly in public, loudly in private, climate scientists everywhere are saying the same thing: it’s over. The years in which more than two degrees of global warming could have been prevented have passed, the opportunities squandered by denial and delay. On current trajectories we’ll be lucky to get away with four degrees. Mitigation (limiting greenhouse gas pollution) has failed; now we must adapt to what nature sends our way. If we can.

This, at any rate, was the repeated whisper at the climate change conference in Copenhagen last week(1). It’s more or less what Bob Watson, the environment department’s chief scientific adviser, has been telling the British government(2). It is the obvious if unspoken conclusion of scores of scientific papers. Recent work by scientists at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, for example, suggests that even global cuts of 3% a year, starting in 2020, could leave us with four degrees of warming by the end of the century(3,4). At the moment emissions are heading in the opposite direction at roughly the same rate. If this continues, what does it mean? Six? Eight? Ten degrees? Who knows? Read entire article here.

Rove and Cheney: War Criminals Among US

2009-03-15T21:26:00.016-05:00

As Rachel Maddow is fond of saying during her news hour, “I need someone to talk me down” as to why there are so many criminals from the last administration still able to walk among us? Not only are they allowed to walk among us, but they are allowed to give interviews and pretend to be journalists! When will people like Rove and Cheney be held accountable for the great crimes they have committed? There are certainly many others from the Bush administration who also need to serve time behind bars. But can someone tell me if any of these people will ever pay for the damage they have caused? Each time the corporate media gives the Bush administration criminals another chance to repeat their lies, spin, and propaganda; I am almost driven into convulsions. Please someone, convince me that someday these bastards will have to pay for their crimes. For gods sake is there no real justice in America? Someone please tell me that one day, I will never have to again endure the media sanctioned pronouncements of war criminals!

Ethix Merch leading the way in marketing Union made Products!

2009-02-24T19:32:00.008-06:00

Secretary of State Clinton explained to the Chinese media during her recent visit, "We have to incur more debt … the US needs the investment in Treasury bonds to shore up its economy to continue to buy Chinese products."

Joshua Holland in his most recent article, The Spectacular, Sudden Crash of the Global Economy very nicely sums up the rise and fall of the global economy. He writes: In a short period of months, the entire system of global capitalism has screeched to a halt. No one knows what happens next. Read entire article here.

In my mind what happens next is a return to the past. I have memories of touring a shoe factory near a city where I grew up. Yes, we used to make shoes in the United States. My father owned shoes that were made less than 20 miles away from where he lived! And these shoes were made by union workers who took pride in what they did earned a decent wage for doing it.

We need to return to the local and regional production of goods that we now buy from production facilities located thousands of miles away. The days of exploitation are over. It is time to build new local/regional economies that are environmentally friendly and provide dignity and rights to workers.

Companies like Ethix Merch are leading the way in marketing high quality union made products at affordable prices. I encourage you to check out their web site. We can change things for the better. Companies like Ethix Merch and you will make it happen!

Forcing Burger King to Backtrack on Employee Free Choice

2009-02-21T14:11:00.003-06:00

Reposted from Open Left
by ZP Heller

All week long, Brave New Films, SEIU and many progressive bloggers have been holding Burger King's feet to the deep fryer. Together we exposed Burger King's horrendous working conditions; launched a contest asking people to Have It Their Way with Goldman Sachs (Burger King's top shareholder) for squandering $6.5 billion of the bailout on bonuses while average BK workers earn less than the federal poverty line; and staged peaceful demonstrations at Burger Kings across the country protesting the fast-food chain's low wages, lack of healthcare, and lobbying against unionization legislation. So what was Burger King's response? They served up this flamebroiled pile of garbage yesterday: "Burger King Corp. (BKC) believes unions serve a purpose in some workplaces and a number of its guests, vendors and franchisees have positive union membership experiences. BKC is not anti-union. BKC and its franchisees serve a diverse consumer base and, therefore, aim to remain neutral on political issues."
Read entire article here

Republican Obstruction of the Stimulus Marks the Beginning of the End of the Party

2009-02-14T14:25:00.010-06:00

The final chapter of the Republican Party began this week. Their very public obstruction and then overwhelming vote against President Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has forever seared a negative image of them into the minds of millions of Americans. The Daily Kos Weekly State of the Nation Poll for the week Feb 09, 2009 - Feb 12, 2009, shows the current level of dislike for the current crop of Republican robots in Congress. The Democratic Party is only five points down in net favorability in the South, the GOP's "stronghold", while it blows them away in every other region. (kos, The obstructionist's dilemma)

Once the effect of the stimulus starts to make a difference in our economy, (as surely it will) the Republicans will be left with a voting record on the stimulus, that will haunt them for a generation or more. No amount of media propaganda or corporate spin will be able to resurrect their image. With their no votes in the House of Representative and Senate this week, they clearly said no to America and yes to their corporate masters. This week is the beginning of the end of the Republican Party. Their days as a viable political party are over!

Only in America Could Misery Be Turned Into a Commodity

2009-02-11T18:48:00.002-06:00

By Joe Bageant, JoeBageant.com. Posted February 11, 2009.

Stress, depression and loneliness permeate daily life in America. Yet psychiatrists try to sell us on the idea that the pain is ours alone.

HOPKINS VILLAGE, Belize -- Sitting down here in Central America, happily abusing my health, occasionally, between the hangovers and the bouts with sand fleas and mosquitoes comes an insight or two, or at least what passes for insight in my lowbrow take on life.

One of these is just how damned lucky the Third World is that it cannot afford a sophisticated mental health system. By that I mean the kind like in the "developed countries," where murder and suicide rates are quintuple what they are here in this village. Not that we are without own village resources. Read entire article here.

Congress should visit an Unemployment Office

2009-02-07T21:48:00.007-06:00

Is our system broken beyond repair? Do we need to start again with a new form of government? Watching our national legislatures deal with the most significant crisis in our nation’s history makes me ill! What are these people thinking? Have any of them ever been in an unemployment line? Do they know what it feels like to come home to their husband or wife with the news of a job loss? Have any of them had to apply for food stamps? Do they know what it is like to swallow life long pride in a line at the public aid office? Have any of them lost their homes? Do they know what it is like to not know where they will sleep next? I think not!

Perhaps during one of their next junkets to their local districts or states, our representatives should spend some time at an unemployment office, a public aid office or watch a local sheriff evict a homeowner. Perhaps these experiences would jolt them into the reality that all too many Americans are already familiar with.

Like many progressives in this country, I am impatient and increasingly pessimistic about the chances for real change in this country. Before the election, I explained to a less than knowledgeable but very enthusiastic Obama supporter, that no matter what happens in the election, the people who truly run our country are not likely to go quietly into the night. It will take more than one election to return power to its rightful place. There are many battles ahead and I wonder if Americans are up to the challenge? Only time will tell!

21st Century Economic Recovery Hings on Education and Retraining

2009-01-25T21:13:00.011-06:00

The economy that we left behind in 2008 is a gone forever. It was an economy that was driven in a direction that ultimately warped the social, political and cultural landscape of our entire country. Instead of investing in our human resources, our domestic companies and corporations used and abused their workforces. The results of this throw away worker mentality are all around us. Our education system has become as flawed as our banking systems. We now deliver graduates of a quality that fit the exploitive companies that they will ultimately work for. Our culture is fostering ignorance over education and gratification over work. Many of the dysfunctions of our culture are direct byproducts of an aberrant economic system.

The economy that will ultimately replace the last will be vastly different and constantly changing. There will be less and less need in this new economy for undereducated or untrained workers. My point here is that not all American workers will be able to function in the next economy. A lack of investment in America’s human resources over the last 30 years has brought us to the point where there will be millions of workers who will need years of education to become productive members of the new economy. Years of education! Some may never be able to make the transitions. Some may ultimately just become wards of the State.

There can never be an economic recovery back to the economy of 2008. The most important component to the structural changes necessary to move our country into a 21st Century economy lies with education and job retraining. There must be a massive commitment to the reeducation of our population. Without it, millions will be doomed to a life of poverty and degradation. Without it, our country will never again regain its status as a true economic superpower!

Does America Deserve Barack Obama?

2009-01-20T21:17:00.007-06:00

Power in America has shifted back to the Democratic Party. There is much that needs to be done. We the people allowed terrible things to happen in the last 8 years with little or no opposition. This new Democratic leadership does not automatically guarantee that the interests of the people will be served.

We must be vigilant, knowledgeable, active and engaged in the Democratic process. We can’t expect the Democrats to always do the right thing. We must demand that they act in our best interests. Americans in many ways deserved George W. Bush. It remains to be seen if they now deserve Barack Obama. Only time will tell, I guess!

Psychological Evaluations for our Political Candidates

2009-01-10T14:45:00.007-06:00

Before this whole Blagojevich selling of a senate seat scandal broke in the media, most of the residents of Illinois, myself included had already come to the conclusion that our Governor had some sort of mental issues. Four years ago, I attended a Democratic event in Springfield that was attended by all our major state officials. At the time, no one in Rod Blagojevich’s own party had anything positive to say about the Governor. In speech after speech they made not so subtle references to their disagreements with the Governor. Elected and appointed officials alike seemed to all have some kind of issue with Blagojevich's style or actions.

In the years that followed Governor Blagojevich has become an object of ridicule and sometimes outright hatred. Many were counting the days to the end of his term. Thankfully for our state, Rod finally pushed the envelope just a little too far, resulting in an impeachment and what looks to be a pretty serious criminal indictment.

My point here is that many of us have known for a long time that there was something seriously wrong with our Governor. As everyone witnessed, he seemed to be almost delusional in recent news conferences. Having no training in mental illnesses, I am not qualified to diagnose what type of malady Rod Blagojevich suffers from. Millions in Illinois and around world know in their hearts that the Governor is not playing with a full deck. He most certainly suffers from so sort of mental illness.

In our society we are constantly tested from the time we first enter grammar school to our first job application. It is now standard practice to give psychological tests during the hiring process. Employers want to examine our psychological profiles. They want to see if we will fit the job or if we have profiles that would inhibit either task completion or future professional growth.

Why is it that we don’t require our leaders, some of whom end up to be some of the most powerful people in the world, to take psychological evaluations? One simple test could have saved the people of Illinois and the country, a lot of grief. Sorry, Mr. Blagojevich or Mr. Bush, your psychological profiles make you unsuitable to hold public office. This seems to make sense to me; does anyone else feel the same way? Is it asking too much to have the comfort of knowing that our leaders are not crazy before we vote for them?

Hamas Holy War on a Country of Grandmas?

2009-01-02T21:22:00.009-06:00

I don’t want to take sides in this latest conflict between Israel and these Gaza Strip crazies. As far as I'm concerned, religious extremists Christian, Muslim, and Jewish can all go to hell. If they want to kill each other, it is really ok with me. But, I am really most amazed by these Hamas fanatics. Most of us learn very early in life that it really makes little sense to mess with the biggest meanest bully on the playground. It’s a sure fire way to get your butt kicked and who in their right mind would want that?

Apparently for some reason these Hamas crazies have wanted their asses kicked in a big way. Let’s see, how about if we make and then fire these inaccurate homemade rockets at heavily armed and pissed off Jews? Sounds like a plan, right? Later, we’ll throw rocks at Merkava Mark 4 tanks and then complain to the world about our civilian losses.

If Hamas was smart they would pick on someone they could actually defeat in battle. Perhaps they could wage a holy war of liberation on a country of grandmas? Sounds like a plan, right?

"Why did they destroy our world?"

2008-12-20T08:47:00.007-06:00

It has become very hard for me recently to ignore the issue of climate change. I have concluded that there is no subject more important. It trumps every other issue. No other issue even comes close in its importance.

The entire world must unite for the first time. No longer can individuals or individual nations pursue a path that threatens the survival of the biosphere. Waiting until it is too late is not an option. The possibility of run away climate changes, similar to the period known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) is to risk the possibility of a planet-altering period the likes of which will change the evolutionary path of our species.
Recent data from the Grace Gravity Recover and Climate Experiment indicate that we have in the lost roughly 2 trillion tons of global ice since 2003. The world should be united in its alarm. Instead, we talk about our own self-interests. We fiddle while Rome burns.

What will it take to wake up the human family to recognize the greatest threat to their continued existence? Will what is left of our species have to wait thousands of years in artificially created biospheres for the healing of our planet? Our children of the future are right now asking the question, "Why did they destroy our world?"

Read the Climate Change 2007:
Synthesis Report
Summary for Policymakers Here

Karl Rove (His Dickipedia Biography)

2008-12-14T08:38:00.003-06:00

Karl Christian Rove (born December 25, 1950) is a former Deputy Chief of Staff to President George W. Bush, a Republican political/campaign consultant, a turd blossom, "the brain," a Fox News political "analyst" and contributor, and a dick.

Rove is considered a part of the holy trinity of dicks (himself, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush), though the true extent of his role in the ruining of the United States will most likely forever be obscured by "executive privilege," which is a time-honored technique of avoiding culpability for anything while "protecting America."

Rove is only 57 years old. One can expect that this will leave Rove plenty of years to continue his life's work of undoing everything the founding fathers did to prevent people like him from existing in the first place. Read entire Dickipedia entry here.

Workers Occupy an American Factory

2008-12-06T19:07:00.008-06:00

Finally the workers of the United States have awakened!

Chicago factory occupied

Lee Sustar reports from Chicago on an occupation by workers who want what's theirs from management and the Bank of America.

December 6, 2008

WORKERS OCCUPYING the Republic Windows & Doors factory slated for closure are vowing to remain in the Chicago plant until they win the $1.5 million in severance and vacation pay owed them by management.

In a tactic rarely used in the U.S. since the labor struggles of the 1930s, the workers, members of United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) Local 1110, refused to leave the plant on December 5, its last scheduled day of operation. Read entire article here.

NetRightNation Assults the Nation's Bloggers

2008-12-01T19:24:00.006-06:00

Below is an e-mail I received today from NetRightNation and my response:

Adam,

Oh – in case no one has told you yet, (I am sure more will) – this won’t work – it’s not the medium and its delivery system that you need – maybe you should try some new ideas that appeal to someone besides rich conservative brainwashed white people. You represent a 20th Century party in a 21st Century world.

LS Butts

P.S. Perhaps you could get Karl Rove to work on your new approach – he was so good at building your permanent Republican majority!

From: Americans for Limited Government [mailto:adam@getliberty.org]
Sent: Monday, December 01, 2008 6:34 PM
Subject: Welcome to the Net Right Nation

For Immediate Release Contact: Adam Bitely
November 24th, 2008 Phone: (202) 689-9266

Dear Fellow Blogger,

It is my distinct pleasure, as the president of Americans for Limited Government, to invite you today to become a key member of the exciting new conservative “bloggers central,” NetRightNation.com.

At ALG, we recognize the critical role you as a blogger play in gathering, assimilating, and disseminating news and commentary. And I, personally, am deeply grateful to you for taking the lead in fighting some of the most important battles our country has faced over the past decade, and more.

That's why I am so pleased to announce that NetRightNation.com is providing bloggers like you, the mainstream media, politicians, and other opinion leaders free, instant access to nearly 60,000 conservative blogs nationwide. And counting.

As a complete service bureau, NRN provides you a wide new array of blogger opportunities. As a featured blogger on NRN, you will be able to post your own blogs and interface with other like-minded bloggers nationwide. You will soon be able to “claim” your blog and customize your blog profile.

Information on NRN – blogs, as well as Twitter feeds -- will be divided by state, as well as by issue, to make it easy for you and others to access. NRN will also include a sophisticated search engine function and will soon have the capability for you to subscribe to customized email blog feeds on your topics of choice. Stay tuned, for these features will soon be online!

And all of that is just the beginning. In fact, I have asked ALG's Director of New Media, Adam Bitely, to follow up on this note with a letter of his own providing you the exciting details on how NRN can help you grow your own blog.

Above all, we want to make sure NRN is all that you, an important member of the conservative blogosphere, want it to be. So, as you visit NetRightNation.com, I urge you to please give us your input on how to make it the valuable asset we are committed to providing, at absolutely no charge.

Thank you for all that you are doing. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Bill Wilson
President, Americans for Limited Government

The Bad Joke Called Christmas

2008-11-30T21:46:00.004-06:00

All right – how many of you out there feel just a little uneasy with this Christmas thing? No - I am not talking about the usual, “I can hardly wait to get all my damn shopping done unease.” I am talking about something completely different. It is something that comes from both your heart and mind at the same time. Moreover, that something keeps clawing at you – telling you something is not right with this – something does not make sense?

The answer is really quite simple. Christmas is a holiday that really only celebrates consumption. The more we engage in consumption the better the Christmas, right? And the birth of this Christian Savior (Jesus) is a rationalization for this whole crock of consuming shit? So exactly what does the birth of the son of the Christian deity have to do with the consuming of massive quantities of goods and services? How exactly does this honor or celebrate the birth of this individual?

The answer is that it does not celebrate anything except the fact that thousands of companies have successfully convinced millions of people to buy shit that they do not need or really even want.

So celebrate this birthday as if it is a birthday. I imagine a simple offering to the Christian deity would probably suffice (I believe this works in other religions). But for Christ’s sake (no pun intended), do not spend the next month maxing out your VISA card, so all your kids can have everything they have seen for the last three months on television. Get a clue – the bad joke is on you and its called Christmas!

Center-Right Nation Watch

2008-11-22T20:45:00.009-06:00

There has been a major change in the political landscape brought about by a seismic shift of the political plates of public opinion. The shift has most definitely been toward the left. The overall political leaning now of the majority of Americans has been labeled accurately as center-left.

For anyone who believes that our media has distanced itself from the right wing’s propaganda machine should be advised. Beginning immediately after election night, our media is now parroting their center-right mantra a total of 240 times a day.

"Center-Right Nation" Watch - Study Shows References Spiked Immediately After Election Day
by: David Sirota

When I wrote my first column about the "center-right nation" and subsequently launched the "Center-Right Nation Watch" series on this blog I predicted that the news media would actually increase its usage of this term after Obama won. I did a Lexis-Nexis search of the term, and was the first to note the trend and make the prediction that "if Obama wins, expect more frantic talk from the fringe about how electing a black man billed as an Islamic Karl Marx obviously means our country is more conservative than ever." Read entire article here.

Governor Palin looking for Lost Underwear?

2008-11-10T18:50:00.008-06:00

One day you are running for Vice President of the United States and the next you are looking for underwear under your kids' beds!

Palin sorts clothes to see what belong to the RNC
Palin's father says daughter is sorting through clothes to see which owned by Republican Party

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin spent part of the weekend going through her clothing to determine what belongs to the Republican Party after it spent $150,000-plus on a wardrobe for the vice presidential nominee, according to Palin's father.

Palin and John McCain's campaign faced a storm of criticism over the tens of thousands of dollars spent at such high-end stores as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus to dress the nominee. Republican National Committee lawyers are still trying to determine exactly what clothing was bought for Palin, what was returned and what has become of the rest.

Palin's father, Chuck Heath, said his daughter spent the day Saturday trying to figure out what belongs to the RNC.

"She was just frantically ... trying to sort stuff out," Heath said. "That's the problem, you know, the kids lose underwear, and everything has to be accounted for." Read entire article here.

The Complete Collapse of the American Economy?

2008-11-08T20:12:00.003-06:00

The signs are unmistakable – our economy is slowly sinking into a depression. There is no need to try to deny it, pretend it isn’t happening or run from the truth. With each passing moment, our economy is spiraling down into completely unfamiliar territory.

Reading a recent article in the New York Times regarding Iceland’s collapsed economy brought home the reality of where we might be headed.

Overnight, people lost their savings. Prices are soaring. Once-crowded restaurants are almost empty. Banks are rationing foreign currency, and companies are finding it dauntingly difficult to do business abroad. Inflation is at 16 percent and rising. People have stopped traveling overseas. The local currency, the krona, was 65 to the dollar a year ago; now it is 130. Companies are slashing salaries, reducing workers' hours and, in some instances, embarking on mass layoffs. Read entire article here.

My first thought was one of self preservation – what would happen to me if there was a collapse like this with our economy? Would I have a job? Would everything I know now and enjoy now, be just a distant memory of the good old days?

I really don’t know if an Iceland like, total economic collapse is possible in the United States? For all I know it might be possible. But at the very least, we are in for some very severe structural alterations to our economy.

We will not be returning to an economy that is so heavily dependent on consumer spending. There will not be a way to spend our way out of this situation. Spending will only prolong the inevitable and delay the changes that must be made.

The structural renaissance that is about to begin will be very painful and dislocating for millions of Americans. Our government will have to provide transitioning safety nets to literally rescue people from the spin-off repercussions of the coming changes.

In six months or a year or two years will I still be sitting in a comfortable home connected to the world with hundreds of dollars of electronic equipment? Or will I be sitting in a shelter waiting for my next meal? I guess only time will tell.

We Won!

2008-11-05T20:56:00.008-06:00

During my morning drive to the office today, everything seemed a little brighter. It had nothing to do with the amount of light entering my pupils. It was the reality of a new era and a new hope for the future. The time of thugs, liars and criminals was finally ending. We had finally won back the White House! We had made the dream come true. We said, "Yes we can!" And now we can say, "Yes we did help President Obama become the 44th president of the United States!" We won!

Young voters cell phone use translates into a landslide for Obama

2008-11-02T10:48:00.008-06:00

The Republican Party is about to flat-line. A tsunami of record proportions is rising in these last hours before Election Day. Millions of new young voters will join us to defeat this mutant machine that has cursed our political landscape for too long.

I predict of landslide of epic proportions. I believe the current polling data does not accurately reflect the actual size of the Obama lead. Because of the extensive calling of landline phones to conduct polling, thousands of young newly registered voters are not being surveyed and therefore are not part of the current numbers.

Recent data from Pew Research Center Publications conclusions on cell phone use and 2008 elections:

Current polling in the 2008 presidential election shows a very tight race between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain. In part because of the strong support Obama is attracting among younger voters, and as the number of Americans who are reachable only by cell phones rises, interest continues to grow in the question of whether public opinion polls that do not include cell phones are accurately measuring the relative levels of support for the two candidates.

The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press has conducted three major election surveys with both cell phone and landline samples since the conclusion of the primaries. In each of the surveys, there were only small, and not statistically significant, differences between presidential horserace estimates based on the combined interviews and estimates based on the landline surveys only. Yet a virtually identical pattern is seen across all three surveys: In each case, including cell phone interviews resulted in slightly more support for Obama and slightly less for McCain, a consistent difference of two-to-three points in the margin. Read entire article here.

A two or three point (which could be 3 or 4 point) addition to Obama’s current lead translates into a landslide election. On Wednesday we will be burying what is left of Karl Rove’s permanent Republican majority. For whom the bell tolls Karl, it tolls for thee!

Union Card or Master Card -- How a Nation of Workers Became a Nation of Debtors

2008-10-24T20:39:00.002-05:00

Union Card or Master Card -- How a Nation of Workers Became a Nation of Debtors
By Frank Joyce, AlterNet. Posted October 23, 2008.

Debt it is an important shaper of political and economic consciousness. The more you are in debt, the less likely you are to rock the boat.

It has been apparent for some time that the 20th Century US social contract is defunct beyond repair. Now the economic system faces the prospect of collapse as well. Not surprisingly, these developments are related. They did not come about overnight.

Looking back, it's easy to see that the system which emerged from the post-Bolshevik revolution, mass industrial production era of the 1920's, 30's and 40's was beginning to unravel by the end of the 1970's.

Union membership provides a helpful lens through which to view the process.

During the 1960's union membership bounced up and down within a narrow range ending the decade slightly higher than it began. But starting in 1970, it began a steady decline. In 1970 union workers were 29.6 percent of the work force. At those numbers, unions were able to exert considerable leverage over the wages, benefits and working conditions of all workers. By 1980 union workers were down to 23.2 percent of the total workforce. By the year 2000, union members represented just 13.5 percent of all workers. Today it is about 12.1 percent. Read entire article here.

Turn off your television sets!

2008-10-20T23:17:00.002-05:00

Awaken!
Turn off your television sets!
Nation of sheep, a nation asleep,
Put an end to your dreaming,
And the pain you are feeling.

Awaken!
Turn off your television sets,
And see the world as it is
And what it could be!
And what you could be!

Awaken!
Turn off your television sets!

Powell Endorses Obama

2008-10-19T08:52:00.008-05:00

Colin Powell has made an attempt to salvage a few small pieces of his reputation by doing the right thing.

Powell endorses Obama!
By The New York Times

Updated WASHINGTON—Former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell endorsed Senator Barack Obama for president on Sunday morning as a candidate who was reaching out in a “more diverse and inclusive way across our society” and offering a “calm, patient, intellectual, steady approach” to the nation’s problems.

The endorsement, on the NBC public affairs program “Meet the Press,” was a major blow to Senator John McCain, who has been a good friend of Mr. Powell for decades. Mr. Powell, a Republican, has advised Mr. McCain in the past on foreign policy.

The mob among us

2008-10-12T20:41:00.006-05:00

Most of us were taken aback by the surrealistic scenes of supporters during Sarah Palin’s most recent rallies. And what a nightmare it was! Sending pundits from the right and left into shock and denial. Hundreds of hostile angry people shouting hostile angry words, as if there was no tomorrow. Words like terrorist and kill him assaulted the senses. The same hate filled the air that has driven mobs of men for a millennium, to commit unspeakable acts of violence and cruelty.

The talk of course from the media and politicians was centered on Palin’s incitement of the situations. How she used this phrase or that word to “get the crowd agitated”. No one seemed to talk about the crowds themselves. No one talked about how we got to the point where our political rallies resembled lynch mobs.

For all the Rush Limbaughs and Fox News reporters, this has always been a little self-serving game. Do what you are told by the bosses, keep the ratings up and go home with fat paychecks. It was a game, a game that paid the bills.
There is one problem here. There are people in the United States who actually believe the lies and propaganda that the far right has been pouring into their brains. This is not a game to them! This is the real thing!

I imagine in the months and years to come, we will see more from the mob among us. I would not rule out the possibility of violence. The far right has in its obsession for power created this brainwashed mob. I do hope they understand that their mob may someday turn on its creator.

Sarah Palin Encourages the Pychopaths among Us

2008-10-06T21:28:00.011-05:00

Sarah Palin is sowing the emotional seeds of hate and intolerance. She is deliberately appealing to the psychopaths among us. Things have really gotten out of hand when she incites members of her audience to yell, "kill him".

In Fla., Palin Goes for the Rough Stuff as Audience Boos Obama
By Dana Milbank

CLEARWATER, Fla. -- "Okay, so Florida, you know that you're going to have to hang onto your hats," Sarah Palin told a rally of a few thousand here this morning, "because from now until Election Day it may get kind of rough."

You betcha. And the person dishing out the roughest stuff at the moment is Sarah Palin.

"I was reading my copy of the New York Times the other day," she said.

"Booooo!" replied the crowd.

"I knew you guys would react that way, okay," she continued. "So I was reading the New York Times and I was really interested to read about Barack's friends from Chicago."

It was time to revive the allegation, made over the weekend, that Obama "pals around" with terrorists, in this case Bill Ayers, late of the Weather Underground. Many independent observers say Palin's allegations are a stretch; Obama served on a Chicago charitable board with Ayers, now an education professor, and has condemned his past activities.

"Now it turns out, one of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers," Palin said.

"Boooo!" said the crowd.

"And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,'" she continued.

"Boooo!" the crowd repeated.

"Kill him!" proposed one man in the audience. Read entire article here.

Eviction Solution: Shoot yourself

2008-10-05T21:54:00.008-05:00

For everyone out there facing the loss of their homes - here is a desperate way to keep the wolves away from the door. This is what we have come to - eviction of 90 year old women!

Fannie Mae forgives loan for woman who shot herself

(CNN) Fannie Mae said it will set aside the loan of a woman who shot herself as sheriff's deputies tried to evict her from her foreclosed home.

Addie Polk, 90, of Akron, Ohio, became a symbol of the nation's home mortgage crisis when she was hospitalized after shooting herself at least twice in the upper body Wednesday afternoon.

On Friday, Fannie Mae spokesman Brian Faith said the mortgage association had decided to halt action against Polk and sign the property "outright" to her. Read entire article here.

Wall Street Bailout and the Awakening Class Conciousness

2008-09-28T09:00:00.016-05:00

Regardless of the necessity for a Wall Street bailout (it does appear to be necessary at this point) there is a growing anger among the people. This anger is the beginning of an awakening of a class consciousness. The ownership society is finally realizing the truth. The emperor’s clothes (years of slick advertising and corporate propaganda) have suddenly disappeared before the eyes of the people. They now know that they have been fooled into believing that they are somehow part of the investment class. It is now painfully apparent to millions, that their job has all along been to provide the fuel (money) for the engine of Wall Street. The genie is out of the bottle and the truth is slapping them in the face. Their servitude to the ruling class lies before their feet like the steaming pile of shit that it is.

Anger at bailout turns on fat salaries for Wall Street execs
By David Lightman | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Sen. Dianne Feinstein's office has heard from about 50,000 constituents since Congress began considering a financial rescue plan about a week ago — and "only one of a thousand supports it — whatever it is," the California Democrat said.

Lawmakers from both parties reported similar confusion and concern among constituents as they spent their Saturday painstakingly, and sometimes painfully, trying to craft a still-elusive compromise package. Read entire article here.

Americans are Dumb!

2008-09-24T20:59:00.001-05:00

For most of my life, I have tried to give my fellow citizens the benefit of the doubt. I made a conscious or unconscious excuse for everything about them which made me feel uncomfortable. I rationalized their behavior. I saw them as vessels that were half full rather than half empty. Americans, I would say are good people at heart and have been just led astray by the forces of evil and greed. They are just hapless souls in a sea of exploitation and thus not entirely responsible for their actions.

I say this no more. The average shopping mall fixated, SUV driving, god fearing American is just plain dumb. Yes, they are outstandingly ignorant and in many cases proud of it. Their minds have become solidified by inactivity, their cognitive functions and conscious minds have been altered permanently by the exposure to years of marketing and propaganda. Many are illiterate or semi-literate with no knowledge of history, geography, mathematics, or even their own government. They think in reactive patterns which reinforces the twisted simplified world view spooned into their brains by religious perverts, money grubbing corporations and lying politicians.

Should we scratch our heads and wonder why, when those of us with active frontal lobes see national polls that indicate that nearly half of our nation supports the McSame/Pain campaign? No, we should expect the worst. It is sad to say, but our nation is populated with beings whose attention span can be measured in seconds and for the most part don’t want to get involved in the “critical thinking and information gathering” necessary for the success of a modern democracy.

So how do we react when 46 percent of the population has their heads so far up their asses, that they think a 72 year old lying piece of shit would be a good president? And this is after 8 years of an idiot in the White House.

If McSame/Pain wins the election, I plan to seek political asylum in whatever country will take an old fat white guy. Remember just because it doesn’t make sense, doesn’t mean it won’t happen. Dumb asses do dumb ass things – take George Bush – please?

If John McCain Wins

2008-09-07T18:58:00.004-05:00

If John McCain wins the presidency, all is lost for America - and possibly the planet. With the looming crisis of global warming (another vast pressing and almost untouched issue in American politics), there are distinct possibilities of a future filled with climatic changes on a scale that would fundamentally alter the evolution of our species.

We are in a race that we may have already lost - religion, especially Christianity may be ultimately responsible - having spawned the dark ages, thus setting science and the development of technology back by several hundred years. Future historians will be able to more accurately judge exactly the cause for our undoing - that is of course, if there are future historians.

Only our technology will give us a chance at saving our planet. If we miss technological milestones by only a year - all will be lost. The latest scientific predictions talk about the possibility of the beginning of a climate not seen for some 55 million years!

So yes we in America, we in the world, could use some non-corporate bought and sold leadership. The future of our children and our children's children depend on it. There is no time for anything less.

Let's hope the next generation will not forever have the question on their lips, "Why did they do nothing to stop this?" "Why were they so stupid, so shortsighted, and so selfish?"

Two Dollars of Gas

2008-06-12T18:42:00.002-05:00

In 1970, the year of my arrival at college in a small town in Illinois, I remember the price of gasoline on a sign at a filling station on Main Street, only a half mile from campus. In those days gas stations were called filling stations. In fact, a number of years before, in the early 1960’s, my father owned and operated a “filling station” in my home town. In 1970, filling stations still had attendants who upon your arrival were at your car’s door and asked the question that had been repeated for years by thousands of attendants; “Fill’er up and check that oil for you today, sir?” Being relatively poor at the time and very frugal, my answer was, “Put a couple dollars worth in and check the oil for me!” Yes, you read it right; I put two dollars worth of gas in my car. This was a car that had a large V-8 engine with a monstrous carburetor, that was lucky to get 10 miles to the gallon on the highway and I just put two dollars worth of gas in it?

For anyone who was not alive during those years, it is hard to even guess the amount of gasoline that I was able to purchase with just two dollars some 38 years ago. That two dollars bought me approximately 11.50 gallons of leaded premium gasoline! Yes, and the price on that sign, displayed for all to see, next to that filling station, on the day of my arrival at college some 38 years ago? 17.9 cents a gallon!

There are many things that I don’t miss about – the 50s, the 60’s, and the 70’s. But I do miss having a well dressed young man attending to the needs of my automobile and most of all, I miss putting just two dollars of gasoline in my car.

Howard Zinn: Anarchism Shouldn't Be a Dirty Word

2008-05-18T21:34:00.002-05:00

By Ziga Vodovnik, CounterPunch.

In this interview, Zinn explains why anarchism is often ridiculed as violent and chaotic.

Howard Zinn, 85, is a Professor Emeritus of political science at Boston University. He was born in Brooklyn, NY, in 1922 to a poor immigrant family. He realized early in his youth that the promise of the "American Dream", that will come true to all hard-working and diligent people, is just that -- a promise and a dream. During World War II he joined US Air Force and served as a bombardier in the "European Theatre." This proved to be a formative experience that only strengthened his convictions that there is no such thing as a just war. It also revealed, once again, the real face of the socio-economic order, where the suffering and sacrifice of the ordinary people is always used only to higher the profits of the privileged few. Entire article here.

The Great Depression 2008 - It can't happen to us....can it?”

2008-05-04T09:21:00.004-05:00

The Market Oracle
By: Andy_Sutton

Webster's defines complacency as “1. satisfaction or contentment 2. smug self-satisfaction” There is probably not a better word to describe the current state of perception with regard to economic and financial malady. I had an interesting conversation the other night about exactly this topic and the individual I was speaking with had an overriding belief that we cannot suffer economically simply because the current generation is not prepared to deal with it. While I certainly agree with the latter assertion, the former continues to baffle me. I am certainly not prepared to deal with a lengthy hospital stay as the result of a horrific car crash, but that alone doesn't cloak me in immunity from having an accident. The reasoning is so broken and flawed, yet it is often all we get in terms of a perception of what is going on. Read entire article here.

Save Our People and Our Planet

2008-04-27T19:37:00.011-05:00

The people of planet Earth have never before found themselves in such a precarious position. We face a multitude of challenges and problems unlike anything before. Because of its size and power, the United States stands at an intersection of historic proportions. We as a nation and we as a people have an appointment with one of two vastly different destinies. The choice we make could damage the planet forever; alter, slow down and possibly stop all human social and technological evolution. We could also begin a transition period that will ultimately end with our eventual evolution into a Type 1 Civilization.

Choice #1 could precipitate a Dark Age that could last a thousand years.

The last Dark Age was a period in European history that started around 800 AD and lasted until the beginning of the Renaissance. The era became known as the Dark Ages because of the introduction of Christian theocracy as the only guideline in all fields of endeavor. This created a halt to all progress, a suppression of all scientific knowledge and centuries of stagnation. The progress of Western civilization virtually stopped. The knowledge gained by the scholars of the classical age was lost and for nearly 600 years, life was governed by superstitions and fears which fueled ignorance.

The imposition of Christian theocracy was used as a means to an end by the ruling class. The driving forces behind the motivations for its imposition were rooted in a desire to stop change and all its possible cultural ramifications. Scholars of the classical age and their knowledge were seen as the seeds for the budding curiosity of early scientific minds. The ruling classes’ reaction to this threat of change and a threat to their power was to destroy the temples of knowledge built by the ancients and then salt the earth where their foundations had rested. The success of their reaction to change was complete and their domination of the culture was unchallenged for hundreds of years.

The progression of knowledge and advancements of science today have a “what if” quality to them. What if, we had not lost 600 years to ignorance and superstition? Would we already be part of a Type 1 civilization? Would the petroleum age be a mere footnote in our ancient history? Would threats to our planet’s environment be fanciful tales set in a world long ago? Would all the threats of war, famine and disease be distant problems that no longer posed a threat to mankind?

The warning signs for the coming of a new Dark Age swirl around our daily lives like demons from the past. Religious fundamentalism is rearing its ugly head all around the world. Here in the United States, we have seen a resurgence of religious extremism and corresponding increases in intolerance, xenophobia, and pseudo science belief systems like “Intelligent Design”. We also can see the warning signs of the coming of a new Dark Age in our news media, political parties and our governments. In the United States, an alliance between corporations, government and our news entities has produced a toxic mix of rigid control which is enabled and perpetuated by a powerful propaganda machine. Corporate America has essentially bought and paid for the ability to control the social, political and economic dynamics of our nation.

Our first choice is actually a choice to resist the power structures reaction. We must resist because the threats posed by the coming scientific and cultural revolutions of the 21st Century will most likely be the tipping point for the power structure in the United States. Seeing the loss of their ability to control the hearts, minds, social, political and economic dynamics of our country, they will react. Just like the reaction that started the first Dark Age, this reaction will be powerful and ruthless. A growing array of tracking, control and monitoring tools coupled with the power to project and maintain a sophisticated propaganda machine will give them almost unlimited power over our people. With total control as their motivation, they will use this power to stop and or alter significantly scientific and cultural evolution. They will plunge our country and then the world into the next Dark Age.

Choice #2 could lead our people to the doorstep of a Type 1 Civilization.

We as a species stand on the threshold of a new beginning. Our technology and science are poised to completely reshape our world in ways that we cannot begin to imagine. Recent advances and real world applications in genetics, bioengineering and nanotechnology are already beginning to reshape our world.

The ability to disseminate information and news instantaneously to anyone anywhere is creating a world wide collective consciousness. We are seeing the beginnings of this collective consciousness in all the industrialized countries which have connected populations.

Shared experience, information and knowledge are the foundations for this growing collective consciousness. With personal computers and the internet as the delivery mechanisms, we are collectively being exposed to information and opinion about everything everywhere, at the same time in the same way.

The decentralization of news and information gathering systems has empowered millions of people to understand that they now have a voice. They can know the same facts, they can act on the same problems, they can address the same issues and most importantly, they can do all these things, together. Computers and wireless mobile telecommunication systems have enabled millions of people to be continuously connected to family, friends and larger user defined networks.

Our second choice must be purchased by the desire of ordinary citizens using their own sophistication and intelligence to break free, at long last from the chains that have shackled the human race for thousands of years. For the first time, our technology offers us the ability to stand united. For the first time, ordinary people can stand united against the forces that would propagate fear and ignorance to control us. For the first time in the history of mankind, people throughout the world can decide their own destiny and the destiny of the planet.

Divided, we allow the forces of control to triumph once again.

United, we will bring a new world to the people and to the planet!

McCain - Clinton plan to run on the same ticket in November!

2008-04-24T22:09:00.005-05:00

Rumor has it that Fox news will break a story later this week about secret negotiations between John McCain and Hillary Clinton about their plans to run as a team in the November election. There is talk ranging from Hillary as VP to a co-presidency arrangement of some sort. It appears that Roger Ailes has taken a liking to Hillary Clinton and wants to put her on the team. Just when you think this election can't produce anymore surprises - a DemoRepublican ticket is born. What are the chances?

The Olympic Games, China and the Loss of our Manufacturing Jobs

2008-04-11T21:54:00.011-05:00

This week marked the beginning of the corporate media’s celebration of Communist China’s entry into the world of legitimate, respected and honored countries. China’s hosting of the Olympic Games provides them with undeserved recognition and legitimacy. The corporate ruling class has foisted this gift of China’s Olympic hosting upon our people like a common charlatan selling death in a bottle and calling it the elixir of life. Millions of our jobs now exist in a place without freedom, without labor laws and without environmental protections. So we are now asked to accept and embrace this monster called China. They ask us to celebrate its coming of age. Perhaps we should ask the people of Martinsville, Virginia if they feel like celebrating this powerful new economy called China.

Globalization, trade and recession take a toll on Martinsville, Virginia
By Tony Pugh | McClatchy Newspapers

MARTINSVILLE, VA. — For nearly 100 years, the furniture industry powered the economy in this struggling town in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Now it's dying.
Martinsville's decline from a secure working-class town to a fading industrial shell of16,000 people is a familiar story in scores of other American cities as the downside of globalization and trade policies takes a toll on the nation's manufacturing base. Foreign competition, mainly from China, has trimmed more than 120,000 furniture industry jobs nationwide since 2000. That's about a third of the industry's U.S. workforce, said industry analyst Jerry Epperson. Read entire article here.

The Creation of a Permanent Underclass in the United States

2008-03-23T11:44:00.011-05:00

One does not have to look very far to see the changes that are taking place in our economy. Globalization and the resulting outsourcing of large segments of our manufacturing base are changing the economic landscape of the United States. If you combine outsourcing with the current exponential rate of technological change, you have a recipe for worker dislocation or underemployment, on a scale never before imagined. We are quickly moving to a point where millions of America workers will not have the formal education, and or technical skills to work in a 21st Century information economy. With the absence of massive intervention, that is aimed at education and retraining, the United States is poised to become economically polarized on an almost medieval scale. As documented in the following article; less education and marketable skill sets is translating into low wage jobs and the creation of a permanent underclass.

For less-educated workers, good jobs will be harder to find
By Tony Pugh | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — The steady loss of "good jobs" by less-educated workers has left them more vulnerable to recession than at any time in nearly 30 years, and signs are mounting that a recession is either already here or coming soon.
High-school dropouts and even high-school graduates who lack specialized job training have seen their already limited employment prospects steadily decline during America's decades-long shift from a manufacturing-based economy to a service economy. Read entire article here.

John McCain’s Geriatric Express

2008-02-06T22:11:00.001-06:00

John McCain’s Geriatric Express is about to set sail on a none stop, hell bent for leather, abortion in the making, run for the highest office in the land. The maverick, the reluctant ass kisser, the want-a-be religious conservative, the born-again NeoCon has somehow floated to the top of the Republican cesspool of unelectable candidates.

In spite of his best efforts, to fit in with the crazy Nazis and religious lunatics who control the Republican Party, he is still remembered and punished for his former, “up yours attitude.” The power base of the Republican Party will never accept him and many in the lunatic wing of the party will forever see him as a threat to their principles. He dared once to refuse to goose step to their parade of lies and deceit. And for that, he will always be the swine of the party, a mere water carrier, but never part of the elite.

Now this poor old deluded man is going to fling himself headlong into the meat grinder of doom. If he happens to make it through the next grueling months, without dying or becoming seriously ill, his presidential bid will most likely end in an embarrassing defeat of historic proportions. For John McCain, the path from tool of the party, to joke of the nation will be mercifully short. Unfortunately, history will forever attach, (deluded pathetic loser) to any reference that contains his name.

The Republican Party is Dead!

2008-01-13T10:17:00.000-06:00

The party of former President Ronald Reagan is in its death throes. The coalition of crazies and fascists that was once able to fool large blocks of Democratic voters is splitting into pieces. Karl Rove’s dream of a permanent Republican majority, (A Thousand Year Reich) are fading into the wet dream annals of history. How ironic it is that in pursuit of their dreams of an unbridled majority, Mr. Rove and his Republican co-conspirators have precipitated the very destruction of their party. The following article accurately documents the progress of the Republican Party’s death spasms.

Campaign exposes deep rifts in GOP coalition
By Steven Thomma | McClatchy Newspapers

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. — The house that Ronald Reagan built is in danger of collapsing.
The coalition of fiscal conservatives, national security conservatives, anti-tax activists and social conservatives that rallied behind Reagan in 1980 and has defined the Republican Party ever since is coming apart at the seams heading into the 2008 election. Read more here.

Mike Huckabee: Clueless Moron

2007-12-28T21:47:00.000-06:00

Mike Huck-a-bee’s recent unbelievable comments that used the volatile situation in Pakistan Friday, to make an argument for building a fence on the American border with Mexico, revealed the true quality of his presidential credentials. He told reporters in Orlando, Fla.: “We ought to have an immediate, very clear monitoring of our borders and particularly to make sure if there’s any unusual activity of Pakistanis coming into the country.”

Comments like this clearly indicate that once again, the most ignorant turd is rising to the top of the Republican presidential cesspool. Perhaps Republican presidential candidates should be at least required to point to “important” countries on a large map. This exercise could be easily integrated into the next scripted Republican, “debate”.

What is truly amazing about this entire process is the fact, that after almost 8 years of suffering with an idiot in the White House, the Republicans seem to want to nominate yet another clueless moron. They evidently need 4 more years of failed leadership to help them understand what most of us already know: Religion, ignorance, and ideology can never replace knowledge, intelligence, and leadership.

Just Say No to Mike Huckabee

2007-12-16T23:32:00.000-06:00

So, how do you spell desperate if you are a Republican? Apparently their most recent mutation of the English language involves substituting Mike Huck-a-bee, when the word desperate would normally be used. Now usually, I would not object to a minor alteration of a word or words in the context of their normal linguistic evolution. But this time the Republicans have just pushed the envelope far beyond the limits of good taste. The logical and nightmarish extension of this linguistic abomination would be to then use Mike Huck-a-bee as a substitute for the time tested words, the President of the United States. A nightmare of all nightmares might then be possible with combining of both these time tested words with the new Republican mutation, to produce the words, President Huck-a-bee.

We can not under any circumstances allow the Republicans to run roughshod over our language. Accepting Mike Huck-a-bee as a substitute for the word desperate would be linguistically misguided and illogical. Contact your elected Republican representatives today. Say yes to maintaining the integrity of the word desperate and no to Mike Huck-a-bee!

Iraq and Climate Change

2007-12-10T20:29:00.000-06:00

Michael T. Klare | December 7, 2007
Foreign Policy In Focus

When our grandchildren and more distant descendants assemble in such classrooms as may be available and ask their teachers, “Why did our ancestors not take effective action to prevent the catastrophic effects of climate change?” one of the answers will surely be, “The war in Iraq.”

Long after this war is over, its legacy will live on in terms of this nation’s abject failure to address the climate change challenge during the early years of the twenty-first century, when it was still possible to avert global warming’s most horrendous effects. When these effects became more widely apparent, in the decades ahead, humanity will no doubt take vigorous action to deal with the problem – but by then it will be too late to prevent some of its most damaging consequences, such as dramatic sea-level rise, widespread drought and desertification, increased severe storm activity, and the collapse of vulnerable societies. Read entire article here

Non-job Unions of the 21st Century

2007-12-01T23:21:00.000-06:00

There is a tsunami headed for the shores of the United States. Instead of a massive wave of water, it is an ever growing wave of technological change.

Ray Kurzweil - an inventor, an entrepreneur, an author, and a futurist explains the realities driving the oncoming technological tsunami: The whole 20th century, because we’ve been speeding up to this point, is equivalent to 20 years of progress at today’s rate of progress, and we’ll make another 20 years of progress at today’s rate of progress equal to the whole 20th century in the next 14 years, and then we’ll do it again in seven years. And because of the explosive power of exponential growth, the 21st century will be equivalent to 20,000 years of progress at today’s rate of progress, which is a thousand times greater than the 20th century, which was no slouch to change.

This very rate of change itself dictates and then necessitates major changes in both our workforce and the way it will potentially be organized. Increasingly, workers of the 21st century will be required to become adaptable skilled full time learners who are comfortable working simultaneously in both the real and the virtual world.

Needless to say, the workers who have 20th century skill sets and an aversion to change and/or education will be unable to compete in this new world. This unfortunate and potentially disastrous byproduct of this exponential growth rate will leave millions of low and middle skilled workers in untenable economic situations.

Traditional models for 20th century labor unions were organized by either trade or by industry. The protection of workers necessitated the formation and then the execution of principals or policies that deliberately slowed the rate of trade/industry changes.

The unions in the 21st century will evolve into decentralized web based affiliations that will organize the power and voice of like educated, like skilled workers. As opposed to their 20th century counterparts, these affiliations will feed off the change and evolution of technology. Instead of being organized in trades or industries, they will be focused around education, skill sets, and work experience.

Finally, traditional labor unions are for all intensive purposes, dead! And in their place, web based brotherhoods will nurture the workers of the future and help them to ride the coming wave of technological change.

Show Feinstein-Democrats the Door

2007-11-15T22:37:00.000-06:00

It should be quite obvious by now to everyone, that we have a serious problem in the legislative branch of our government. Disappointment, disgust, and anger have destroyed all of the expectations we initially had for our recently elected democrats ability to actually bring about change. It is painfully obvious, that our legislative branch is the home of one bird with two very similar wings. This is not to say that there are not a few genuine progressives in the House and the Senate. There are of course a few, but there are only just a few. The rest are corporate democrats, whose true allegiance is to their corporate masters.

Corporate democrats use a progressive agenda as a smoke screen to distract from their missions of service to big business. Any crumbs that happen to fall from the table to benefit the people of the United States are purchased with massive legislative or tax gifts to Corporate America.

So when we clean our legislative house next year, we need to clean the entire house. It is not just the Republicans who need to be shown the door in the next election. There are also quite a few Democrats who need to join the ranks of the unemployed. We need to examine all the candidates, what their records are, what they stand for. We need to let the Republican like Feinstein-Democrats know that their days are numbered. And most of all, we need to make sure that all our representatives know that if we elect or reelect them, that they will be held accountable for their actions. Demand a government that can govern and representatives who will truly represent the will of the people. We have only our chains to lose and the world to win!

Our 21st Century Tomas deTorquemada

2007-11-06T21:50:00.000-06:00

Rising from it's centuries long slumber, The Water Cure is resurrected by our religious madman, George Bush. Five hundred years later, we debate the obvious, we debate what was already decided during the Spanish Inquisition: Waterboarding is torture. Insanity and Christian religious extremism are alive and well in the 21st Century.

The Water Cure

The accused woman lay naked on an escalera, a ladder tipped so that her head was lower than her feet. The torturer had stretched her out to her full length and bound her tightly. Iron prongs held her jaws open. Her nostrils were stopped, allowing breathing only through her mouth. She struggled, but her bounds permitted little movement, and days of relentless questioning had left her exhausted. The torturer draped a piece of linen loosely over her open mouth. Jugs of water lined a nearby wall. Read entire article here.

KursweilAI.net's: The Brain

2007-10-28T21:39:00.000-05:00

KurzweilAI.net features the big thoughts of today's big thinkers examining the confluence of accelerating revolutions that are shaping our future world, and the inside story on new technological and social realities from the pioneers actively working in these arenas.

A mini-education lies within this link. Enter KurszweilAI.net's The Brain and spend some time. Enter The Brain here.

Climate Change and the Kardashew Scale

2007-10-14T23:07:00.001-05:00

Our civilization when rated on the Kardashev scale is a Type 0. We have yet to move into what Kardashev classifies as a Type 1 Civilization.

The renowned physicist Dr. Michio Kaku, someone who is known for his ability translate the complexities of the cosmos in laymen’s terms, describes a Type 1 Civilization as: A civilization that would be able to manipulate truly planetary energies. They might, for example, control or modify their weather. They would have the power to manipulate planetary phenomena, such as hurricanes, which can release the energy of hundreds of hydrogen bombs. Perhaps volcanoes or even earthquakes may be altered by such a civilization.

So I guess the big questions are: Will our technology evolve in time to control the current course of planetary climate change? Will we at some point begin a modern version of the Dark Ages, if our climate spins out of control? Have we already lost the race between our ability to destroy the planet and our development of the tools necessary to save it?

The Inevitability of Climate Change

2007-10-04T21:36:00.001-05:00

Massive planetary climate change and its inevitability will become a pivotal point in both human history and human evolution. Without the intervention of some miracle technological innovation, we as a species have set in motion a system, a mindset, and an obsession that is delivering our planet to an intersection from which there is no return.

In a recent article, Why Climate Change Can't Be Stopped, authors Paul J. Saunders, Vaughan Turekian effectively explain why.

The international political environment also makes truly significant emissions cuts very unlikely. In 2010, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, developing countries will emit nearly 20 percent more CO2 emissions than developed countries. Indeed, only in China (and perhaps India) would emissions limits or cuts make more of a difference than in the United States. By one estimate, China has already surpassed America in emissions to become the world’s leader and, with sustained high growth rates, will open the gap even further. In fact, if China grows at 8 percent for the next nine years, its economy will double in size—and its greenhouse gas emissions can be expected roughly to double as well. Moreover, as China’s economy expands, it is turning increasingly to carbon-laden coal for electricity. And although China’s energy intensity (energy consumed per unit of economic output) has decreased by nearly 5 percent per year for the last two decades as a result of greater efficiency, it is still nearly seven times that of the United States, according to the World Bank. At this rate, China’s growth trajectory could add the equivalent pollution of another present-day United States to the climate system in a little more than a decade. Read entire article here.

Blaming the Immigrants instead of the Policies

2007-09-24T08:11:00.000-05:00

Joshua Holland's recent article, "Bush's Looming Immigration Crackdown a Painful Exercise in Futility" highlights the many enabling issues behind the current immigration problem in the United States.

Bush's Looming Immigration Crackdown a Painful Exercise in Futility
By Joshua Holland

This fall, Americans are going to witness Bush's brutal "crackdown" on illegal immigration designed to appease right-wing hardliners.

This fall, Americans are going to witness a brutal and ham-fisted "crackdown" on illegal immigration by the Bush Administration. It will be a stark and tragic illustration of what happens when a vocal and well-organized minority of hardliners hijacks the country's legislative process. Read entire article here.

American Labors Forgotten Mission

2007-09-07T22:31:00.001-05:00

With the passing of Labor Day, I am beset by the visions I have, of the struggles of the Labor Movement. From its humble beginning, its victories, its defeats, we can find example after example, of how the labor movement changed our workplace and our society. The American Labor Movement of today appears to be in a period of both decline and rebirth.

The established labor unions in traditional segments of our economy continue to decline as they fall prey to multi-national greed and exploitation. Unions like the ones that represent manufacturing workers have become easy targets. They of course have contributed to their own growing weakness. They seem to have many interconnected problems associated with their organizations. Many of these weaknesses are the result of aberrant internal structural evolutions, reactions to various external economic/governmental/societal pressures, or what can only be described as, an institutionalized aversion to change. But the most important fundamental that these labor unions have lost or forgotten is the meaning of the word, “movement".

These older unions have an institutionalized memory of the word “movement", which manifests itself in stated missions and half-hearted, ineffective actions. But they have lost the spirit of the very mission, of which they are a product of. They are a manifestation of the labor movement, a point in its evolution and a vehicle for its change, not the end of its change. They are a stepping stone in a process that began with the Magna Carta and will end, when equality and social justice becomes a reality for everyone, everywhere!

Could it get any worse for the Republicans?

2007-08-28T21:38:00.000-05:00

BOISE, Idaho - A defiant Sen. Larry Craig denied any wrongdoing Tuesday despite his guilty plea this summer in a men's room police sting, emphatically adding, "I am not gay. I have never been gay."

Could it get any worse for the Republicans? Another member of their flock, who likes to have sex in public restrooms with strange men, while preaching "family values" and voting against gay rights initiatives.

Just when they think that the last bomb has been dropped and the last skeleton has fallen out of the closet - they are blind-sided with another political catastrophe. Short of President Bush appearing on the steps of the White House, with horns, a pitchfork, a tail, and fire shooting out of his ass, they have had to endure an almost unending list of embarrassing revelations. I would almost feel a little sorry for the pathetic bastards, but then who deserves this more than they do?

Time to dig up Saddam?

2007-08-25T22:33:00.000-05:00

The crazy bastards who currently inhabit the White House have been telling me for over four years, that one of the primary missions of the United States is to establish a Democracy in Iraq. I was shown ink stained Iraqis bleating for freedom and right to be exploited by multi-nationals. I had to endure a puffed up like a bullfrog in heat president, extol the dreams of the Iraqi people and their yearnings for freedom. I had to listen, year after year, to corporate media water carriers debating the grand mission of Democracy while beating their bloated overfed chests.

Now, thanks to the miracle of CNN news, I hear a high-ranking military lapdog today say, that Iraq may not be ready for a Democracy! In fact, he thought that Iraq really needs someone like a strong man! Like maybe someone like Saddam Hussein?

After four years, billions of dollars, and hundreds of thousands of lives lost, we come to the conclusion that Iraq needs a strong man? There still might be time to dig up Saddam, put some makeup on him and prop him in front of a camera. Put a sword or shotgun in his hand and replay some of his old speeches. Even if the only thing that remains strong about him is his odor, it’s worth a shot. At this point,what do we have to lose?

End the Influence of Karl Rove Now!

2007-08-20T18:45:00.000-05:00

Karl Rove is a criminal. He should not be welcomed in any city. He should not be allowed on any news program. He should be followed and protested wherever he tries to spread his lies and propaganda. Let everyone know who welcomes this Nazi, that you object this abomination of a man and his continued assault on our democracy. End the influence of Karl Rove now!

Send the Rich Folks Home!

2007-08-03T22:46:00.000-05:00

Politicians are very good at delivering their messages. Most tell us exactly what we want to hear. They combine message and image to mold and market an easily identifiable, coherent embodiment of their characters. Some politicians are particularly good at tapping into the mood and temperament of the electorate. With the right marketing, and the ability to memorize scripts, even a second rate actor, (or an idiot from Texas) can be shaped into a presidential persona.

I guess I understand that in an age of marketing and exploitation of the masses, one would out of necessity have to “package,” a candidate. What I take issue with is the fact that almost all these “packaged” candidates are from the same class. Let’s face it, they are all wealthy beyond the imaginations of ordinary, “go to work everyday,” hourly and salaried workers.

It is not the wealth of these candidates that bothers me, but the distance from which they perceive the realities of ordinary people. Their wealth and comfort distance them, from “our world” and make them completely incapable of understanding, “our reality.” Understanding our world becomes a detached exercise through a distorted lens of luxury and personal excess.

Finally, I cannot help questioning the sincerity and the problem solving abilities of wealthy candidates. Give me a candidate who knows what it’s like to be hungry and he will find a way to feed our people. Give me a candidate who has lost job after job, to outsourcing, and he will find a way to protect our jobs and industries. Give me a candidate who has lost a child to an ill-conceived war and he will find a way to keep us out of wars. Yes, give me an ordinary worker as my candidate and send the rich folks home!

My Reaction to Chernoff's "Gut feeling"

2007-07-15T10:17:00.000-05:00

Secretary Chernoff’s comment last week that he had a "gut feeling" that the United States faced a heightened risk of attack this summer made the alarm bells go off in my head. There can only be three reasons for making this comment:

1. A desperate attempt to remind (frighten) the American people of their need to surrender their freedoms for the greater good, (Protecting the Homeland).

2. A lame attempt to somehow indirectly rationalize the occupation (war) in Iraq.

3. A propaganda prelude to either a real terrorist attack or a Dick Cheney manufactured terrorist attack.

What really scares me is that when I first heard the Secretary's “gut feeling” comment, my first reaction was “My god, they are to going covertly launch an attack on the United States and blame it on Al Queda!” Perhaps I am just paranoid, but maybe I'm not?

The War in Iraq is Over!

2007-07-08T13:41:00.000-05:00

The war in Iraq is over - If you want it! Call your representatives, your newspapers, your radio stations, your television stations-Talk to your friends, your neighbors, and your coworkers. The power to end this war, the power to stop the killing, the power to bring our sons and daughters home is in your hands. Do something today, tomorrow and the next day to stop the madness. The war in Iraq will be over - If you want it to be!

Hostage Nation: Set us Free from Bush and Cheney

2007-07-04T10:48:00.000-05:00

It is obvious that it is time for the people of the United States to speak, not through representatives or leaders, but with their own voices. I propose that, “A million voices of the American people” march on the White House to demand the resignation of George Bush and Dick Cheney. People of the United States, organize now! End this reign of criminals and restore our Democracy!

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Will Bush/Cheney Leave Office on January 20, 2009?

2007-06-24T09:55:00.000-05:00

After watching the movie, V for Vendetta again the other night, I was haunted by this question: Will the Bush/Cheney junta actually leave office on January 20, 2009? If you haven't seen the movie yet, I recommend that you watch it. See if the same question rises the surface of your consciousness. Reality can indeed be stranger and more frightening that fiction.

The Redeployment of our Miltary in Iraq to our Southern Border

2007-06-17T09:30:00.000-05:00

Sometimes the solution to one problem can lead to a solution to another problem. The ultimate solution to the Mexican immigration problem; lies in our assistance and partnership with all our southern neighbors to build economies that can effectively provide for their populations. In lieu of the implementation of such a strategy, it would probably make sense to at least temporarily, stop the immigration of people from the south to the north.

Short of building thousands of miles of border fencing that would turn our southern border into a DMZ like zone, the only reasonable short term security solution would be to use our regular military forces.

In the coming months, our hand wringing leaders on both sides of the aisle will be forced to talk about where our troops in Iraqi will be redeployed. They will be looking for the best way to spin our defeat. They will need a way to soften the upcoming national trauma of defeat and provide a mission for our broken military.

So why not redeploy our forces in Iraq to our southern border with Mexico? In addition to providing needed border security for our country, our military could train, rest, and reequip. We solve one problem, (border security) by solving another, (giving our military a mission and healing time).

Would anyone take an idea like this seriously? No, it makes too much sense.

Reality check: Defeat In Iraq, Losing a War

2007-06-15T06:01:00.000-05:00

A national trauma very much like the trauma after the Vietnam War will soon be upon us. Christopher J. Fettweis does an excellent job setting the stage and giving us a perspective on losing a war.

Christopher J. Fettweis: Coming loss in Iraq will long plague us
The Vietnam syndrome divided this country for decades, and the Iraq syndrome will be no different.

Christopher J. Fettweis
Published: June 14, 2007
Losing hurts more than winning feels good. This maxim applies to virtually all areas of human interaction: sports, finance, love. And war.
Defeat in war damages societies quite out of proportion to what a rational calculation of cost would predict. The United States absorbed the loss in Vietnam quite easily on paper, for example, but the societal effects of defeat linger to this day. Defeats can have seemingly inexplicable consequences.
And as any sports fan can tell you, the only thing that feels worse than a loss is an upset. An upset demands explanation and requires that responsible parties be punished.
The endgame in Iraq is now clear, and it appears that the heavily favored United States will be upset. Once support for a war is lost, it is gone for good; there is no example of a modern democracy having changed its mind once it turned against a war. So we ought to start coming to grips with the meaning of losing in Iraq. Read entire article here

A Nation is Its People

2007-06-08T23:26:00.000-05:00

Strange things happen to your point of view, once you start approaching 60 years old. So much of what was so important to you, now recedes into a zone of what we call, the past. The old car seems like a part of the family now. Absent is that desire for a new one. We have a history. We have seen a lot and traveled many roads together. There is no need for the shiny new paint or the fancy wheels of a replacement. We have a history. Yes, the things that we thought we needed and the things that we thought we needed to make anew, now hold almost no priority in our lives.

As age and the wisdom that grows with age, clears our vision and reorients our perspective, and we leave the years of cultural indoctrination behind, we finally discover what is really important. People!

Of all the things that are wrong or are going wrong with our great nation, what disturbs me now the most, is how we no longer value the true strength of our nation. We no longer value our people. A nation is its people. Any nation that fails to value its people is destined to become a footnote, to a litany of historical failures. I fear that the footnote for America has already been written and it’s just waiting to become some future printed words.

Wanted: Democrats with the Courage to Change

2007-05-28T09:07:00.000-05:00

On Thursday of this week, Democrats of the House and Senate essentially turned tail and allowed a vote on a $120 billion war funding measure containing weak benchmarks and little in the way of consequences should the Iraqi government fall short. Millions of progressives across America received this news with feelings of disgust, anger, and betrayal. We expected our representatives to represent us. We expected our representatives to stop the madness of George Bush’s killing machine.

So the question is, where do we go from here? Do we continue to support what appears to be a lame, shortsighted, gutless party? Or do we move in the direction of a third party?

This latest capitulation by the Democrats validates the feelings of many, that the Democrats are just a different version of the same thing. We had fooled ourselves into believing that by just changing the players we could change the system.

This cave-in by the Democrats is a wake up call for all Americans. The label “Democrat” is not good enough anymore. We need Democrats who will fight to fix our broken government. We need Democrats with the courage to change, the very system, that got them elected. We need Democrats who understand that they govern with the consent of the people, not by the divine right of King George Bush.

Book Excerpt: The Assault on Reason by Al Gore

2007-05-19T08:01:00.000-05:00

It appears the Al Gore is again, brutally honest and insightful, in his upcoming book. Check it out below:

Not long ago before our nation launched the invasion Iraq, our longest-serving Senator, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, stood on the Senate floor and said: "This chamber is, for the most part, silent--ominously, dreadfully silent. There is no debate, no discussion, no attempt to lay out for the nation the pros and cons of this particular war. There is nothing. We stand passively mute in the United States Senate."

Why was the Senate silent?
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"The chamber was empty because the Senators were somewhere else. Many of them were at fund-raising events they now feel compelled to attend almost constantly in order to collect money--much of it from special interests--to buy 30-second TV commercials for their next re-election campaign. The Senate was silent because Senators don't feel that what they say on the floor of the Senate really matters that much anymore-- not to the other Senators, who are almost never present when their colleagues speak, and certainly not to the voters, because the news media seldom report on Senate speeches anymore."
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"While American television watchers were collectively devoting 100 million hours of their lives each week to these and other similar stories, our nation was in the process of more quietly making what future historians will certainly describe as a series of catastrophically mistaken decisions on issues of war and peace, the global climate and human survival, freedom and barbarity, justice and fairness."

Read entire article here.

I Want To Be Sedated

2007-05-13T08:15:00.000-05:00

Someone please tell me what millions of Americans see in programs like American Idol and Survivor? Is there something here that I am missing? Can someone help me get plugged into the Matrix? Connect me to their artificial reality, so I don’t have to think, so I don’t have to question, and so I don’t have to witness, the fucking of our people, our country, and our world.

Perhaps sometime soon, I too can have “favorite” shows to look forward to and talk about with others. Maybe, I’ll even have a favorite night of immersion in several programs that I regularly, “watch”.

Intelligence, critical thinking, creativity, reading, writing, and living in the real world are vastly overrated. I just want to be sedated!

King George, Jefferson and a New Government?

2007-05-06T09:07:00.000-05:00

At the end of 2006, the American people called for a new direction for the United States. After suffering through many years of Republican (manufactured) division, the American people are once again unified. They are unified in their belief that there is something inherently wrong with their government.

On July 4th, 1776, the want, the will and the hopes of our people for change was spelled out in the Declaration of Independence. Seeing no hope for change within the system, our founding fathers decided to throw off the yoke of King George and his government.

Now 231 years later, we find ourselves in the grips of anther despot, another King George. We find ourselves with a government that ignores the will of the people and serves only it’s corporate masters.

So at what point do we, (the people) stop trying work within the system and start thinking about replacing the system? Thomas Jefferson’s words from the Declaration of Independence are worth reading again.

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Josh Marshall on the Prosecutor Firings

2007-04-29T06:53:00.000-05:00

Never has there been a better example of the power that has been given to the people by well run investigative blog sites. Read or watch the video of Josh Marshall from talkingpointsmemo.com give Bill Moyers Journal his perspective on the role of politics in the recent firings of federal prosecutors.

For six years the Democrats in Congress have suffered from what Jon Stewart might call subpoena envy. As the minority they didn't have the power to order anyone to testify before their hearings. But that's changed. Democrats are now in the majority, and they're issuing subpoenas as fast and furious as Zeus hurled thunderbolts from Mount Olympus. Read transcript or watch video here.

Fascist America, in 10 easy steps

2007-04-25T06:36:00.000-05:00

From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all.

Tuesday April 24, 2007
The Guardian

Last autumn, there was a military coup in Thailand. The leaders of the coup took a number of steps, rather systematically, as if they had a shopping list. In a sense, they did. Within a matter of days, democracy had been closed down: the coup leaders declared martial law, sent armed soldiers into residential areas, took over radio and TV stations, issued restrictions on the press, tightened some limits on travel, and took certain activists into custody. Read entire article here

Defeating the Republican Party in 2008

2007-04-15T22:31:00.000-05:00

I guess the exercise of running for president must be seen as some type of resume builder. The current crop of Republican candidates or want-to-be candidates cannot actually think that they have a real chance of winning the next election? They can’t seriously think that the American people are going to elect another Republican president?

In spite of Karl Roves attempt to establish a thousand year Reich, the Republicans are soon to be a seriously defeated minority. It is not a question of if they will be defeated, but how badly they will they be defeated in the next election?

We can only hope that the party that spawned the Bush Administration will be torn apart, never again to be reassembled. We must make our mission after the defeat of the Republicans, to forever guard against another rise of corporate/religious fascism. We need to take back and then hold on tightly, to our country, our democracy and our freedom.

Republican Presidential Candidates?

2007-04-08T17:10:00.000-05:00

Ok now, is there something I’m missing about our current Republican presidential candidates? Does this group have some qualities that I have overlooked? What a bunch of misfits and losers! The cream has been slowly rising to the top, but in this case it’s more like turds floating to the top of sewage treatment tank.

First, we have Rudy (I’m not a social liberal) Giuliani. Who is he trying to fool, for christ sake? Does he really think he can sell himself to millions of bible pounding Southern Christians who think the Rapture is upon us? Get real Rudy!

Second, we have Mitt (I've been a hunter all my life) Romney. What planet has he just arrived from? Mitt, in case you don’t know it, most Americans consider Mormons to be just a tiny bit on the weird side. Remember that the reason your faith is based in Utah is because the founders of your religion were driven out of the Eastern States. So now, we are going to elect a Mormon President? When snowballs sail through hell we will!

Third and finally, we have John (Baghdad market walking) McCain. Please someone; tell this man he needs to take his medication. John, the last time I looked up the word maverick, the definition was not, “A senator who blows the president on a regular basis”. Get a clue John; you have about the same chances of getting elected president, as Bush has of getting elected to another term. Zero!!

For a list of all announced and possible Republican presidential candidates click here.

American University Protest of Karl Rove

2007-04-04T21:07:00.000-05:00

It is not news that someone is protesting against Karl Rove. Protests against this lunatic weasel have been going on for quite some time. What is interesting about the American University Protest is the fact that, I found out about it, from a cable news channel. Perhaps even the corporate media has realized that Criminal Karl deserves both shouted obscenities and thrown tomatoes?

Students Lie in Front of Car, Delay Rove After Speech

Heckling protesters briefly delayed the car carrying top White House aide Karl Rove last night as he left the American University campus, where he had just given a speech. No arrests or injuries were reported after Rove's invitation-only talk. About 20 students lay in front of the car as it prepared to leave, a witness said. Entire article here

Corporate Sin, Circuit City, and the Firing of 3,400

2007-04-01T15:13:00.000-05:00

After reading Circuit City to FIRE 3,400 & Then Hire CHEAPER Employees, I wrote to Circuit City to tell them a little of what I thought of them. I would hope others would do the same.
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Customer Care Services,

I will encourage everyone I know to not shop at Circuit City. Your firing of 3400 (higher paid) senior employees is completely wrong. It is my hope that there is a special place reserved for your management in Hell.

Sincerely,

LS Butts
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Dear Valued Customer

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. We value our customers' feedback.

As we stated in our news release yesterday, we are taking a number of actions to improve our cost and expense structure. We are holding ourselves accountable to our associates, our customers, our communities, and our shareholders to build a strong company that generates sustainable growth for the future.

Our goal is to provide superior service while effectively competing against low-cost retailers. We are working towards this goal by making changes, such as announced yesterday, and with the help of over 40,000 associates who keep our customers at the center of everything we do. We hope you will allow our Circuit City team to serve you in the future.

Sincerely,

S.Simmons
Customer Support Coordinator
Call CALL11191164
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Dear S.Simmons,

Rehire these wronged employees and admit your mistake to the country. Sinful actions like this will bring bad to your company and bad to the people (like you) who perpetuate and rationalize such actions. There are hopes, dreams, children, grandchildren, aunts, and uncles behind the names of your fired employees. They are not just items on a balance sheet. I hope for your sake, that the day does not come, when your manager taps you on the shoulder and informs you, that after years of service and outstanding accomplishments, you are being replaced by cheaper help. Perhaps, it would be a good idea to prepare for this day. I would.

LS Butts

S.Simmons' E-Mail for anyone who also wants voice their opinion: S.Simmons Circuit City

Tony Snow (A Good Guy?)

2007-03-28T22:25:00.000-05:00

As I listened to various corporate news people speak about Tony Snow’s latest cancer battle, I was shocked by the various newscasters brotherhood like displays of affection and praise for Tony. Chris Matthews on Tuesday’s edition of Hardball said: The White House announced today that Tony Snow‘s cancer has returned. I worry about him. I pray for him. I root for him. Tony Snow is a good guy. It has nothing to do with politics.

I’m sorry Chris, but the fact that Tony Snow is a good guy, (in your mind) does not make up for the fact he is working for, covering up for, lying for, some really evil people. This is not a fraternity and Tony is not just on another team. He has been the front man for the most disastrous administration in our nations history.

Yes, it’s unfortunate for him and his family that his cancer has returned. But I fail to see how anyone who as ever watched one of his news conferences could call him a “good guy.” He is a lying piece of shit, who used his agile tongue and slick media persona to help perpetuate lies, deceit, and death.

I do have some advice for Tony Snow, if he survives this latest bout with cancer. Tony, just in case there might actually be a heaven and a hell, it might be a good idea, with the time you have left on this earth, to actually do something good. Who knows what might happen?

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire: Still Relevant Today

2007-03-26T20:24:00.000-05:00

As Mother Jones once said, "Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living." The story of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire is still relevant today.

The Uprising of 20,000 and the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire

On Saturday, March 25, 1911, a fire broke out on the top floors of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory. Firefighters arrived at the scene, but their ladders weren’t tall enough to reach the upper floors of the 10-story building. Trapped inside because the owners had locked the fire escape exit doors, workers jumped to their deaths. In a half an hour, the fire was over, and 146 of the 500 workers—mostly young women—were dead.
Many of us have read about the tragic Triangle fire in school textbooks. But the fire alone wasn’t what made the shirtwaist makers such a focal point for worker safety. In fact, workplace deaths weren’t uncommon then. It is estimated that more than 100 workers died every day on the job around 1911. Read entire article here

March on Pentagon Protest March 17, 2007

2007-03-18T10:38:00.000-05:00

We mark the 40th anniversary of the 1967 march on the Pentagon with another march to end the occupation of Iraq.

Congress, End the War

"War is over, if you want it," declared John Lennon in the thick of the Vietnam nightmare. To the extent that Lennon's "you" referred to the US Congress, he was right, then and now. The House and Senate have the authority to end the war in Iraq quickly, efficiently and honorably. Read entire article here.

Targeting Democrats and Republicans for Removal

2007-03-10T08:33:00.000-06:00

We the people of the United States need to, in any way we can and as many times as we can, make it clear to our elected officials, both Democrats and Republicans, that they will be held accountable at the next election and at upcoming future elections, for either their active or passive support of our continued occupation of Iraq. Any House Representative or Senator who does not actively and without reservation, move without delay, to do everything in their power, to stop the war in Iraq, should be targeted for removal. It is time for our representatives to faithfully execute the will of the people. What Americans want by an overwhelming majority is very simple. They want Bush stopped and the occupation ended. Our representatives need to end the occupation of Iraq now and bring our troops home or be prepared to suffer of the consequences of their actions.

The End of Faith by Sam Harris

2007-02-24T21:45:00.000-06:00

I must from time to time recommend a book. The End of Faith by Sam Harris is one of those rare works that brings a startling new perspective to an issue that is central to much of the world's strife. In The End of Faith, Sam Harris delivers a startling analysis of the clash between reason and religion in the modern world. He offer a vivid, historical tour of our willingness to suspend reason in favor of religious beliefs-even when these beliefs inspire the worst of human atrocities. While warning against the encroachment of organized religion into world politics, Harris draws on insight from neuroscience, philosophy, and Eastern mysticism to deliver a call for a truly modern foundation for ethics and spirituality that is both secular and humanistic.