From every rooftop, from every street corner... shout!

I listened to this today. I went back and read the transcript as well. He's been there for us since 1989 with his movie "Roger & Me" about the heartbreak of GM closing his hometown's auto plant and moving it to Mexico. He's fat, loud and not very good looking but he's one of the most beautiful Americans there are.

Here's what he had to say in Madison on Saturday, March 5th.

Watch live streaming video from theuptake at livestream.com

There is nothing more important than this message. This should be on the lips of every American worker. This isn't Fox News propaganda or Teabagger bullshit - this is real. We either give in to our Corporate Overlords or we fight back.

America is NOT broke. We blinked and let them steal our future, now we take it back!

So Mote It Be!
David A.

Sanity in Washington! Martha, get the gun!

God, this woman gives me shivers. I've never read about such a brilliant person, outside of fiction, in my life. Jesus, she should be President!

Elizabeth Warren is the only voice of sanity and reason in Washington today. No DCspeak, no doublethink or dancing around the issue, she puts it right down in plain fucking English. She met with the Financial Services Roundtable, a trade lobby representing banks like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, for a luncheon on Wednesday.

The first major speech since her appointment as Assistant to the President and Special Advisor to Treasury, she picks a hostile environment. Right out of the gate she leaps into the lion's den!

Firedoglake's David Dayen plays it out for us in a post today.

She offered a vision of an agency that would not only write new rules for the entire industry, but consolidate and even eliminate existing ones. But instead of an approach based on individual rules (though she vowed to prohibit unfair practices and increase disclosure to the consumer), Warren highlighted an approach based on principles, a vision for how financial services regulation should work. This principles-based approach is actually something the Financial Services Roundtable proposed back in 2007, though I doubt they envision it the same way as Warren.

Here’s how she described it. “Instead of creating a regulatory thicket of ‘thou shalt nots,’” she said, “and instead of using ever more complex disclosures that drive up costs for lenders and provide little help for consumers, let’s measure our success with simple questions. Your first principle is ‘Fair treatment for consumers.’ I’ll paraphrase your explanation of how to tell if that principle has been met: Can customers understand the product, figure out the costs and risks, and compare products in the marketplace? Regulators should be aiming toward the goals you laid out.”

Warren used the example of a credit card agreement. Customers, she said, “should be able to understand the deal, assess the costs and risks, and compare one card to another.” She valued short agreements with basic, easy-to-understand information contained therein, like the interest rate, the penalty terms and any reward offers, that could be read and comprehended in about four minutes.

Any person who can't see how great this lady is should be cast out on an ice floe.

So Mote It Be,
David A.

President Obama is NOT a Coward

Barack Obama is no coward. Just looking at a few things he's done in his life can tell you that beyond a doubt.

My diary at Daily Kos was a response to the cowardice I see in his administration, not in him personally. However, he's in charge and the buck stops with him, though I should not have used the word 'coward' to vent my anger at the lack of courage coming from the White House.

The Obama Administration is not as progressive as I would like it to be. President Obama is right of center himself. It would be foolish of me to think that he would represent all of the same things I do as a progressive. However, I feel he needs to be. His administration is under the false impression that America wants to be more like Glenn Beck than Howard Dean. Even when shown proof that the American people want more progressive action, the Obama Administration still insists on leaning to the right.

Obama has a win with the Health Care Reform Act but the law is incomplete and falls far short of bringing fairness and balance to our health care problem. Expanding Medicare to allow buy-ins is one way to achieve this goal, something he is against. For too long, we have catered and groveled before the for-profit health care industry. We've allowed this bullshit to continue because our leaders have bought into the whole 'profit before people' crap the GOP's been spilling since the bad ol' days of Ronnie Reagan.

Capitalism is as old and decrepit as communism. Communism crumbled under its own weight because people can't be trusted to be reasonable. If you put that much power in the hands of a few men, those men will become corrupt sure as rain in Seattle. Capitalism is on a different wavelength but still falls under the same premise. Put that much power in the hands of a few companies and those companies, and by default their CEO's, will become corrupt.

Years of oppression came to an end in the Soviet Union because the people finally saw what was happening to them. In 1976, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band played a concert in the Soviet Union to a television audience of about 145 million people. This allowed the folks to see how life was outside the fences. What followed was years of black market items like Levi's, rock music, and other Western goodies coming across the border. Soviet citizens saw what it was really like outside, not the bullshit propaganda the Politburo had been feeding them for 60 years. It was the beginning of the end of the USSR.

It's the 21st Century and here in America, we are having our own eye opener. The progressive movement is seeing what the last 60 years of rampant corporate growth with little regulation has done. We have banks engaging in criminal behavior that suck the life out of millions of homeowners with little recourse other than a gracious influx of new, taxpayer supplied, cash. You see, they're 'too big to fail'. The health insurance industry laughs in the face of the Democrats as they lobby and get their piece of the Health Reform pie, leaving only crumbs for the people the law is supposed to help.

The Soviet Union refused to see the changes happening in the 70's and 80's. They held tight to the old Lenin and Stalin bullshit to the very end when the people finally had had enough. Now, the Soviet Union is no more.

Will the Obama administration open its eyes and see which way the wind is blowing or will we have to endure another president who can only see as far as Wall Street?

Aren't we the people too big to fail?

So Mote It Be,
David A.

The War on the Middle Class

The economy is in the toilet. Unemployment is drifting around 10 points with no real relief on the horizon. Good, hard working folks are seeing their paychecks shrink as their employers take more away. Bills are coming fast and loose for people who have two cents for every three that have to be paid out. Food banks, thrift shops, food stamps and free clinics are finding popularity with a whole new batch of customers.

And they tell me that the tide has turned and we are coming out of the recession.

Today, the Dow Jones reached 10,000 pts for the first time in a year and everyone is popping the corks and sparking the bowls. Yippee!! Wall Street is coming back! Bonuses have returned to the Street along with bigger paychecks. Some of these icons of American Capitalism have found ways of getting around the rules and keep some of the worse of the sub-prime mortgages alive and well. Credit card companies are seeing huge profits from the strong-arming of Americans.

This would be a bad gangster film if it weren't reality.

Nothing is going our way. The promise of electing Obama and the Democrats into power has fallen as flat as an old convention balloon. They postured from every soapbox that the days of huge corporations feeding at the trough of American taxpayers is over. Tax loopholes closed, universal health care, new green jobs and a real stimulus package to get the economy kickstarted.

They had their fingers crossed.

The stimulus was too little too late. It did as good a job as it could but was woefully inadequate. If you want to help a starving man, giving him a TicTac isn't going to do the job. Lots of good, green programs that would have provided real, well paying jobs were kicked to the curb because they gave the Republicans fits. Republicans.

After the elections, the American people let it be known that the last thing they cared about was the fucking Republicans. These WATB's have been sniveling about Obama at every turn. In addition, the Handjob Media has courted their every word; words that were mostly blatant bullshit that a high school journalism student could have debunked.

So, here we are. Nearly a year since a landmark historic election and the promise of real change in America. What do we have to show for it? Where's the reward for all of our hard work? Wall Street has made out like bandits...literally. Gov't reps and congress critters have made bank from all the free money on K Street. The shitty situation the country found itself in before the election is worse now and any hope for relief is becoming rare.

When is it our turn?

America the ATM. America the Chump. America the Rube. Wall Street was playing three-card Monte with our livelihoods and we asked for help. What we got was a government that took out hand, soothed our fears then told Wall Street to use a new deck of cards.

The problem is deeper than just getting our pet projects accomplished. Health care reform, environmental reform, getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan, new green jobs, etc, etc, etc.... ad nauseum. These are great steps but they rely on too much change, change that is not just hard but near impossible. What we need to do is take back the country for the people. Corporations were established 150 years ago to help finance the Industrial Revolution. It brought America into the 20th century as a force in the world. But leave it to the greedy to take a good idea and pervert it into a pestilence. America does not need the corporate structure like it did in the 1880's.

We have too much wealth concentrated in one spot. Regulations must be enacted to rein in this abomination. Socialism isn't the answer but a more measured approach to capitalism is necessary. Then our agenda will come about like we expect. If you want to plant a garden on the battlefield, you have to figure out how to win the war first.

update: I just noticed that my blog roll was seriously deficient in penguins. The management regrets this oversight and it has been corrected. The responsible parties have been punished.

And so it goes...
David A.

Treading water in a whirlpool

Perhaps some of you have noticed that I've been a bit scarce on the 'Toobs lately.

In an effort to save a few ducats, I've decided to give up my Internet access and the meager cable that came with it. I've been trolling the internet for more almost 20 years, since the years of Protegy, BBS and 9600 baud modems connected to screaming 286 XT's. (ten megahertz, baby!) It's been a part of my daily activity for a long time. But something has to go.

The faltering economy and abject corporate greed has given me little choice. My employer, who shall be nameless, is not hurting that badly but has found that the public's fear and consternation about the economic climate has given rise to a timely opportunity to make a few more millions. Using the economy as a crutch, they've slashed hours and suspended merit raises. Management is constantly reminding us that for every job they post, hundreds of applicants show up - so watch your ass!

Nervous isn't an apt description. Terrified come closest. Some of my co-workers are barely making ends meet because of health issues, kids, household repairs and transportation grief, etc. This shit isn't news to anyone with a pulse over the last year. I'm certainly not alone. Bills stack up, credit cards get maxed out, phones shut off, and the car breaks down.

Don't look for sympathy from any of the corporate whores raking in the dough either. The banks got billions of our funds to keep their logos on the door and they thank us by jacking up late and overdraft fees. One example: a friend at work paid her VISA bill but transposed the numbers of her online payment. She overpaid by $63 which put her in the hole ten bucks. It went unnoticed for a couple of days, after she had spent money on gas, groceries and school supplies... six transactions for just under forty dollars. Because of the overpayment error, she got hit with seven overdraft charges worth - $240. She called the bank as soon as she realized the error and explained her plight. It was a wasted call. The bank rep did nothing but lecture her about paying attention to her transactions and that maybe this situation will be a lesson to her. She has two kids and a husband that recently was laid off from that same bank.

Fuck that!

Fuck Bank of America, Fuck Chase, and Fuck all the rest. Real people are suffering out there. That error could have happened to me or any other person. Even a math whiz will fuck up a number on occasion. The corporate whores that play with our lives care as much for us as they do for their tennis shoes. Run the shit out of them then toss them to the curb.

The Insurance industry is just as corrupt. The billing clerk from my doctor's office called me to talk about my growing bill. She was cool, but direct. Money needed to start coming in. I explained my situation at work and she was sympathetic. I'm making a small payment every month. But she did say some shit that got me steamed. She was curious why my bill was so high. Other patients with the same insurance were paying a lot less out of pocket that was I. Basically, my insurance was stiffing me for most of the bill. I should be paying 15 to 20 percent after the initial deductible but that's not the case. I'm responsible for nearly 65% of the full cost of my surgery and treatment!

It's part of the game. They know what their supposed to pay but don't. They stiff the doctors for the cost of the procedure and let the patient pick up the tab. If you have the time, the patience, the understanding of the plan and a lot of fucking luck; you can badger the insurance company into paying their share of the bill. Not paying more or going beyond their responsibilities but paying their share....the amount they are supposed to pay anyway.

Stories like this are too numerous to count. Every one of us have them and they all stink. The answer to this shit is sitting in committee in Congress. It's been there so long, it's starting to grow mold.

We have to get this crap done. Fuck the Corporations! Toss out any legislator that puts their needs above ours. Reform Wall Street, break up the big financial conglomerates. Enforce the fucking anti-trust laws. If the laws are too weak, change them. Let the fuckers on the Supreme Court know that a person has a heart and a brain, not a spreadsheet and a bottom line. Corporations are not people. They are blood sucking parasites.

Hope to be around a little while longer...but Comcast will cut me off as soon as the money runs out.
I have a lot to do until then.

Keep swinging!

So Mote It Be,
David A.

Health Care for the Masses or Your Claim has been Denied!

There's a lot to this whole health care debate that's convoluted and complex, but there's one simple, indisputable fact: Americans that need health care have to pay far too much for it. In other modern, civilized countries, if you need to go to the doctor you can. If you have a broken arm or a case of the Mumps, you get treated by a government approved physician who fixes you up and sends you on your merry.

In this country, the first and most important question isn't what is your medical problem but what is your ability to pay. Forget what the hell is wrong with you, what is the size of your wallet.

"I'm sorry sir, but if you do not have the proper insurance you cannot receive treatment here. May I suggest the Free Clinic in Bartertown? Oh, and sir, I must ask you to stop bleeding on our carpets. Thank you, the exit is to the right. -Next?"

Check out this post from our friends at Skippy.

I love that vid.

So Mote It Be,
David A.

What does it take?

What is it about the Right wing? They seem to live for hypocrisy. Usually, each of us can be counted on to do something or say something hypocritical – hell, its human nature. But we get schooled by friends or adversaries and shown back to the real world with our egos lowered a few notches. Not the Republicans. They seem to thrive on hypocrisy. It’s not even criticism anymore. They wear it like a badge of ‘honor’.

They speak out of every corner of their mouths, spewing any spurious tidbit of bullshit pulled straight from Karl Rove’s ass without any sense of regret. When called on it, they just wave the flag and accuse you of being a traitorous commie fascist who eats babies with hot sauce. They then smile at you and go on like nothing was out of place.

They speak to groups that they know will sit loyally in their seats without comment or criticism, staring into dead space with all the mental faculties of a dandelion, the attention span of a flea and the curiosity of driftwood.

I weep for America if these are the people that represent the electorate. We put Barack Obama in office but couldn’t defeat right wing crazies like Michelle Bachmann, John Boehner, and Eric Cantor. The current political playing field will look a lot different in 2012, no one will be looking at what’s best for America only what is popular.

Color me concerned, even a bit frightened.

The Democrats are in a position to cement their majority. They can take the lead on the issues that really matter to the ordinary people of America, not the lunatic fringe of the Right. These are inroads that can only reap rewards on those Democrats courageous enough to walk the talk. Courage is the only price they have to pay. Too bad it’s too big a price for many of those we put in Congress.

I watch the news. I watch the sessions of Congress and the meetings of committees led by people I used to admire and respect. All I see is fear and cowardice. The road to recovery is paved and clearly mapped out. All we have to do is put on our shoes and start walking down the road. Seems even that is too much for our leadership.

The Republicans have made their position crystal clear. They will do everything in their power to obstruct and destroy President Obama’s agenda. They will NOT compromise on this. Their leadership has voiced this in every memo and every media outlet right and left. Even the most inattentive backwoods hermit knows that the GOP is not going to help Obama in any situation.

Why do we still seek their support for our legislation? We know their answer. We know that they will vote NO. They may make noises resembling support or acquiesce but, in the end, all of our hard work making concessions will be for naught as they vote it down. So, why try? Leave them to their hypocrisy. The voters made them irrelevant; let’s keep them there. We have loose cannons in the Democratic caucuses that need to be addressed, why waste our energy and resources on a fool’s errand?

We, the progressive activists, put the hammer to nail building this agenda and the voters put their stamp of approval on it. They said, “YES, DO THIS!” Now, we put the message out to our elected officials and they fumble it trying to do this ‘bipartisan’ bullshit. It’s like the kid who gets his lunch money taken away every day bringing extra coin in the hope that the bully will leave him enough to eat with.

What is the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing in the same way over and over again but expecting different results?

We have to get a hold of this process immediately before the damage gets too big to fix. The Democratic leadership has to be pulled back into reality before they give away all of our lunch money to the Republicans. We’re bigger than them; we can say, “NO, I’m keeping my lunch money! Get Lost!”

Health care is the big issue dancing in the spotlight now. It’s so big it can affect the lives of every American right away. The only real solution is staring at us with big blue eyes. There has to be a viable, aggressive public option that can effectively compete with the private insurance companies. Too many legislators have accepted bags of coin from the insurance industry for real reform to take place. They are actively working against the best interest of the people in order to satisfy the will of their wealthy overlords. The money is too good to ignore. The smell of greed overwhelms the will of the voters.

This is what we have to fight. This is the face of our enemy.

Firedoglake has taken the lead in bringing some of the senators to task for their connection to the corporate lobbying groups with promising results. However, there are some who are anchored in their ways of greed and graft with their industry sugar daddies. Some of those people chair the very sub-committees and committees that we need to advance the public option. As it sits now, the public option has been watered down to the point of being an easy target for the insurance companies should it become law. It would be forced into obscurity and end up worthless and neutered by the forces it was originally supposed to compete with. Then, we would be back to square one with another failed attempt at reining in the one thing that would do the most to bring us out of this recession/depression. As Obama said, we can’t afford to fail this time. A failure now would doom Americans to many more years of skyrocketing health care costs, millions more denied care or coverage and an economy swirling down the bowl for no other reason than abject greed.

Aren’t we supposed to be better than that? There was a time when I thought we were.

So Mote It Be,
David A.

Politics, a game for fools, clowns and scalawags

Hope is a important part of how we accept things that may not be great for us. Hope that times will get better. Hope that the bump in the road is short and not too damaging. Hope that our leaders will step up and take us down the correct path to recovery. Hope is the fuel that sustains our patience.

We are running out of gas.

Health care is an abomination in this country. Those who can pay way too much for far too little. Doctors spend as many hours weekly on paperwork than they do on their craft. Hospitals trim essentials from those least likely to afford them just to keep lining the pockets of corporate investors. HMO's, Big Insurance, Big Pharma are doing their corporate damnest to kill the one option in our health care debate that offers the greatest hope for the most Americans. Single payer, or a national public health care plan, offers to cover the most people at the lowest cost for a modest payroll deduction. As I see it, one version has no co-pay, no deductible, and applies to all physicians and health care providers. Contrary to the popular lies of the never-right wing, there is no restriction of doctor choice, or hospital. Paperwork is streamlined to ensure the most efficient process.

Robert Reich, a man I've grown to admire since his days as Secr. of Labor under Bill Clinton has a bit to say about the prospects of the single payer option in the current health care debate. In his words: "Big Pharma and Big Insurance are gaining ground in their campaign to kill the public option in the emerging health care bill."

Hope is becoming a dry hole.

I won't presume to know what each of you think of the different options being considered in the health care debate, but if you're anything like me, you can't afford to shell out thousands of dollars for care that should be a birthright. For-profit health care providers, insurance and pharmaceutical companies only see numbers when looking at patient claims. How much money can we make by culling the claims down to just those who can pony up the pennies? How can we convince Congress to keep the status quo in place so that our profit margins stay the same or perhaps go up?

The answer? Meet Senator Max Baucus, (D-MT). He chairs the Senate Finance Committee which is in charge of the discussion and debate of the health care crisis and possible remedies. He has made statements recently that place the single payer option off the table. He said: "We need a uniquely American result. And that will be a public/private
hybrid. There may come a time when we can push for single payer. But that time is not yet, and so I'm not going to waste my time."

Why would he make such a statement? Why drag our feet with the one issue that concerns the most Americans? How can providing the most coverage in the most efficient way be a 'waste of his time'?

Who is whispering in Sen. Baucus' ear? What reason could he have to delay this? Could it be this?

Contributor	Total	Indivs	PACs
Schering-Plough Corp	$92,200	$64,200	$28,000
New York Life Insurance	$80,400	$43,900	$36,500
UST Inc	$73,950	$37,950	$36,000
Amgen Inc	$70,750	$35,750	$35,000
Blue Cross/Blue Shield	$62,350	$21,350	$41,000

“Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive” Sir Walter Scott 1771-1832

Hope is what sustains us. Those of us who rely on our health care providers to give us peace of mind and decent care don't need the added stress of finding pennies under the couch to pay for it. I pay for insurance through my employer. They provide the plan, take 'X' amount out of my check in addition to their contribution. Yet each year I pay more, they pay less and my coverage goes down. Over the last 18 months, I've accrued $8300 in doctor's bills after insurance. Nothing I was treated for was exotic or experimental, just the trials and tribulations of living to the ripe old age of 50.

If Sen. Baucus were to have had the same medical treatments I've had, he would have no bills, no payments to make. He has the advantage of being covered by a public, single payer government health plan.

Single payer is the best hope for all Americans who struggle to pay their medical bills. The big insurance and pharmaceutical compaies will do anything legal and otherwise to keep this abominable situation from changing. To them, it's all about keeping their wallets full; the health of the people be damned.

Support the Single Payer Option.

Update: Nunya, over @ Politickybitch gave me a cool link in the comments. (Thanks!)
"119 million Americans want a public option. Why aren't Politicians listening?"

The easy answer? Because 119 million Americans don't contribute to Sens. Grassley and Baucus' campaigns.

So Mote It Be,
David A.

Wednesday Morning - Hump Day Offering

Here it is Wednesday already and I haven't posted anything since Sunday. I've been traveling the 'Toobs, especially my blog list (see sidebar) and leaving comments around like so many landmines.

As some of my co-conspirators of the less-than-famous blogs know, I've been fighting a battle with health issues. To those who have asked, I'm finally on the mend. I'm actually able to walk to the store without a lot of assistance. Now, if I can find a way to get rid of this 80 lb beer barrel strapped to my six-pack abs, I'll be a damn sight better. Now that these old bones are getting better, the worst part is becoming apparent... paying for it.

I have insurance through work. Over the course of the last three years, my employer (who shall remain nameless) has reduced benefits and raised costs - go figure! As a result, I find myself in the middle of the health care battlefield. I am luckier than a lot of folks. I'm not so far in debt that I can't eventually crawl out. But, should I lose my job or suffer an additional medical setback - I am thoroughly screwed. However, I know of folks who have chronically sick kids or who have cancer or AIDS who are racking up bills like a drunken sailor in Singapore.

There will come a point for them when they can't go on any more. They will have trashed their credit with unpaid bills, lost their homes and assets, blown through any savings only to face their personal war on that illness - the fight of their fucking lives - with no resources, no weapons and no allies. Do they just give up and die? Let the bastard disease win? Do the rest of us just sit in the bleachers and watch and say: "Damn, I thought he was going to get better. He was really strong in the end, why did he just roll over?" All over money.

All of us know this game. Many of us live it. Health is humanity, humanity is health. There are certain absolutes that humanity requires to exist. However, it seems those absolutes are negotiable. Corporate greed has cast its deadly shadow upon those absolutes; chief among them maintaining good health. We have the means to provide every American with excellent health care. American medical care is second to none. It's there. It exists all around us like the air we breathe. But it's kept in a vending machine. The problem in our health care system isn't that quality doesn't exists, its that it only exists for those who can pay for it.

For-profit hospitals, insurance companies, HMO's, and pharmaceutical companies have placed quality health care on the top shelf, out of the reach of many Americans. When confronted with this fact, these corporate goons say that the problem isn't that their services are out of reach, it's that the population is too short. In other words, we have to rise up to meet their needs, they don't have to lower to ours.

The crime in this isn't the companies though. They are born and bred greedy bastards, that's their nature. You can't expect any other action from these groups. The crime is that we, as a society, have allowed them to do it. There have been many opportunities to rein in these bastards and put this system right. At each point, we shied away, allowed ourselves to be gilded by the scare tactics and insidious lies and propaganda of these industries to maintain the status quo.

We let our ignorance and fear dictate our actions over the objections of our best interests. Even now, as our leaders debate the health care crisis in the halls of Congress, we are starting to smell the acrid scent of capitulation, feel the fear and loathing of all things government creep into our psyche and the pushing of our best interests once again into the dark basement where it has been for the last twenty years.

There may come a time in my medical treatment when I say "Stop! I can't afford any more!" That frightens me as I'm sure similar situations frighten millions of my fellow Americans. How did we get here? But more importantly, how do we get better?

So Mote It Be,
David A.

For what it's worth

America was teabagged yesterday. And not in a good way. We were lulled into a false sense of complacency and the nutbags on the Right slipped their jewels down our throat.

What is with people? My neighbors and coworkers are railing against taxes that went down this year. They complain about the loss of jobs when stimulus money is starting to flow into the economy to boost employment. The fat cats on Wall Street are starting to feel the heat from the scrutiny of regulators for the first time in a decade. The economy sucks big time and they bitch and moan about the only means we have left to breathe life into it. They rant and rave on cue about phantom threats and shadowy government skullduggery that exist only in the raving minds of screechers like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.

I watched with amazement hundreds if not thousands of my fellow Americans screaming about tearing this country apart. There was no love for America in those crowds. They expressed only love for their own greed self interests. There was no community, no neighbor helping neighbor, only me-me-me. The whole affair, the whole concept was nothing more than a Fox News-coordinated circle jerk of selfishness, greed and scapegoating. I'm sure that while these teabaggers were out at the village square protesting in the rain, the IQ's of their neighborhoods must have went up dramatically.

We are in a economic cesspool and we let it happen. The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves. The wizards of Wall Street found a pot of gold in the way we managed our financial system. Years after Roosevelt put the clamps on creative banking and other financial shenanigans; these Manhattan mountebanks found allies in the halls of power who could crack the lid on that Pandora' Box. Phil Gramm, Jim Leach, and the entire lobbying cabal crafted legislation that took America's pocketbook apart for no other reason than to make certain people, certain connected people, very very very rich.

This wasn't done to help this country. These new laws that opened up the financial world to speculators and diversifiers wasn't conceived to help Mom and Pop America. Gramm himself said as much recently when he called the American people a 'bunch of whiners.' He's an asshole. A greedy, anti-American, self-serving, take-it-all, Republican asshole. And he's not alone.

This whole teabagging farce is ludicrous from the start. These people, clueless to what the fuck they're railing about, are just following the rants and tantrums of a few Republican blowhards. They are lemmings rushing to the sea as their leaders stand aside screaming "There's you salvation! It's out there just beyond the horizon. The Liberals want you to stop, they don't want you to get rich. Keep going! Don't Stop! The Golden Goose is just a bit further."

I watched them protest taxes when their taxes are going down. I watched them protest Obama because he wants to take away their freedoms when they sat idly by as George Bush and Dick Cheney trashed the Constitution. They call me a fascist when they haven't a clue what it means. They compare our duly elected president to the most heinous monster that ever lived. They question his birth for no other reason than the color of his skin. This isn't America. This isn't the country I served when I donned the uniform of the US Navy. These people are selfish, greedy assholes that have no business waving the American flag.

America is better than that. Better than the Glenn Becks, the Michelle Malkins, and the Rush Limbaughs. The America I know comes to the call when shit happens. They watch out for their neighbors and keep an eye on their leaders. They raise their voices when injustice occurs or when Washington starts to go a bit deaf. They know what's up by paying attention to the world around them and speaking out when it starts to wobble. They roll up their sleeves when the tide rushes in and their communities need help. This is the America I grew up in. Are those people dead? Have they left the building with Elvis?

The people I saw on the TV Box protesting yesterday weren't speaking in a single voice like the protests I've been a part of. There was no central theme or single purpose. Each of them were crying out their own disappointment, their own bitch about how this government is keeping them down. Taxes, guns, anger at the prospect of a 'n*****' in the White House, those were the themes I witnessed yesterday.

They rail against taxes but scream bloody fucking murder if there's a pothole in front of their house or the police took too long to come when they called to complain about their liberal neighbor's dog crapping on their lawn. They expect the fire department or the ambulance to come when called, the schools to be open and the water to always come out of the faucet but they don't want to pay for any of it.

They cry and snivel about their right to bear arms when all they want to do is stockpile deadly weapons because they are so afraid and so chickenshit that they jump at every Mexican, are terrified of every Liberal, stone cold petrified that some shadowy imaginary government entity is going to show up at their door, knock it down and take all their toys away. The only purpose these firearms serve, besides a substitute for Viagra, is so they can blow off their own toe or give their kids an opportunity to put a hole in their best friend's head.

They scream and stomp in measured words and gestures about how they want the President to release his birth certificate because they can't allow themselves to believe that America voted for a black man. I use the n-word (censured) because that's the word they dance around in public but have no problem saying within their circle of racist idiots.

• No one wants to take away their guns if they are legally able to own them. Assault weapons were illegal for years before Bush and should be made illegal again without taking away those already legally purchased.
  
• Taxes are uncomfortable but necessary. I am proud to pay my share of the tax burden and think that as an American, each of us should feel the same. I get bent out of shape when I hear about some mega-corporation who, by opening a post office box in the Bahamas, can skirt paying their fair share of taxes. These loopholes should be closed and right fucking now. The protesters say no. They want corporations to have these tax breaks. This alone shows us how clueless these blockheads are.
  
• As for the racism I saw yesterday, it was disgusting. The ones who were open about it weren't the most heinous, it was the folks who danced and shuffled around the fact that they were damned angry that their reasonable friends and neighbors put a black man in charge. Not only that, what is really cramping their gut is the glaring and inescapable fact that he is damned good at the job and is far and away the most qualified person to bring about the salvation of this country. And there's more...the cherry on top of their dismay is the simple fact that most of America knows it and isn't afraid to say so. President Obama is doing a fantastic job and 68% of Americans expect him to pull us out of this mess.
  

This kind of right wing bullshit is the anchor that will keep us from getting to the end of this economic shitstorm. We have the tools to put our economic house in order but the agents of stagnation left over from the Bush Administration won't have it. In order for America to get free of this bullshit, we are going to have to rein in the greedy bastards that scuttled us in the first place. They spent the last 20 years sucking their wealth off our teat and won't give it up without a fight. Even now, there's reaction to just the hint of re-regulation in the markets. Some of the morons in the streets yesterday were holding signs that called for the government to back off the big money greedy bastards that crapped on us in the first place. My God, do these people even read their own protest signs? What part of a reasonable person would want to keep these greedy fuckwads pissing in our well? I guess I answered that already.

They had their time in the spotlight. Fux News creamed all over themselves promoting it and inflating their numbers, like we didn't see that coming. Hopefully, we can let this foolishness fade into the black hole of history and we can get back to work shoveling out the stables. But Fux News won't let it rest. They're going to keep harping and screeching and bloviating until they cause another nutbag to pop a gasket and shoot up a school or workplace.

It's going to happen and keep happening until Mom and Pop America realize that they need to change the channel and watch reruns of Gilligan's Island rather than Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly. They need to go out to the garden and get the seeds in the ground and stop listening to that walking pusbag Rush Limbaugh. We have better things to do, more important activities to get busy with. We have a lot of hard work ahead of us that the government can't get done by itself. We are the government too. If we are to climb our asses out of this hole, we have to stop shoveling and start going up. If the Republicans refuse to cooperate, fuck 'em. Kick 'em in the nuts, jump on their backs and climb out of the goddamn hole! Let them fail. That seems to be the only thing they're really good at.

So Mote It Be,
David A.

Only a Matter of Time...

Can you point me in the direction of Wall Street?

Karma can be a real bitch.

AIG brought this on themselves, I have little sympathy for them. I just hope that the regular people who had nothing to do with this, those who won't make any bonuses or drive fancy cars aren't pulled into the shitstorm that's coming.

I'm afraid, however, that's inevitable. Again, fault lies with AIG.

They thought they were above this, that the machinations of the little people couldn't affect them. The 'great, unwashed masses' were a good source of capital, not something to really think about. Like being concerned for the well being of the ATM versus the money inside.

I hope this gets resolved before anyone gets hurt. There are only a few that really deserve any physical punishment and only after proper due process. Yet this thing could get ugly.

Real fucking ugly, real fucking quick.

So Mote It Be,
David A.

Employee Free Choice Act - See, 'choice' is in there!

Damn crooked bastards.

I've been listening to the debate over the Employee Free Choice Act and Jesus H. Christ on a corndog, this is a fucking disaster. Not the bill, the EFCA is due, more than fucking due in the workforce today. I mean, after eight years of anti-worker GOP legislation and a virulently anti-union administration, I think the country is ready for some recovery from the stupid.

All the swinging wingnuts on the TV Box are caterwauling and bleating like a bunch of asthmatic lambs about how this bill will 'take away worker's right to a secret ballot.'

Bullshit!

There's nothing in the bill that restricts any worker from voting by secret ballot if they want a union. This bill gives them the choice to hold an election by either open ballot or secret ballot - THEIR CHOICE!

This bill also provides protection from all those creepy 'one-on-one' meetings companies hold with workers who express an interest in forming a union. Hell, there's a whole industry out there who's sole purpose is to provide companies anti-union information, tactics and smear merchants to intimidate the workers into dropping any union-forming aspirations.

In an economy like this, a union's protection will go a long way to keeping people employed and keeping employers from taking advantage of the job climate to get workers to pull back on wages and benefits.

Any company who is in dire straights right now can't blame the unions or labor costs, as much as the wingnuts want to. Speculating in the derivative market, stupid business practices and being blinded by unadulterated greed is the culprit and what's eating at the foundation of America's economy.

These fuckers use working people like they use toilet paper.

Again, this is just the fucking Republican bastards putting their own greed and self-interests ahead of what's good for the country. Not one of those fuckers are worth the powder to blow them to Hell. Every night, I watch them bloviate and piss and moan about how 'socialist' Pres. Obama is. Do they know what that word even means?

This all reminds me of the Red Scare of my childhood. Behind every tree and bush was a Commie ready to circumvent 200 years of democracy by sheet magic. Thousands of people were ostracized and blacklisted because some where at some time, they were at a party or a meeting where someone else who was accused of being a Communist had been. What a fucking crock!

It's the Party of Fear and Ignorance. The GOP is as anti-American as Castro's left nut. Nothing would please them more than to have this country falter and spin into the abyss just so they can say "I told you so!" I would even go so far as to say that if John Boenner or Eric Cantor had evidence of a terrorist attack on a city like San Francisco, they would keep it to themselves. One, they could say 'I told you so!' and two, they could give a rat's nutsack about any of the residents of that American city. Every one of those bastards would cry alligator tears on the TV Box but high five each other in private.

Sen. Reid better let this bill come to a vote in the Senate, 60 votes or not. Let the American people see who's for and against it. Get some spine, Senator! Is it too much to ask to use some of the political capital we've given you. What are you fucking saving it for? A God damn rainy day?

So Mote It Be,
David A.

The Mythology of the GOP

For decades, the popular view of the Republican Party has been the 'Daddy Party', the party of responsibility, frugality, and measured, conservative advance. For decades, the popular view of UFO's has been little green men from some distant world bent on the destruction of our world.

I put more credence in the little green men.

There is no 'Daddy Party' unless you count a bunch of immature children playing dress-up. Take any Republican aside and look very close at their pet issues and beliefs and you will find a hodge-podge of contradictions based on fear and greed. The average Republican is terrified that he will not get all he wants especially if it belongs to someone else. It's the anger of the selfish spoiled child who wants it now! Add to that the distinctive stench of racism in the form of entitlements and giveaways. Our Republican friends firmly believe in equality of the races but only in measured amounts. They consider all minorities equal, just not equal to them. When society tries to right the great wrongs of the past, they get all bent out of shape because lifting minorities up would lower them.

Liberals and progressives have always looked to the other side with a fair bit of exasperation. We can't seem to gather our troops together as they do, have lots of problems keeping on message like them and constantly have to rein in outliers who stray too far from the flock. For all our supposed scholarship and intelligence, we still find ourselves trapped by the ignorance and abject stupidity of the GOP. We look to the GOP lemmings as they run off the cliff and say "Gee, I wish I could rally the troops like that!"

Our diversity is our strength. That's the reason it gives us so much grief. Nothing of value will ever come easy. If it does, we usually find out the true value later and at much cost.

Republicans know this, they have to. It's foolish to believe that all Republicans are clueless idiots like Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity. They have to realize that the things that matter most to Liberals and progressives are based on reality, facts that can be verified. They have to know these things because they go to such lengths to rebut them; to scatter ridiculous claims and fabricate tragic scenarios should our policies come to pass. They use fear mongering as chaff around the Media to obscure their real purposes.

What used to be relegated to tin-hat conspiracy theorists is slowly gaining attention in the progressive blogosphere. It begs to be published, to be spoken about outside the shadows and back rooms; even to mention it in popular circles of scholarship is taking a bold step.

The Republican Party wants America to fail.

Oh, they want to keep the name and all the old stuff in the museums, like the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Jeffersonian Bible, etc. The Republican Party wants to gut the American system of government. They want to bring us back to the old ways of feudal Europe with all the modern toys and goodies.

The Modern Republican Party wants to increase the chasm that exists between those who have lots and those who have little. Those who have none are expendable.

A 21st century feudal society would have most Americans working long hours for just enough pay to subsist. The elite would be separate from the unwashed hoard by economics and politics. Two societies would exist; one of privilege, one of work. The worker class would be divided among the industries that need them the most. Corporate icons would control the lives of its workers much the same as it cares for the machinery it operates. The workers class would have few rights and privileges save for a few earned as incentives. Children would only be allowed if a person showed the necessary homage to the Party, including its principal of "do onto others before they do onto you." Citizens who displayed cruelty and inhumanity would be allowed to advance, move up the ladder of success. Those who displayed humanity and kindness would languish in abject poverty and toil for showing weakness.

Sound outlandish? Like a bad science fiction movie? The reality is right in front of us. We see the building blocks of this scenario falling into place as we speak. A couple of years ago, I would have been called a nutcase for suggesting this.

Am I still crazy?

Consider the current talk coming from the Right. The leaders of the Republican Party want to return to the ways of the Bush Administration. They know that this will lead us further into debt, cause the economy to sink deeper into depression. Only from the ashes of the American way of life can they rebuild their Corporatist dream. People like Rush Limbaugh and Karl Rove know that the only way to get people to support them again is to scare the living shit out of them. The current economic downturn has the potential to be that object of fear. It's a 'godsend' to them. (to corrupt a saying) By scaring people into electing their chosen toadies and supporting draconian measures to 'protect the American way of life'; they hope to put the final nails in Free Democratic America's coffin.

What they didn't count on was the appeal of Barack Obama. The election of 2008 was a disaster for them from the start. They couldn't get their candidates to stay on message and keep from self-immolating themselves. They had hoped for another Democratic candidate, like Hillary Clinton. I'm sure, at first, they thought 'Gee, let them select the black guy. America will never elect a n......!' To which, I'm forever proud to say, America said "Fuck you and your racist bullshit!"

Now, they are on red alert. Events haven't been that kind to their plans. Most of them are in desperation mode, eating their own and looking out for 'No. 1!' (In their case, it should be 'No. 2') But be put on notice that we aren't out of the woods yet. Lots of things can happen at a moment's notice which could put the GOP on the fast track once again. Vigilance is the key. Keeping our troops rallied together wouldn't hurt either. (not so subtle dig at the Blue Dogs)

We have to be very careful not to overreach. We can't afford to get over-confident nor too conservative. We have to listen to our best and brightest but give the ordinary a platform too. We are only as good as the least among us.

So Mote It Be,
David A.

Got your back, Spocko!

The Vulcan is at it again!

Over at Spocko's Brain, the intrepid Vulcan is taking on the Crap Demon again. A couple of years ago, he took on the piss and vile that is the morning show on San Francisco's KSFO.

Officer Vic making a point.

The hosts of that waste of radio waves are especially cruel and vile right wing trash. They tried and almost succeeded in taking Spocko off the 'Net. His ISP at the time was cowed into suspending his site by Disney, which owned KSFO. In a clear violation of the Fair Use provision of the Copyright laws.

The EFF got his back then, we should be there for him now.

Update: His email to Molly Peck, National Advertising Manager, Chevrolet may have been screened so look up Ms. Peck in Google and promote it. That way she'll see it when she googles her name. Try every avenue you can think of to bring this to light.

So Mote It Be,
David A.

Gekkos and Greed

Greed: -noun "excessive or rapacious desire, esp. for wealth or possessions."

Gekko: - ie: Gordon Gekko, character in the movie "Wall Street" who said:

"Greed, for lack of a better word, is good"

On Wall Street today, we are seeing fiction become fact. Not just unrestrained greed, we've always had that. But what we have is unrestrained greed as the ship is sinking.

Consider this metaphor:

A rich man is on the deck of the Titanic, ready to jump into the water and swim to a waiting lifeboat. A crew member hands him a life vest instead of a young woman with a child. Before he jumps into the sea, he fills the life vest with gold coins and jewels he got from the ship's safe. He jumps overboard with a suitcase and pockets filled as well.

The CEO's of financial institutions are like our foolish man overboard. They see disaster ahead and before all else, with concern for no one but themselves, they fill their suitcases and pockets with gold and jump. But this time, rather than sink to the bottom of the Atlantic, these Gekkos land IN the lifeboat. Our government gave them the gold and made sure that before anyone else, before any of the regular passengers could be saved, these Icons of Corporate Rape are assured a place of safety and security.

Believe it or not, we've seen this shit before. History is a bitch. If you refuse to learn from it, it will sneak up behind you and kick your ass. Think back to the heady days of the late 1800"s. We had just gotten over the Civil War and were getting our industries started. Immigrants from all parts of the globe were streaming into the US to work for a pittance but much more of a pittance than they were making back home. The great industrial giants raked in the ducats and became the modern American Rich. Names like Carnegie, Vanderbilt, and Morgan gave rise to the myth of the common man making good, when in truth they were just robber barons. They controlled the government and made policy. This lasted into the early part of the 20th Century until the shit hit the fan.

A lot of historians can point to different watershed events, publication of the book "The Jungle' by Upton Sinclair, the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, the massacre of Wobblies (IWW workers) at different places across the country. But, for me, it all spells out quite clearly that the common folk got schooled. They had been kept in the dark for more than 50 years by the Corporate Giants and finally had enough. Add to that a new World War, a flu epidemic and a financial collapse. Starving people have a way of causing a ruckus.

Well, now we have an economic collapse not seen since the days of Herbert Hoover, perhaps earlier. After eight years of servicing by the Bush administration, our Gekkos have convinced Congress to give them a bailout and have raked in hundreds of billions in ill gotten booty. This unadulterated orgy of consumption could only last so long. Warnings and pre-shocks of impending disaster were seen as early as 2001 when Enron and Global Crossing started to fail. Soon, we started seeing corporate giant after corporate giant fall or be consumed by another up and down Wall Street. It was a financial mass extinction as the old Wall Street was being replaced by new and more devious creatures. However, like the little mammals and lizards who watched the Great Chicxulub (Yucatan) Impact of 65 million years ago, we are seeing a pending horror approaching us quickly and can do little to stop it.

But first things first, we may have to let the big dinosaurs die off to rebuild this world the way we need. They are doomed, the great corporate giants are history. We watch and listen but all we hear is how much they earn or how much they've taken from our pockets. This isn't chump change, this is the only resource we have to rebuild and clean up the mess these bastards left for us. I can't stand by and allow them to rape and pillage the country as we sink into the sea.

Let the Gekkos drown, save the real people. Otherwise, there will be no one left to bring the country back from the Deep.

Because as I said earlier, starving people have a way of causing a ruckus.

So Mote It Be,
David A.

Is it time for torches and pitchforks yet?

Just say the word!



Every day we hear more and more bullshit. Shit that gives me cause to break out the pitchfork and start marching up the road to the castle. I want to hear the fucking truth, not the crap that the powers that be feel we should hear.

Now, I want to give Obama the time he needs to get this runaway train under control but he has to understand that this deference has conditions. He's come before the people on quite a few occasions and said pointblank what has to happen to turn this shit around. We support that.

Infrastructure. Health Care Reform. Accountability of Government. Mortgage Assistance. The list isn't that long but it is daunting.

We, the American People, understand that this is BORROWED money. Fuck, the last eight years saw at least 10 times the cost of this stimulus package run up on the People's Plastic. For what? What do we have to show for a TEN TRILLION DOLLAR debt courtesy of George W. Bush and the Republican Party?

What we need is to get past this and on to putting shovel to dirt, hammer to nail and pen to paper. You say we have to get beyond politics then you dive into the middle of it with 50 lbs of dead weight tied to your ankles. Those weights have names. Jettison them. Get to shore, shake yourself off and get to work. Fuck the Republicans! They Are Not Important!

You extended the hand of cooperation and bipartisanship and got it bit. You know the Chinese proverb - "Fool me once....?"

Why, oh fucking why are we asking these Brooks Brothers Buttfucks to approve the stimulus package?

We own them. They are a racist, dickless, regional embarrassment to American politics. We have the numbers, we have the people's back, we have the issues. What we seem to lack are leaders with cajones.

So, my friends and allies, start sharpening the tines and waxing the handles 'cause the ride's gonna get real fucking bumpy from here.

So Mote It Be,
David A.

American Pandemic

Just got this from Daily Kos's Deviltower.

A case of the Walmarts.

This scares the living shit out of me. I don't think influenza could do worse.