Day is the new night

Welcome to Bizarro America. Here in Bizarro America we:

• find teachers, cops, and fireman to be leeches because they get paid by our tax dollars.
• go to war to keep the peace.
• elect people who hate government to run our government.
• want government out of our lives except when it comes to the most intimate and private parts of them.
• claim that having a child out of wedlock is proof that abstinence only birth control works.
  
• give the party of 'family values' a pass when their leaders commit adultery and sex crimes.
• hate abortion but don't want to care for the kids that get born when women don't abort their fetuses.
• invade and occupy another country because we get attacked by a quasi political religious group who we armed and funded back when they were fighting the old Soviet Union.
• cut huge holes in the social safety net and then only allow the people who made those holes to try to 'fix' them.
• give tax breaks to people who pay virtually no taxes while we raise taxes on working people.
• call white people who use violence to further their political agenda 'heroes' at the same time we call those with brown skin who use violence to further their political agenda 'terrorists.'
• elect a man who ran on promising hope and change and then are told to stand behind him when he keeps the worst aspects of the last administration.
• close schools, slash public works, and cut services in this country so we can pour billions of dollars into keeping wars of occupation going in other countries where we are not only not wanted, we're hated.
• the rich don't pay taxes but get all the benefits.
  

I don't like living in Bizarro America. I want to live in the United States of America again. Is that too much to ask?

On Wisconsin!

Now that Walker and his pack of anti worker/pro corporate thugs in the Wisconsin Senate have rammed through their bill stripping state workers of their rights, hopefully the rest of the state will wake up, lay down their cheese snacks, and go recall those bastards. Hopefully this is the moment when the American labor movement wakes up, because if they can get away with screwing over teachers then next up is cops, fireman, and anyone else who they deem a pig at the public trough.

Hopefully, in this dark moment while they sip champagne and slap each other on the back as they ass fuck the rest of us, we all get up and rise to reclaim our rights as citizens.

It used to be that that needs of the many out weighed the needs of the few. Since 1980 the greed of the upper class has over taken the needs of the many. Our politicians have had it ass backwards for too long and hopefully today we turn the tide. After all, there more of us than there are of them. We can run these bastards out, all we have to do it get off our asses and do it.

The state of our union

Despite what you may have heard from the incumbents in Washington DC last night, the state of our union is not strong. It's fractured and in peril.

We've let our politics be hijacked by reactionary conservatives who are nothing more than lackeys of the powerful multi national corporations. They seek to divide us along racial, economic, sexual, and age lines so that they can increase their influence and line their pockets with yet more cash. Their use of fear based tactics is unprecedented and has been unrelenting in the past two years since Obama has been elected.

I reject their lies and their attempts to run my country like it's a private bank account for obscenely rich wastrels and their flunkies. I reject the notion that we have to cower in fear of Muslims, gays, the poor, the working people, of anyone who is not rich, white, and entitled. I reject the corporate media narrative that we need to grow up and take drastic measures to make our economy the one that the corporations and the IMF wants.

I reject calls for cuts to entitlements. I reject calls for Social Security to be privatized and for Medicare to be scaled down. I reject those who refuse to cut defense spending. And I reject the notion that the wealthy and business needs to pay less taxes.

The fact is we need to pay more in taxes to keep our country running. We need to make those who have the most, pay the most. We need for businesses to pay more so that we the people can buy what they make, so long as what they make is economically and ecologically sustainable. We can't keep cutting taxes and expect things to pay for themselves. Taxes pay for the things we want, like roads, schools, parks, street lights, school lunches, etc. If we want better things in our country then we need to pay for them and we pay for them through taxes. One way to raise more tax revenue is to legalize marijuana for recreational and industrial use and to tax it. Doing that will fulfill two missions, it will finally put us on the path to winning the 'war on drugs' and it will raise billions of dollars for our national coffers. Another way to raise tax revenues is to tax all places of worship, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, all of them, it's time religions stopped dividing us and start helping us all.

We need to take the lead in getting everyone off fossil fuels and into sustainable energy. We need to stop kidding ourselves into thinking of coal and natural gas as 'clean.' They aren't. Wind and solar are clean but since they aren't a finite resource that can be monopolized by a few greedy corporations, the multi national corporations won't permit their wide spread use.

It's time we grew up as a nation and we put our long term goals back in front of the lust for short term profits. We need to reign in corporations, regulate this unrestrained capitalism we've been saddled with, we need to end the fiction that says corporations are people, and we need to stop allowing powerful interest groups like the NRA and the Koch brothers run things and set national policy. We need to get private money out of politics and get it back into out schools. We need to stop being greedy and treating the rest of the world like it's ours to plunder.

And finally we need to get religion out of the public sphere. It's ruining us and making us dumber. If you want to practice or believe in private, fine, go for it. But you should not be allowed to use your religion to make public policy, laws, or anything else to do with things that affect non believers. You're free to pick and choose whatever Bible or Talmud or Koran verse you like to justify your hatred of gays, women, or red headed step children but you have no right use it to make laws or policy that discriminates against those folks.

Our nation faces many grave dangers and if we keep facing them like we've been doing then I see nothing but decline and ruination for us. But if we act with vigilance and an eye to sustainability and what's best for everyone and not just for the rich white folks who run the corporations and our government, then we might have a fighting chance. When we care as much about the hungry kids in the projects as we do about the stock market, then we'll be getting closer to where we need to be as a nation and as a people.

So get off your asses people, and organize. Organize the workers, the poor, black folks, Latinos, young people, women, and gays, because the one thing those in power fear the most is a non violent popular uprising. Organize from the ground up because all lasting change and all great social movements in this country have started from the bottom of society and worked their way up.

The conservative legacy

The legacy of the past 30 years of conservatism and privatization in our nation's government isn't more home ownership or more democracy or a more peaceful world. The end result of right wing conservatism and willy nilly privatisation is the worldwide financial panic.



All the other bad shit, the endless war of terror on Iraq, the demonization of gays and lesbians, the constant state of fear, and the lack of national health care for every American is just the icing on the urinal cake.

We're just now paying the full price of mismanagement. And mark my words, it's going to get worse in some respects before it gets better. But maybe if we're smart, we'll take this great opportunity to rework our version of capitalism and our government. Maybe we can turn them into something that works for all of us instead of just a few of us. But I think in order to do that we need to clean house in Washington and we need to defeat all those who take corporate money to fund their campaigns, which would be just about everyone.

What time is it?

It's time to end welfare as we know it.

We can't have health insurance for all Americans, we can't get our roads, bridges, and schools fixed, we can't get funding for solar, wind and other forms of sustainable power, but we sure as hell can waste billions of taxpayer dollars on a immoral war for corporate America in Iraq and on the home front we sure as hell can bail out big business yet again.

Once again our government and the Bush McCain administration show just where their priorities lie. There's plenty of money for big business and for the war and none for you and me.

It's time to clean house and vote out every incumbent who has voted for this type of shit and who has voted to keep funding the war.

Civics, it's not just for nerds like me any more

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Can his past predict our future?

• Bush McCain has missed more Senate votes in the past year than anybody else so there's no reason to believe he won't change his lazy ways if he's elected President.
• He's consistently made "jokes" about killing others who he dislikes, the Vietnamese and the Iranians for example, so there's no reason to believe he'll stop all the carnage his BFF Bush Jr. started.
• He's consistently made anti female remarks, "jokes," and he has a zero rating from all women's advocacy groups so there's no reason to believe he won't do anything but perpetuate the sexism and misogyny of the current right wing religious Republican administration.
• He's surrounded himself with advisers who failed in their chosen fields, Carly Fiorino (big business), and who have insulted decent hard working Americans who play by the crooked rules they set up, Phil Gramm ("Americans are whiners!"), so you know we can expect the same levels of incompetence that we've gotten from the current administration.

This country can't afford another four years of a lazy chief executive who is a blood thirsty, sexist, incompetent, idiot. Don't let Bush McCain's past become our future, vote Obama in '08.

Bipartisan

It's touching when people who have worked for both Bush Jr and Hillary can finally come together and work for our corporate overlords. This is the kind of bipartisan bullshit that the corporate media and all the lobbyists in Washington DC love. When in actuality it shows how sick and corrupt our system is. I wish for nothing more than a pox on all their houses.

If you're not rich yet it's your own damn fault!

The rich white politicians in Washington DC keep telling us that things aren't as bad economically as the liberal media makes them out to be, but you and I know things are actually worse then they are portrayed, especially for working class families with children. Unlike Bush McCain who is as clueless as his buddy Bush Jr., I'm here to offer you some help. I'm here to show you how you can make more money and have lasting financial peace of mind.

1) Learn a new skill, like for instance this one:
2) Do people look at you like you're a moron when you write something or speak, like they do when Bush Jr. says or writes anything? Well then this course may be for you:
3) Turn your avocations and hobbies into cold hard cash!
4) Or you could just make money like Republicans do. You could rig the rules of business and government to suit your needs! Or better yet, get the government to stop spending money on wasteful things like food stamps and aid to the poor and get it to give you and your company all that money! It worked for people and businesses like Ross Perot, General Motors, Microsoft, Wal-Mart, Coca Cola, Ford Motor Company, and many more.

Stop being a sucker who works hard for a living. Stop scrimping and saving. Get rich the Republican way! Start a multi national corporation and then demand the government give you all the tax breaks (corporate welfare) it can! And if those tax breaks aren't enough, demand more. Heck Mr. and Mrs. America, it's the new American way!

Just when you think they can't get any worse...

Word is reaching us, mostly through Crook and Liars, that while these two geniuses are all for drilling for oil any where and every where their pals in the oil companies want to drill they are concerned about the effects of producing solar energy on federal lands. They are so concerned in fact that they have placed a moratorium on any solar power production on federally owned land in western states, which means that for two years no solar energy will be produced on lands out west that are owned by the feds. But during that time they'll be allowing their pals in big oil to drill off the coast, on most federal lands, and in your backyard if they want to.

I'm wondering if they hate solar power so much because Bush McCain has had so many bouts of melanoma or because it's a cheap form of energy that can't be controlled by big business. Hmmmmm, now that I think about it, I'll go with the second one.

The supply of all fossil fuels is finite, some day we will run out of them. That's a fact. As much as they want to believe that their god or his son is going to fly down and stick more oil and coal in the ground they are mistaken. We're using it up and one day it will all be gone.

But thank goodness that we have the sun and the wind. The sun will last us for about 4 or 5 billion more years and as long as the world keeps turning the wind will blow. From these two inexhaustible sources we can derive more than enough power to make us kick our addiction to messy dirty climate changing fossil fuels. Countries like Spain, Germany, and even Sweden derive a major portion of their power from the sun and the wind and the only thing stopping us from doing so is our lack of political.

We've let a few multi millionaires in big oil and big coal dictate our energy policy for years, especially the last 7 years, and what has made them rich has been a colossal fuck up for the rest of us. Pollution from big coal burning power plants kills people, mountain top removal coal mining kills our mountains and our land, all the gas and oil we burn up is causing our our planet to heat up which will, if we don't stop it soon, make our planet uninhabitable for humans. The reason we stay addicted to fossil fuels is because our government is owned by the corporations who benefit from us using gas, oil, and coal. And those same corporations own the media as well so they feed the sheep a constant stream of lies that tell them that anyone who wants to use solar and wind power are "kooks" who hate business and the USA.

If we broke our addiction to foreign oil and we produced more energy from solar and wind then we'd be far less exposed to terrorism and more Americans would benefit from all the jobs that the conversion to solar and wind energy would generate. Some jobs would be lost, many of those jobs would be white collar jobs in the oil and coal industry so really there'd be not much harm done there, but millions of other jobs would be created. And they'd be blue collar jobs that could not be outsourced, the kinds of jobs that helped build the middle class after the Depression.

They claim that solar energy is too expensive up front and that's why they haven't gone into it full bore yet. But when you figure in the true cost of the damage coal mining in all it's forms does to the planet and the damage that coal fired electric power plants do to the environment then the "high cost" of solar is not high at all. The savings from not having to treat respiratory illnesses due to air pollution from coal fired plants alone would off set the up front "high cost" of solar power.

They like to claim that wind turbines will kill all sorts of birds and insects and again their claims are nothing more than a smoke screen for their shortsightedness. Wind turbines that produce the kind of energy that's needed to power a good chunk of homes and businesses have huge blades. And these blades are big enough that most birds will instinctively fly around them. Will some birds fly into the blades? Yes, some birds will. But just like birds adapted to flying around buildings that were built in their migratory paths in the early days of the industrial revolution, birds of today and birds of the future will evolve to the point where they do not fly into the blades of wind turbines.

We've been talking about doing something about getting off oil and coal since I was in grade school in the late '60's and early '70's. It's time we stopped letting people in big business tell us that we can't shed our addiction to their products. It's time we stopped letting big business set an energy agenda that is killing us and our planet. And it's time we started to demand that government land be used to generate solar and wind power instead of being drilled on and mined to death.

Thanks for nothing

Thanks for selling out the Constitution so your corporate pay masters can enjoy immunity for their illegal deeds. Yo, Congressional "leadership" if you want to know why your approval ratings are so low it's because you keep doing the bidding of that lawless thug in the White House. If you over paid under worked lying weasels stood up to him and stopped trying to look like you're not "weak on terror and national defense" then perhaps the general public wouldn't hate you all so much. My douchebag Congressdwarf voted to shield the telecoms from immunity because he's a toadying simpering smallminded Republican.

I fucking wish you Democrats would stop acting like my douchebag Congressdwarf.

Yeah, that's a bright idea all right

I keep hearing that the company of mercenaries, Blackwater, wants to start doing private intelligence gathering for our federal government and I can't help but think that it's the worst idea ever to let private companies do all your intelligence gathering.

Just think about the shitty jobs the CIA, NSA, and FBI did in the run up to 9/11, do you really want more of our tax dollars going to a company run by right wing Republican Amway nutjobs? Imagine if you can that company A, let's call them Blackwater, and company B, let's call them Halliburton are locked into a fight to be allowed to gather intelligence for an administration like the current one we got. Now wouldn't it be in their interest to make shit up out of whole cloth just so they can be seen as real go getters who can produce actionable intelligence just so they can secure a contract and collect some of that government gravy money? Company A makes up something, Company B makes up something, and the real truth is nowhere to be found because the companies just make shit up to keep getting money.

And what if the intelligence put forth by the companies is wrong? What if we go to war based on some faulty intelligence they gather or make up? Who is liable? The current war of terror has shown that Blackwater is accountable to no one. They kill, torture, maim, and terrorize Iraqi's, Afghans, and people in this country whenever they feel like it and they are not accountable under our law or Iraqi and Afghani law.

Privatizing national intelligence is just another bad idea in a long line of bad privatizing ideas. We the people have suffered since Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush Jr. began privatizing essential governmental services. They just can't help themselves, when private companies take over enterprises that used to be run by the federal government they get greedy and they let their mania for profit degrade whatever they take over. When Reagan bitched and moaned and said that government wasn't the solution and that it in fact was the problem, what he meant was that his pals in big business wanted to make more money off the government and spending on social programs had to be curbed so that they could free up that money so that it could go into corporate pockets.

Privatizing intelligence gathering is about as smart as invading Iraq in retaliation for the 9/11 attacks. I for one don't want a government run by private companies, I want a govrenment that is run by the people for the people. I want my federal government to be run the way the founding fathers intended, with checks and balances and by the people, not corporate America. I know my idea is far fetched and in this day and age it may even be dangerous. Who knows, what with all the radical stuff I write on this blog I'm probably on the list of Americans they'll round up when they declare martial law.

Your tax dollars in action!

I watched this film last December and I reviewed it here. When I first saw this film the "Justice" Department was still pursuing charges against Mr. Kurtz for being a "bioterrorist." Well kids, the shoe finally dropped in this case and here's the short AP article on what happened:

Biomaterial charges against N.Y. art professor dismissed

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: April 21, 2008
Filed at 8:45 p.m. ET
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) -- A judge threw out charges Monday against a college art professor accused of improperly obtaining biological materials for an exhibit protesting U.S. government food policies.

U.S. District Judge Richard Arcara ruled that the 2004 mail and wire fraud indictment against Steven Kurtz, a University at Buffalo professor, was ''insufficient on its face.''

Kurtz is a founding member of the Critical Art Ensemble, which has used human DNA and other biological materials in works intended to draw attention to political and social issues. His arrest drew protests from artists in several countries who called the charges an intrusion on artistic freedom.

''Obviously this is a weight off his back, but he still had to suffer through this for four years,'' said Kurtz's attorney, Paul Cambria. ''The last thing this guy is is a bioterrorist.''
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Buffalo said it was considering an appeal but otherwise declined to discuss the ruling.

Kurtz was indicted in 2004 following what began as an anti-terrorism investigation after police saw lab equipment in Kurtz's home while responding to the death of his wife, Hope.
Although investigators determined that lab equipment was part of his art work, he was indicted a month later. The charges carried a maximum of 20 years in prison.

Kurtz was accused of plotting with Robert Ferrell, former chairman of the University of Pittsburgh's human genetics department, to improperly obtain potentially harmful organisms. Ferrell was fined $500 in February after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor count of mailing an injurious article to Kurtz.

I wonder how many millions of dollars were wasted on this frivolous prosecution? How many hours of work went into trying to steamroll a man into prison because he had the gall to speak out against the stupid and insane food policies of our corporate government?

I'd like to extend my heartfelt thanks to Steve Kurtz for fighting this prosecution by the Bush "Justice" Department. If the pricks would go after corporate criminals and polluters instead of artists and people who make porn then we might have a better country and a cleaner safer more intelligent planet. But I guess that's too much to ask from the crooks and liars who run this administration.

Monkey mini series round up review

I finished watching the 7 part HBO miniseries John Adams the other night. I didn't want to review it until I had seen it all so now I'm going to burden you with my thoughts on it.  No worries for those of you who have not seen it, since it's all in our history books there's no spoilers here.  

My first impression is that the two leads were fantastic in it.

Paul Giamatti, despite being in a few clunkers lately, is a big time talented actor.  He played Adams with much more life and believability than William Daniels did in  the musical 1776.  Giamatti dove in the character of Adams and he wore it like a second skin.  There were no false notes anywhere to be seen in his portrayal.  The only problem I had with it was they took so much trouble to accurately portray these people down to the last detail including blackening their teeth as their characters aged, but in one scene in the final episode they let one scene pass where Giamatti's teeth were pearly white and not blackened like they were in every other scene.  But it wasn't his fault that someone missed it and it only distracted me for a moment or two.

Laura Linney, who played his wife Abigail Adams, was also very good in this project.  She captured the quiet dignity of being the wife of a strong willed man who helped fashion history.  She looked beautiful through out the miniseries, even though at times they dirtied her up and stuck her with some horrendous hair-dos.  She is one of those women who you can not make look bad no matter what you do to her, her good looks shine through no matter what.  My only problem with Ms. Linney's performance was as the series progressed her accent became more and more ridiculous.  I never bought her accent for a second and the times early on in the series when she didn't try to sound "New England" she was much more believable all around.  

Other noteworthy performances we turned in by Tom Wilkinson as Ben Franklin, Mamie Gummer, who is Meryl Streep's daughter by the way, as Adams daughter in law, Sarah Polley as 

Adams daughter (the scene where her character undergoes breast cancer surgery is harrowing and hard to watch but it's among the best of the series), and most all of the men who portrayed the men in the Continental Congress that voted to go to break with Britain.

On the other hand I found the performance and look of David Morse as George Washington to be simply appalling.  Also striking out with me was Danny Huston as a very dickish Samuel Adams.  I found Rufus Sewell's performance as Alexander Hamilton to be a bit over the top as well.  But the performances I didn't like were more than overshadowed by the ones that were spot on.

The look of the series was astounding to me.  They went to great lengths to make the whole thing look as realistic as possible and they succeeded handily.  The locations and sets were fantastic.  The whole thing looked and sounded like we were right back in the 18th and 19th centuries with Adams and Franklin and the rest of the gang.  

I learned quite a bit about the history of how our country was founded and as I watched this mini series I was struck by how long that men like Adams, Jefferson, Washington, and the rest served and how they did so at no personal gain to themselves financially.  I was struck by how different public service is now compared to back in Adams time.  It seems that going to serving one's country now in positions that are akin to the ones Adams and the rest had now means filling ones pockets as fast as one can and working to set up one's life after so that one can make as much money as one can and glorify one's self as much as possible.  It makes me sick to think of how men like Adams, Jefferson, and Hamilton, men who disagreed with one another, often violently and vehemently, but who somehow managed put the good of the country first, have been replaced by thieves, plunderers, and liars like Bush Jr, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and Condi Rice.  

If you don't have HBO, then get this series when it hits DVD and watch it.  I highly recommend it.  You'll not only be entertained, you'll be learn something as well.  

Warning! Portions of this post may be classified!

It was a nice day today here in Johnson City so I got the hell out of Monkey Central and I went looking for stuff to take pictures of around town.  I found myself wandering the side streets adjacent to the little downtown area we have and I saw the above bench in front of a taxi cab company garage.  I liked the look of it and I fantasized about Reich wingers denying someone, like oh, say Barack Obama, the right to sit on it since it was so patriotic and all so I snapped a photo of it.  And then just to make sure I got it properly, I took another.  

Then I walked away.  But mere seconds after I began walking down the street I heard a guy shout, "Hey!"  I had no idea he meant me so I kept walking.  Then he shouted again, "Hey, you with the camera!"  I looked around and there was no doubt that it was me he was talking to.  So I turned and looked at him, I gave him my best, "Why the fuck are you bothering me look."  He snarled, "What are you taking pictures of?"  

Now, this being the USA and me being on public property, the sidewalk, my first instinct was to say by way of an answer, "It's none of your fucking business what I'm taking photos of you fucking fuck, now fuck off you fucker."  But I didn't.  I answered him by saying, "Stuff."  Then I walked away.  He seemed satisfied by my answer because he didn't pursue me or anything.

But the whole situation got me to thinking how so not unusual that type of exchange has become here in the United States of Fear.  Under the Bush junta we're all terrorists until they say we aren't.  Everyone is suspect and everyone is guilty.  They area I was in was a great one for taking artsy looking photos of decaying older buildings and urban stuff, but since we're in an endless war with a wily cagey enemy, it just may have been ground zero in the fight to save corporate America from the terrorists and I could have been the leader of a Nordic looking Muslim terrorist group.

It used to be that the guiding principle of our judicial system was that you were innocent until proven guilty.  In the last eight years it's become 'we're all guilty and you better keep on eye on your friends, neighbors, and everybody else because if you don't then the secret domestic spying program will find you out and turn you in.'  I'm not sure about you, but in the United States of America where I want to live fear is not what unifies us all and we shouldn't have to feel compelled to ask a stranger with a camera who is taking pictures on public property what they are doing.  But you may not agree with me and you may want four or more years of endless war, the same old Bush shit, and domestic spying, if you do then please feel free to vote for McCain.  

Me, I'm voting for someone, anyone, who will give me back my country and stop trying to keep me and my fellow citizens afraid.

How's that workin' for us now?

Some of you may not be old enough to remember when St. Ronnie, patron saint of greedy corporations and big business, said that government wasn't the solution to the problems facing our country and that indeed, government was the problem.  

Well, a succession of US Presidents, including Bill Clinton, after him took his mantra to heart and they cut government programs and used that money for corporate welfare and they privatized many essential governmental services.  I got to wondering how all that has worked out for us and here's what I came up with:

• We've had more food and product recalls than ever before. 
• FAA inspectors have been told to go easy on airline safety checks.
• We've had more deaths due to shoddy FDA tests on drugs than ever before.
• We are losing millions of dollars a day to companies like KBR, Halliburton, and Blackwater in what are known as "cost plus" contracts with the federal government.  Cost plus means the companies in question don't have to be competitive in price, they charge the government what ever they like for what they provide and we have to pay for it,
• Corporate America is running, or should I say ruining, the Labor Department, HUD, the FDA, the USDA, and many other cabinet level offices and departments.
• Corporate America is writing our laws and paying our legislators to vote for them.  Case in point, I refer you to the Medicare Prescription Drug program, it was written by big pharma lobbyists.  
• Our legislators are not beholden to us, they are beholden to whoever pays for their reelection campaigns.

Our government is supposed to be a government of the people, that is run by the people, for the people.  Instead ever since St. Ronnie hoodwinked us, it's become a government of the corrupt corporations, that is run by the corrupt corporations, in order to line the pockets of rich white men and women.  Reagan started it, Bush the elder continued it, Clinton went along, and Bush the idiot perfected it.  And we're all getting screwed as a result.

Maybe after the other shoe drops in the current financial meltdown we can kick these greedy bastards out and we can rebuild our country like FDR and the Democratic Party did after the Great Depression.  All those programs and laws that they enacted helped people like you and me, the working class that built this country.  And they, Reagan, Bill "NAFTA is good!" Clinton, the Bushes, and their enablers in Congress, dismantled them.  

The period after the Great Depression, which by the way was brought on by out of control capitalism which is what we have today, and after World War 2 was the most productive period ever for working class people.  Our parents and grandparents were able to climb out of poverty, buy homes, cars, and give us baby boomers great childhoods because laws were written that reigned in big business.  Big business still made money, they just didn't make as much as they wanted, some of their profits went back to their employees and to the cities and states where they had their factories and stores.  The big difference between then and now is big business doesn't care about you or me anymore, they don't have to care because they got the laws changed in their favor.  The money that used to go to our parents and grandparents and to our communities now goes to the people at the top of the corporate food chain, look at how much their pay has increased and look at how much yours has decreased.

St. Ronnie led us all down a rathole.  And then him and his buddies in big business filled the hole in with dirt.  It's time to dig out and take back our country, our economy, our Congress, and our world.  What Wall Street wants is not what's good for us, less restrictions and less taxes on big businesses and the rich is not the answer, the fact that they do not pay their fair share is the fucking problem.  It's time to make big business and the rich pay their fair share again and to have some regulation again. 

The 19 Percenters

A whopping 81 percent of US citizens believe our country is headed in the wrong direction. Actually I'm surprised that number isn't higher. With so many of us dissatisfied with the way our country is going it's not hard to pick out the people who want to turn back the tide of corporate greed, endless war, and the politics of division, all one has to do is look around at one's friends and family. On the other hand it's far harder to find people who are happy with the direction this country is headed in so so I thought I'd highlight some of the folks who think that everything is peachy keen in America.

First up, the man really in charge in the White House, Dick Cheney and his "house" lesbians.
Life is sweet for him because Dick pulls the strings and gets his way no matter what and when informed of how dissatisfied we hoi polloi are he sardonically says, "So?" Let us eat cake Dick, let us eat cake.

And the only officially approved homosexuals the Republicans can stomach are living the high life because they have all the rights and privileges that no other gay or lesbian can have, Mary and her partner are Queens of the queers! If they and their infant face any discrimination then daddy Dick will ship the offender off to Gitmo while he demonizes all the other gay and lesbian people who live in our country.


Things couldn't be going better for this group. They've ridden George Jr's bumbling all the way to the top and they've more than cashed in and they'll continue to do so if and when Dumbass leaves office. They'll never have to live on food stamps or worry about making their rent or mortgage payment, they're American royalty! And if they fuck up there'll always be some star struck right wing hack ready to step in and bail them out, just like the Germans in big business did for former Nazi's after WW2, only this time instead of calling it their support system the "rat line," let's call it the "lying weasel line."


Mr. and Mrs. Corporate Media Liars are in the 19 percent group. For them today's America could not be a better place. They get to be famous for telling lies, untruths, and for just being asses in general. They get to mock and make fun of gays, lesbians, and all manner of brown skinned people. Why Bush/Cheney's America is their paradise! It's no wonder they're fighting like hell to keep that uppity black dude and the former first lady out of office. Their gravy train would ground to a halt if a Democrat was elected, they wouldn't sell as many hate filled books and their TV time would be cut in half if that happened.

Meanwhile the rest of us who live outside that cloistered world of the Washington DC/New York City axis of political/media power continue to get screwed as they try to privatize more and more governmental services and they allow multi national corporations to invade our lives further and further. The majority of us know that something is very wrong and we're ready to do something about it. If they don't screw us out of a free and fair election that is.

I apologize for all the jarring pictures of those wretched greedy rich white people. I'll try to make it up to you by ending this post with some eye candy.

Here's a shot of Salma working her mojo:

Here's a cute shot of Reese Witherspoon:

And no, I didn't forget all your ladies out there. Here's a beefcake shot of me in my bejeweled diaper. As you can tell that banana diet is working out really well for me.

Just so we're clear

I could care less if these two stay in the race for the nomination, this is after all still a democracy.What I'd like to see them stop doing is using the personal attacks on Obama. It's one thing to highlight your differences with your opponent, but it's quite another to try to beat your opponent by stooping to gutter style attacks. She and her husband, and Sen. Obama for that matter, should stop attacking one another personally and they should start attacking Bush McCain and the GOP party of death. The last thing we need in this country is four more years of Bush, but that's just what we'll get if Bill and Hill don't stop trying to tear down Obama in order to win the nomination she thought she was entitled to.

Attack the war mongering, corporation loving, military industrial complex adoring, planet ruining assholes in the Republican and Libertarian parties, stop attacking one another.

Let's hear it for the April Fool!

The April Fool told us:

• that by going to war we'd make peace.
• that he was going to be the environmental president, yet he did nothing about climate change.
• that American business must have more government welfare to be competitive, while the rest of us see cuts in Medicaid, Food Stamps, and other government programs.
• he'd make us safer by fighting terrorists in Iraq, a country where there was little or no terrorist activity before we invaded.
• we had to surrender our civil liberties here at home so we could help the Iraqi's get theirs.
• that we have to fight for Iraqi freedom and to bring democracy to the Middle East while he ignores the democratic people's movements in Tibet and other places.
• says he supports democracy around the world but he will not deal with the democratically elected governments in Iran and Venezuela.
• we're winning in Iraq when there is little fighting and that we're also winning in Iraq when there is lots of fighting and more senseless death.
• that we can't afford to give everyone single payer not for profit health care, we can only afford to give it to him and his pals in power.

I'm not sure who the bigger fool is at this point, him, or the idiots who voted for him because they believed all his lies. I don't know about you but I'm more than ready to revolt if the April Fool decides that he's going to stay on as our Idiot in Chief past next January. Who's with me?

Obama/Gravel '08?

Obama Adopting National Initiative! Gravel to Drop Out of Race!PHILADELPHIA — Former Democratic Presidential Candidate Mike Gravel has announced his intention to drop out of the presidential race after meeting with Democratic frontrunner Barack Obama. Gravel, who switched parties to run as a Libertarian on March 26th, stated that his decision was the result of a pledge from Obama to adopt the National Initiative for Democracy. The National Initiative, which would allow citizens to propose, alter, or nullify laws in conjunction with traditional legislative bodies, has been the cornerstone of Gravel's presidential run.
During his run for the Democratic nomination, Senator Gravel had accused Obama of being beholden to "corporatocracy" and "the military-industrial complex". While downplaying his previous denunciations as water under the bridge, Gravel did admit that strong disagreements still exist between him and the Senator from Illinois.

A senior aide to the Obama campaign, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was premature to comment on the specific role Gravel would play in an Obama administration, but did state that the former senator from Alaska would be involved in creating an agency called The United States Electoral Trust, which would administer the legislative power of citizens at the federal level.

The aide also stressed the importance of the National Initiative in setting the Obama campaign apart from that of Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. "Countries like Switzerland have shown that federal ballot initiatives can produce sound lawmaking," she said. "It's time that a major candidate for president got behind a serious proposal to entrust the people with the same power we place in the hands of our elected leaders. By adopting the National Initiative, Senator Obama is sending a clear signal that he trusts the American people to have a more direct role in their government."

Before announcing his intent to bow out of the race for the presidency, Senator Gravel discussed his meeting with Barack Obama. "Stop and think," Gravel told reporters. "This is a real chance to empower the American people by giving them the ability to make laws. 24 states already have ballot initiatives that give the people the same power as their representatives without dramatically changing the way our government works."

Senator Barack Obama was unavailable for comment, but the meeting was confirmed by a spokesperson for his campaign, who said that Obama was "looking forward" to working with the former senator in order to "show that Americans are serious about democracy."

Reliable sources in the Obama campaign also said that despite their differences Gravel was now on Obama 's Vice Presidential short list. One source said, "It makes sense, Gravel helps us with senior citizens, independent minded voters out west, and folks in the George McGovern/Jessee Jackson wing of the party. His experience and age balance Barack's youth and exuberance very well." (There is no confirmantion on the rumor that Obama Girl is responsible for bringing the two men together.)

(I found out all about this story here at D Cup's place.)