Vote

Lexi Belle and I want you to vote.  We don't care if you vote for Obama or Rocky Anderson or Jill Stein, just get off your ass and go vote. 

For the record

• I don't oppose Obama now because I've turned into a radical Republican, I oppose him because he's too timid to do the right thing by the people who got him elected. And for the record, those people are women, gays, lesbians, progressives, anti war protesters, and working men and women.
• I'm sure Hillary Clinton would have been the same or worse to her base.
  
• Rand Paul is pissed that his opponent used religion to attack him, uh, hey asshole, Republicans have been using religion to attack Democrats for years, get over it.
• I'm through voting for Democrats because I fear that the Republicans will be worse. I know the Republicans will be worse but we'll never get any real change in this country if we keep electing the same two political parties. Republicans will screw us, Democrats less so, but you know what? I'm tired of being screwed by politicians no matter what side of the political spectrum they fall on.
• If you're tired of me plugging my graphic novel, you ain't seen nothin' yet. I'll keep flogging it and promoting it as long as needs be. Most of you people haven't made the donation to become a member of the invite only blog where it's being posted so obviously, I haven't promoted and pushed it enough.
• Despite my hatred of commercial radio in general and classic rock stations in particular, I still love the Rolling Stones and the Beatles.

Big government in action

Once upon a time, pre Great Depression era, there were sections of this country that were prone to flooding and did not have electricity. So big government stepped in and did something about it.

Big government built a series of dams that stopped the flooding and that produced hydro electricity. The people who built those dams and who strung wire and put up poles so that the electricity that those dams produced could flow to houses and farms that had previously been in the dark were paid a living wage. With that living wage and benefits, which were very generous for the time, the people who built the dams and strung the wire and erected the poles bought clothes, cars, trucks, land, tractors, houses, and they sent their kids to college so that they could have a better life. Most of the businesses the people who built the dams and strung the wire and erected the poles patronized were locally owned which meant that the whole community benefited from the wages that big government paid them. And those businesses that were patronized by the people who worked for the big government who built the dams that stopped the flooding and that brought electricity became successful and they then employed others in the community and they paid their fair share of taxes which helped community serve it's people.

That's the kind of thing that big government used to do, before it got perverted by lobbyists, corporate cash, incumbents, anti progress conservatives, and libertarians. As others have said before, our government is of the people, by the people, for the people, so when Republicans, conservatives, conserva-Dems, incumbents, and libertarians attack and mock big government, they are attacking and mocking you, me, and all the rest of our fellow citizens. And when they say they want to stop the reach big government, then what they are saying is that the kind of government sponsored public works projects that lifted whole communities up during the Great Depression will never happen again. What they propose then is killing all that made our country great and that lifted millions out of poverty, up from servitude, and away from hunger.

This country doesn't need more tax cuts or a balanced budget, or even to get the deficit under control. It needs to rid itself of the corporate cash and influence in our electoral system and it needs to invest in it's people and in the infrastructure once again. We need big sweeping projects along the lines of those that were set up by FDR and we need to mandate that those projects employ as many out of work Americans as possible, and that those people should be paid a living wage and offered the same package of benefits that members of Congress enjoy. And all products, tools, and equipment used in whatever projects we come up with need to be made in America.

I'm a liberal progressive socialist who wants to see America working again. And I want it to work for all Americans, not just the wealthy and privileged ruling class.

If all that I just wrote sounds like class warfare to some, then so be it. I'm all for the working class and what used to be the middle class rising up and fighting back against the rich and powerful. They've been waging a class war on us since 1980, it's time we fought back.

Don't do it

If the idiots in Congress let the people who brought us the ineffectual response to Katrina, the endless waste of money and lives that is the war of terror on Iraq, and the squandering of the biggest budget surplus we've seen in our lifetimes handle this current crisis in the financial markets without any oversight then it's sheer madness. When Bush and his conservative cronies finally cause our economy to collapse, it's not going to be pretty. We'll all look like this guy in this Jack Kirby comic book panel:
This bail out MUST include help for the millions of hard working Americans who lost their homes after being given a bad loan by the banks who now cry for our tax dollars to save them. We've also got to address the root causes of the problems that led us here in the first place, deregulation of the banking industry and the insatiable greed of Wall Street and corporations. I'm a student of history and this current financial crisis stuff sounds a lot like what was said right before the Great Depression hit and it sounds like the talk that preceeded most every financial crisis that hit the USA in the 19th century. I hope we're not stupid enough to let history repeat itself again.

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.

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.

Enough

I've had enough of all of them.

The Clintons and the Bushes that is. This country has had a Clinton or a Bush in the White House for the past 28 years and to be honest I hope we never see another of either of those families in power again.

I've had enough of older baby boomers and the "greatest generation" running things. I'm 45 and I know damn well that someone my age would make a fine President. And I want someone my age to be President. Someone who's been through the same things I've been through, historically speaking.

I've had enough of rich white people running things. That's all we've had for the past two hundred and some years and it's time for people of color to step up and lead this nation for a change, after all people of color are in the majority world wide, as much as Pat Buchanan and Mike Malkin hate it.

I know Sen. Obama is going to make mistakes when he gets elected President, and I know he's not perfect, no one is. But what I also know is that we need a break from the Bushes and the Clintons and from the way we've always done things. It's time to go in a new direction, one that is more fair for more Americans. And I believe the only way were ever going to change things is to get away from the old politicians and their unoriginal lockstep way of thinking and doing business.

What I really think would be best for our country is a wholesale departure from our current corporate system, but that's not going to happen because corporate control of our government is too strong. But maybe, just maybe, if we have the balls to elect a black President then maybe we can also have the balls to start to dismantle the corporate control of our lives, our government, and our political system. Maybe one day we finally have have a government for us, by us.

The Perfect Sh*t Storm

Welcome to the beginning of American hyperinflation boys and girls. You know what hyperinflation is don't you? According to Wikipedia "...hyperinflation is inflation that is 'out of control,' a condition in which prices increase rapidly as a currency loses its value." Or to put it another way, prices of every day goods rise rapidly, sometimes as much as 1000% in one day, while your paycheck or salary stays the same or even shrinks.

And what causes this phenomena? Well, economists, yes, the same people who Bush, Bush McCain, and Hillary Clinton all say they ignore, will tell you the causes vary from country to country but usually one or two things trigger hyperinflation, a war and an economic downturn, or depression.

And guess which two things our current President brought us? You guessed it, a never ending expensive as hell war and an economic downturn, which could turn into a depression at any time now.

Bush led us into this economic mess by his neglect of the working and middle classes. Historically when only the people at the top of the economic food chain benefit from government largess, corporate welfare and tax cuts for the wealthy, then the rest of the country suffers and the national economy does about as well as a fat kid at a track meet. Look back at the depressions and economic downturns of the late 1800's and at the time just before the 1929 stock market crash. When we deregulate business and allow it to run free then the biggest majority of us get screwed and the only people making money and living well are the owners of the businesses that are deregulated.

And the two organizations who should be speaking out against the screwing big business is putting to us, the media and the church, are mostly silent. Most of the media stays silent because they are owned by big business. Most all TV, movies, and book and magazine publishing in this country is owned by just a few mega corporations and they do their damnedest to squelch dissent and to ridicule and marginalize anyone who disagrees with their points of view. The mainstream churches in the USA are guilty of collusion with the corporate America as well because they preach that we should be good little drones and go to work so that we can give the church ten percent or more of our wages and after a life time of hard work we can expect our reward in heaven. So now we're caught in a vice. We're being squeezed by oil and gas companies and their endless thirst for profits. They use any trumped up excuse to raise prices higher and higher because we are totally dependant on our cars, trucks, and airplanes. We've given up, for the most part, producing things locally, things such as foods and other everyday items, because it was easier to let big business do what the hell it wanted in order to make more and more profit. Never mind that none of what big business wants is ecologically, or economically, or morally sustainable. Gas prices rise and then in turn other prices rise so that profit margins will be maintained. Then gas prices rise again because the gas companies are paying higher prices for everything and then other companies raise their prices to offset the price increase of gas, and so on and so on and so on.Add to that the rising cost of food. Part of which is due to the steep hike in fuel prices and part of which is due to the fact that the world is beginning to eat like Americans do, which is to say eat way the hell more than they should, especially processed foods and meat, and part of which is due to our growing of corn to burn in our gas tanks.

We've got to have fuel for our cars, trucks, boats, and airplanes and we've got to have fuel for our bodies so we'll pay anything for it and corporate America knows it. Our government under Bush and his henchman have cut taxes on businesses and on the wealthy so that now they bear a tiny share of the tax burden. Meanwhile middle and working class people are being forced to pick up the slack and pay higher and higher prices for food and gas in addition to having to pay a bigger percentage of their incomes in taxes.

Wealthy Republicans and the people who own and run corporate America are doing fine in their cloistered gated communities and penthouses, meanwhile the rest of us have been caught out at sea during a perfect shit storm and our boat is about to capsize unless we vote out the men and women who sold us out to the multi national corporations and who voted to deregulate big business. The solution to our country's economic problems is pretty simple, we need to tax the rich and tax corporate profits more. If Exxonmobil, Chevron, Microsoft, Coca Cola, General Motors, Toyota, Wal Mart, Halliburton, and the like want to do business here in the USA then they should pony up and pay their fair share of the up keep of this country.

It's simple, if you benefit from government services, and we all do in one way or another be you a citizen or a corporation doing business in this country, then you should have to pay your fair share of taxes. If you make lots of money then you should have to pay more in taxes than someone who makes little money, if you make lots of profit then you should pay lots of taxes on that profit. It's what they do in Germany, France, Sweden, Spain, the UK, Norway and others and there is no reason we should not be doing it here as well, after all you don't see those countries I just mentioned going through the shit storm we're going through do you? I rest my case.

UPDATE: Check out the second and third items on this post from today from Think Progress, both bolster my points in this post.

Two peas in a pod

Hillary is at it again, she's shacked up with Bush McCain and the Republicans once more.  First she sides with Bush McCain on Iran, now she's with him on cutting the tax on gasoline this summer.

If you honestly believe that the 18 cent cut in the gas tax will make it down to the consumer then you're just as likely to believe that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and that BushMcCainCheney is doing a damn fine job of prosecuting the illegal war of terror on Iraq.  You and I will never ever see a penny of that tax cut.  It will only serve to make the greedy gas and oil companies more profits and because we will all use more gas it will hurt the environment and worsen the climate change we're experiencing.

The longer she keeps her futile quest for the nomination going, the more she shows her allegiance to corporate America and not to you and me.  The poor thing can't help it if her hair color is changing, those pesky Republican roots of hers are growing out far too fast for her to hide them.

Since she and McCain agree on so many things and since she said that only they would be ready to lead on day one, maybe she should run as his Veep.  We all know she'll do or say anything to stay in power.  

Wanna hear a good one?

The assholes in Congress are getting a pay raise of over $4000 starting this month.

The cost of living increase on my SSDI was about $16 bucks and I have to now pay a co-pay for generic drugs on my Medicare prescription plan.

They get a pay raise of over $4000 and you and I get shit.

Is this a great country or what?