Archive → July, 2009
Internet Socialism — Ultimate Populist Tool — Republicans Be Very Scared
Few seem to realize how the Internet is the biggest tool of Socialism. By definition, the cumulative wisdom and collaboration of the masses is socialism. It has leveled the playing field in so many areas. No longer can large corporate interests monopolize media. My little blog can stand alongside Fox News and the NY Times. The Internet can compete with whitehouse.gov and create whitehouse2.org. The internet is changing the world in ways that no single election or single person can.
It is great amusement to see Rubert Murdoch, among others, struggling to monetize the Internet for their own greedy, self-interest. I jump with glee when moveon.org raises $125,000 over the insane antics of Sarah Palin. I love the health care alerts where people are encouraged to send their elected representatives emails and faxes — give their $5 and $10 to help support the cause — and call their elected representatives. I put the White House switchboard on my cell’s MyFavs and I call them when I have a few minutes. I love talking to the people who answer the phones — I express my opinion and they ask me follow-up questions — it is impressive how informed they are.
Influence is nothing new for the rich and powerful. Long before the Internet, these people had their full time paid lobbyists calling on elected representatives with their campaign contributions and fundraisers. Now, at least, the electorate can be notified and vote the bastards out. It will take a while but now we have President Obama, far from perfect, instead of Georgie W — supreme idiot and tool of the right. Cheney is gone, along with his assassination squads. In time, America will elect people far more liberal than Obama. Think, Dennis Kucinich — who is offering a single payer health care amendment today. I know this — because of the Internet. There is a shaky 60 votes in the Senate now for the left but as many as 10 of these are not really liberal — this is going to improve in the years to come. It might be dumping more of the red meat Republicans or dumping the conservatives when register as Democrats. It will improve eventually because of the Internet.
I love getting the emails from the ACLU and Green Peace. The are mobilizing. They don’t have to pay for stamps to send me paper in the mail. They can reach me easily, cheaply, and from time to time get a donation from me. I give much more to groups that are doing the right thing than ever before. Many people do the same. This is going to change America eventually.
I enjoyed reading the item in the Murdoch’s NY Post today that rich people in NY might end up paying 54% of their income in taxes — too bad it isn’t 90%. Of course, 54% is not true (Murdoch’s media are expert liars), because rich people have access to tax havens, tax lawyers, and tax deductions that will prevent this. Yet, I do agree that the populists are going after the income of the rich. The more they do, the less rich people will have to influence others. Ditto for corporations. I enjoyed seeing that CIT’s stock dropped 99% yesterday after they proclaimed there would be no bailout. Great. It’s about time.
There is still lots of work to do. For one thing, America needs to convince poor people that voting Republican doesn’t make any sense, no matter what their views on abortion are. Abortion has been one of the tools Republicans have manipulated the disenfranchised — along with school prayer, evolution, stem cell, anti-science, blah, blah, blah. Republicans will continue to use such tools. Climate change is not real — say the Republicans — no matter how many scientists disagree. In fact, only 6% of scientists are Republicans — because you need education to be a scientist and education is the greatest enemy of Republicans — along with the Internet.
Meanwhile, Republicans are still out with the racist attacks against Judge Sotomayor — soon to be Supreme Court Justice. The Repubilcans are definitely appealing to their base — you know — the 25% of the country who would vote for Sarah Palin as President. Can you imagine? Sarah Palin as President?
America is doomed.
Culture Wars — Jesus Investment Banker
America’s biggest war is not in Iraq and Afghanistan — it is domestic. Do you feel the hostility? The Animus? Welcome to America’s ever-escalating culture wars between the rich and poor, the religious and the not, and the powerful and the exploited.
The Culture Wars’ New Front: U.S. History Classes in Texas – WSJ.com
Three reviewers, appointed by social conservatives, have recommended revamping the K-12 curriculum to emphasize the roles of the Bible, the Christian faith and the civic virtue of religion in the study of American history. Two of them want to remove or de-emphasize references to several historical figures who have become liberal icons, such as César Chávez and Thurgood Marshall.
The budget impasse in California has the Republicans whose only issue is to keep taxes low opposed to Democrats who want to maintain social programs. Even though California votes very liberal, the Republicans are winning because Democrats don’t have 2/3rds of the votes. Somewhere democracy was redefined from 50% to 67% in California. As a result, the electorate’s wishes are being foiled as long as 1/3 of the state are crazy, greedy Republicans.
Meanwhile, Democrats are trying to tax rich people to pay for universal health care. Republicans are arguing that America can’t afford health care for everybody — even though the rest of the industrial world does. This issue makes it very easy to hate and despise Republicans who unequivocally want people to die — because of money. These are the same people who believe in a Jesus who wanted nothing to do with money. But, today’s Republicans don’t believe in traditional Christianity — unless your idea of Jesus is a investment banker.
It’s too bad a winner cannot be declared in the culture wars — like an election or referendum. Aside from that, the fighting will continue. California will have to elect more liberals in order to get over the 67% mark. Republican efforts to crush social programs will make this more likely. Unemployment increases will motive more. Eventually, Democrats will succeed or there will literally be people dying in the streets from lack of jobs, housing, food, and health care. That’s the end game that Republicans never consider.
If Republicans were to win the culture war then America would be a religious quackery with the disenfranchised abundant. There would be a greater divide between the rich and the poor and the poors’ suffering would be widespread. Eventually, the poor would rise up with violence — there will be no alternative — this is the pattern for thousands of years of human history. It will happen again if Republicans win the culture wars — and they probably will.
America is doomed.
Obama Not Acting
As America Doomed has discussed previously, President Obama is not seizing the opportunity for changing this country. Perhaps, Obama has little influence over the Congress. Perhaps, Obama wants everybody to like him. Perhaps, Obama is so post-partisan that he doesn’t even know what he believes. Perhaps, Obama is just happy to be the first black President. Perhaps, Perhaps. In any case, Obama is missing the opportunity.
Unemployment is rising. Foreclosures are surging. Lending is still constrained. So why exactly is the Obama administration waiting to act?
If wait-and-see is anything other than a near-term tactic, it’s bound to be a miscalculation. The need for expanded relief and recovery efforts is compelling. Rather than avoid those fights, the Obama team must win them.
Certainly, Obama still believes in capitalism which is very sad. I wonder how high unemployment will have to get? How high will the deficits have to soar? How many people have to die without health care or fighting in unnecessary wars? How bad will climate change have to get? How desperate will food production and distribution have to become?
I don’t expect miracles from Obama but what I do expect is for him to criticize Congress for not acting. I expect him to be fighting for America — doing the right thing. I expect him to be a real leader which to me is speaking his mind and not worrying about the political consequences. I believe America can figure out who is telling the truth and who is looking out for America. Right now, President Obama is doing neither. And time is running out for America.
America is doomed.
Offshoring Jobs, Counted as Free Trade, Destroying America
Free Trade is a lie. Most of the so-call free trade is the result of off-shoring of jobs. For example, Hewlett Packard laid off 17,000 people and sent those jobs to China. They setup a subsidiary in China who manufacture their products. When these products are sent back to the U.S. they are counted as imports. Free Trade people have an erection because America was just fucked. These tactics have nothing to do with trade — they are off-shoring jobs. Hewlett Packard made a few extra bucks but the destruction to America with companies doing such tactics is profound. Let China produce products for China and let America produce products for America — but make it even more local.
Another trend in food is Localvore – people who will only consume food that was produced locally, e.g. within a 100 miles. Money spent locally has a multiplier effect of 3 to 1. That is, every one dollar spent by a consumer on locally produced food will create two more dollars for the local economy. Spend money are your local farmers’ market and confirm that the farmers are nearby. Money spent on food produced by large multi-national corporations will not help the local economy — it will enrich other countries and a few rich shareholders. Plus, these large companies pay very little American taxes.
Buying America isn’t enough. Americans need to buy local and ONLY buy things outside of their local region that are essential. In those cases buy it from sources as close to where you live as possible — buy it directly from manufacturers over the internet so that these people get more of the money. Let your money be used to help your regional neighbors. Socialize your money to help your region and employ your neighbors. Don’t shop at stores like Walmart, Costco, Ikea, etc. These stores are conduits for products from distant lands. These companies are destroying America and your job will be next.
America is doomed.
California: More For Prisons, Less for Education
Just an example of how screwed up the priorities are in California. While California is slashing spending for their public Universities, they are dramatically increasing the spending on prisons. Keep spending on prisons, because a lot more people will be heading there if they cannot get an education and support themselves.
University of California Budget News
In the past 20 years, the amount of money allotted to the University through the state budget has fallen dramatically: General Fund support for a UC student stood at $15,860 in 1990. If current budget projections hold, it will drop this year to $7,680.
In the same time frame, by the way, funding for state prisons has more than doubled, from $5 to $11 billion. It’s been reported that, based on current spending trends, California’s prison budget soon will overtake that of the state’s universities and community colleges.
Exactly how screwed up does a society have to get to privilege prisons over education? Republicans love spending money on prisons because they are always afraid. When they get afraid they want to put more people in jail. It doesn’t matter if the crimes are nonviolent. It doesn’t matter is 70% of the prisoners have simple drug possessions. Lock them up — lock them all up — so that the coward Republicans can feel safer. They are not actually safer because as more and more people lose jobs and can’t get them, there will need to be more prisons.
America is doomed.
Capitalism Destroyed Free Press
Capitalism corrupts — the Washington Post is the latest example.
Washington Post’s Publisher and Editor Criticized for ‘Ethical Lapse’ – NYTimes.com.
In a sharply worded critique, the ombudsman of The Washington Post wrote on Saturday that the newspaper’s plan to sell interest groups private access to its journalists and to government officials was “an ethical lapse of monumental proportions” and “a lasting stain” on The Post’s reputation.
Ever since newspapers were transformed into big business with stock options and earnings report, it has been downhill for truth. One acquisition after another with the resulting debt load has made it so that the previous Free Press has been castrated. Look at the Tribune corporation, presently in bankruptcy — or even the New York Times. They all have been crushed with debt — debt that has created false earnings and briefly higher stock prices. America can just chalk up capitalism to destroying the Free Press.
Newspapers, real newspapers, should be not for profit. America needs media that has an uncompromising fervor to tell the truth — no mater who it hurts. Murdoch’s model of transforming news into entertainment has helped to cripple the previous Free Press. Fox News is shit. Ditto for the Wall Street Journal that Murdoch recently purchased and fucked up. Now the Washington Post.
America is doomed.
Put Cheney In Jail
Arrogant, arrogant Dick Cheney needs to be called into account for the things he did. Let’s start with this one where he likely broke the law. If so, put him in jail — the sooner the better.
The Associated Press: 2 senators: CIA concealment may have broken law.
Regarding the 8-year-old counter-terrorism program, the Bush administration’s failure to notify Congress “is a big problem, because the law is very clear,” said Senate Intelligence Committee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.
I doubt if Cheney will ever go to jail — he will complain about his heart. Actually, everybody knows Cheney doesn’t have a heart. President Obama is just too much of a nice guy to actually call illegal activities by the prior administration into account. He will continue to offer the lame excuse that it will distract the country. From what? If he is talking about the lame legislation that he has passed — not that big of a deal. The bigger issue is not prosecuting illegal activity will encourage them to continue.
America is doomed.
Obama Clueless About Economic Recovery
It is surprising to me how clueless President Obama is about economic recovery. This is partly the result of his decision to keep Wall Street goons Geithner and Summers in charge of critical elements. Obama seems to think that the stimulus bill will actually let the economy recover. He is wrong and I wonder how long it will before he realizes just how wrong he is.
Obama Asks For Patience On Stimulus.
He [Obama] said his stimulus plan must be given time to work and appealed to Americans, who are increasingly uneasy with rising unemployment and ballooning budget deficits, to let his plan “work the way it’s supposed to, with the understanding that in any recession, unemployment tends to recover more slowly than other measures of economic activity.”
It is difficult to realize when transformational events occur — to realize that the current financial crisis and economic “recession” (I prefer D E P R E S S I O N) are unique. It has never happened before. The 1930s were not the same as the crisis of 2000s — yes, this economic crisis began with the stock market plunge in 2000 — it is nearly a decade old already. Sure, there are some similarities with the 1930s — both had stock market busts and both had high unemployment. However, what makes this economic crisis so unique is jobs are being destroyed and they are not coming back. Sure, the stimulus package will create some jobs. However, most of the public work projects will be short term jobs, lasting just a few years. If they improve infrastructure this will be good the the overall economy. Yet, permanent living wage jobs are the problem.
Capitalism’s purpose is just to make profits — not to create jobs, and certainly not to help people support themselves. If there is anything good about capitalism, it is the ability optimize. However, optimization is not necessarily a good thing. For example, when mergers occur between two large supermarket chains, it results in stores being closed and people being laid off. The back office of the newly merged entity can function with many less people. There is less competition so prices are increased. In the end, you have a more optimized company but less people are employed, prices are higher, and rich people make more money.
For example, in my area the CVS drug store has been acquiring competitors for the last few years. With the latest acquisition of Longs Drug Store, it has rendered CVS without any competition in my area. As a result, prices has zoomed — in some cases as much as 50% — all because of elimination of competition and a willingness to gouge their customers. CVS does not have to compete any longer. The only people to benefit from this are the stockholders of CVS. Meanwhile, all of the people who shop there are exploited. This is typical of capitalism — reward the few and exploit the many. For CVS is doesn’t matter if products they sell are vital for the health of their customers — profits, only profits, are what matter. This is a good example of why capitalism is self destructing.
The longer President Obama fails to realize that this economic crisis is unique, the worse he will appear to the electorate. Already, I will not vote for Obama again — he was been a great disappointment to me. I thought Obama was smart enough to solve real problems; instead, he seems to be 70%+ like Georgie W who I consider to be a corporation pretending to be human.
Meanwhile, Republicans will continue to hammer Obama for his stimulus plan even though it was Republicans who contributed to the inane provisions of the stimulus, e.g. 1/3 of it was tax cuts. Republicans love to compromise and subvert legislation with the help of corporate special interests. In the end Republicans will not vote for the legislation because they will always find something wrong with the end result – and be ongoing critics. Democrats fall for these tactics time after time. They will fall for it with health care, climate change, and Wall Street reform. In the end, ordinary citizens of America will lose. Longer term even the rich in America will lose as the country is destroyed.
America is doomed.
Obama Helping Special Interests Destroy America
Compromise is destroying Obama’s presidency and won’t save America. The recent House passage of the climate bill, aka, Energy Cap and Trade, has been discussed on this blog. The House bill is worthless and the one that will emerge from the Senate will be even worse, if any at all. Republicans decree that it is just another tax, but why anybody cares what Republicans think is beyond me. Republicans won’t ever vote for any climate change bill — many of them don’t even believe in the science. Republicans are all about money — it is their only true god.
George W Bush is a corporation pretending to be a person. Although Obama is more of a person than Bush, he is still heavily influenced by the corporate, special interest culture that is destroying America. I know that Obama cannot dictate to the Congress what should be in any bill; however, when the Congress comes up with crap, Obama needs to stand up and say so. Stop pretending that America is making progress. That is, even though many progressive activists supported Obama in the election, they still call out crap when they see it. Greenpeace is one such organization.
Disillusioned Environmentalists Turn on Obama as Compromiser – NYTimes.com.
But over the last few months, as the ambitious climate legislation was watered down in the House without criticism from the president, Ms. Miller became disillusioned. She worried that the bill had been rendered meaningless — or had even undermined some goals Greenpeace had fought for. And she felt that the man she had thought of as her champion seemed oddly prone to compromise.
The corporate culture manipulates and bullies. There are thousands of lobbyists who are paid big salaries to advocate for special interests. As Senator Bernie Sanders pointed out on the Thom Hartman’s talk show, lobbyists don’t usually offer bribes to get votes – it is far more evil than that. Lobbyists are the friends of the elected and their goal is to get the elected representatives to see the world from their corporate world view. For example, a lobbyist might readily agree that climate change is a bad thing but would argue that it isn’t that serious, it will put people out of work, and they would point out all the negatives for the constituents of the elected representatives. It doesn’t matter if climate change represents an extinction event.
The same is happening with health care. The same is happening with food production. The same is happening with Wall Street reforms. Corporations and special interests are getting their way. Over time, they might even be successful at changing how the electorate view an issue. These special interests will celebrate each time they render something good to a pile of crap and cash their paychecks. But, make no mistake, they are destroying America and all the people, including their own children and grandchildren.
America is doomed.
Republicans are Cowards — Afraid of Everything
The Bureau of Prions banned prisoners from reading Obama’s books. Later, after Obama was elected, they changed their mind. But, it made perfect sense to them to ban the books when Georgie W was President.
The Associated Press: Al-Qaida inmate gets access to Obama’s books.
On Friday, bureau spokeswoman Traci Billingsley said the bureau reversed course in November and let him read the books.
Why do conservatives always want to ban books? I think the bible is a worthless piece of shit, but I would be totally opposed to banning it. I want everybody to have access to it. I consider it pornographic. I cannot imagine what a book would have to contain for me wanting it banned. Not so true of Republicans and social conservatives. Sure, there are plenty of books that I wouldn’t read but opposed to somebody else reading them — no way.
Like the old joke goes which makes me laugh every time I hear it. What is the scariest thing in America? Answer. A black man with a library card. I don’t laugh at this joke for the reason that many Republicans do — they actually are afraid of blacks learning. It is funny for me to think there are people who would be scared that anybody had a library card. Republicans who are afraid of others having library cards are really scared. Boo!
Republicans live their lives scared — of practically everything. I think that is why they are so religious. They are afraid of dying. They are afraid of terrorists. They are afraid of aliens — the kind from other countries. They love guns. They are afraid of losing their money. Their fear causes them to put anybody not exactly like them in prison. Build more prisons because Republicans are just afraid. They are afraid, afraid, afraid.
If you examine most of the issues in the country, it is the Republicans’ fear that is frequently at core of their argument. Consider these Republican statements: America cannot have universal health care because it will mean that my health care will get worse and it will cost me money. Opposed to immigration reform because it would mean there are more people and I would get less. Republicans are just fucking cowards. It is the reason they love war and big military budgets. Bomb the shit out of the other guy so we don’t have to be afraid. But, it never really helps because Republicans can always find something else to fear.
Republicans run to church, temple, or whatever to pray to a mythological god to save them. They are afraid and their fear is wrecking this country.
America is doomed.